- - Predator who kidnapped, murdered sleeping girl becomes Florida's record 16th execution

Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY November 13, 2025 at 11:45 PM

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This story contains details about a disturbing crime against a child. Discretion is advised.

A former Marine who raped and killed a 6-year-old girl after kidnapping her from her bedroom in 1979 has become the 16th inmate executed in Florida this year, double the state's previous record.

Bryan Jennings, 66, was executed by lethal injection at 6:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 13, for the murder of 6-year-old Becky Kunash, a gregarious first-grader whose body was found naked and battered in a canal just a half-mile from her home on Merritt Island, just off the east coast of Florida.

Jennings was going to be the second man executed in the U.S. on Thursday, but Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt granted clemency to Tremane Wood just hours before it was supposed to be carried out.

Jennings is the 42nd inmate put to death in the U.S. this year, a number that hasn't been seen since 2012.

Bryan Jennings is scheduled to be executed on Nov. 13, 2025 for the rape and murder of 6-year-old Rebecca "Becky" KunashWhat was Bryan Jennings convicted of?

On May 10, 1979, 20-year-old Bryan Jennings was staying with his mother and aunt on Merritt Island while on leave after serving in the Marines in Okinawa, Japan, according to an archived news report in Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Jennings, a local high school dropout who referred to himself as a "mad dog," was awaiting his next set of orders when he went out drinking that night and ended up outside Becky Kunash's bedroom window, the newspaper reported.

Sometime after her dad checked on Becky at 11 p.m., Jennings saw the sleeping girl, took the screen off her unlocked window, opened the window, and then took her, according to court records.

After driving Becky to a nearby canal, he raped her. He later told a cellmate that he picked the girl up by the legs and smashed her head into the ground, according to court records. He then held her under water for 10 minutes and dumped her body in the canal.

Rebecca “Becky” Kunash

As dozens of sheriff's deputies and FBI agents searched the area for Becky the next day, a fisherman found her battered and naked body floating in the Banana River just a half-mile from her home.

Soon after, Robert Kunash identified his daughter's body.

When detectives interviewed Jennings later that day, he confessed to the crime, saying the he "always had this thing to look into windows."

"That's all it was supposed to be," he told them, according to Florida Today. "I don't know why I did it. It's just something I did."

Jennings was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980 and 1982 but both convictions were overturned on appeal. He was again found guilty and sentenced to death in 1986, and that conviction stuck.

Who was Becky Kunash?

Becky Kunash's parents and friends described the little blonde girl as gregarious, vivacious and determined, even at her young age. She was so stubborn, she refused training wheels and learned to ride a bike at the age of 4, Robert Kunash told Florida Today in an archived story.

The day before she was killed, Becky was so excited about being the narrator for her first-grade play that she read lines for her dad and laid out what she was going to wear with her mom, according to Florida Today.

Attracted to the good schools and tree-lined streets, Becky's parents moved their two daughters to Merritt Island from Cleveland and opened a restaurant only about a year before the murder.

Robert Kunash told Florida Today that the night Becky was killed, he put her to bed at 8 p.m., turned on the night light she needed to feel safe, and checked on her again at 9 and 11 p.m. He recalled his last words to his daughter: "I love you. Catch ya in the morning."

Florida Today File Detectives investigate the window from which Rebecca "Becky" Kunash was abducted.

When he buried Becky, he put her jump rope and favorite stuffed elephant in the coffin with her. His wife and 7-year-old daughter Samantha were too distraught to attend, Florida Today reported.

Jennings' three trials were torturous on Becky's parents as they had to relive the nightmare over and over again. Their marriage didn't survive it.

"He took my baby, my husband, my family and my home," Patricia Merrill (formerly Kunash) told Florida Today in 1986 amid Jennings' third trial.

During jury deliberations, Robert Kunash told reporters how difficult it was to even be in the same room as Jennings: "I've killed him a million times in my sleep."

Robert Kunash died at the age of 52 in 2001. USA TODAY was unable to reach Patricia Merrill or her oldest daughter for this story.

What else do we know about Bryan Jennings?

Bryan Jennings' mother, Margaret Danna, told jurors at her son's third trial that he never knew his biological father and was a problem child from birth, describing him as "very destructive and hyperactive," according to Florida Today.

She said she had wanted to admit Jennings to a mental hospital in Boston at the recommendation of a doctor but later changed her mind because she was worried that the stigma could stop him from joining the military.

Since his 1986 conviction, Jennings filed at least nine appeals. On Nov. 6 the Florida Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal that he had been unrepresented by counsel for three years because his lawyer died in 2022. He also argued that because he was unrepresented, no one was tracking his mental health.

"We reject his contention that any gap in his representation over the last four decades amounts to a denial of due process," the Florida Supreme Court wrote in denying the appeal.

When is the next execution?

South Carolina is set to execute Stephen Bryant by firing squad on Friday, Nov. 14, for murdering a man named Willard Tietjen in 2004 and using his blood to to write "catch me if u can" on the wall.

If his execution moves forward, states will have put 43 inmates to death in the U.S. this year, a number that hasn't been seen since 2012.

Contributing: John A. Torres, Florida Today

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Repulsive': Predator becomes record 16th inmate executed in Florida

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