TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a death warrant for a man convicted of brutally murdering a couple at a Charlotte County sod farm in 1997.
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James D. Ford, 64, is scheduled to be executed Feb. 13 at Florida State Prison in the murders of Greg and Kimberly Malnory. It would be the first execution this year in Florida and would come after one inmate was executed in 2024.
The Florida Supreme Court on Friday quickly set a timetable for a potential legal battle about whether the execution should be carried out. State and federal courts rejected previous appeals by Ford.
In a 2001 opinion upholding Ford’s convictions and death sentences, the Florida Supreme Court said Ford was a co-worker with Greg Malnory at South Florida Sod Farm in Charlotte County.
It said Ford made plans to go fishing on a Sunday with the couple at the sod farm, which was in a remote area. The next day, April 7, 1997, another employee made what the Supreme Court described as a “gruesome discovery.”
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The opinion said Greg Malnory was shot in the head, beaten and had his throat slit, while Kimberly Malnory was raped, beaten and shot. The couple also had a 22-month-old daughter, who was left in a car seat in their pickup truck for more than 18 hours after the murders, the opinion said.
Ford was convicted in 1999 and received two death sentences.
The Ford death warrant and other related documents were posted Friday on the Supreme Court website. In addition to outlining Ford’s appeals over the years, the death warrant said “it has been determined that executive clemency is not appropriate” in the case.
Ford would be put to death by lethal injection less than six months after inmate Loran Cole was executed Aug. 29 in the 1994 murder of Florida State University student John Edwards, who was camping in the Ocala National Forest.
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Florida did not execute any inmates in 2020, 2021 and 2022 but put to death six men in 2023.
They were Michael Duane Zack, who was executed for a 1996 murder in Escambia County; James Phillip Barnes, who was executed for the 1988 murder of a woman in her Melbourne condominium; Duane Owen, who was executed for the 1984 murder of a Palm Beach County woman; Darryl Barwick, who was executed for the 1986 murder of a woman in her Panama City apartment; Louis Gaskin, who was executed for the 1989 murders of a couple in Flagler County; and Donald David Dillbeck, who was executed for the 1990 murder of a woman during a carjacking in a Tallahassee mall parking lot.
Dillbeck was the first person executed since Gary Ray Bowles was put to death by lethal injection in August 2019 for a 1994 murder in Jacksonville.
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