JUST IN: James Ford Execution | Crime, Last Meal + Final Words | Death Row US Florida ..
On February 13th, 2025, after spending more than 25 years on death row, James Dennis Ford was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Stark. He was 64 years old. In this video, we will talk about what happened, his last words, and his last meal. But to uncover the events of that fateful day and why James ended up being executed, we have to go back to a quiet Sunday morning in April 1997 and a fishing trip that would end in tragedy.
April 6th, 1997, a warm Sunday morning in Charlotte County, Florida. James Dennis Ford, a 36-year-old laborer, called his co-orker Greg Malnery with a suggestion. [music] The two men worked together at the South Florida Sad Farm, a massive 7,000 acre property in a remote area near Punta Gorda.
The farm was isolated miles from the nearest town surrounded by flat Florida land, reservoirs, and endless fields of grass. Ford invited Greg to come out to the farm that afternoon for some fishing. The farm had ponds stocked with fish. It would be a relaxing way to spend a Sunday. Greg liked the idea. He was 25 years old, a hard worker who had joined the Sod farm just a few months earlier.
His supervisor already considered him a model employee. But Greg was more than a good worker. He was a loving husband and devoted father. Greg told his wife Kimberly about the fishing trip and she decided to come along. Kimberly was 26, a former student at Charlotte High School, where classmates and teachers had adored her. People described her as vivacious, bubbly, talkative. Her stepmother, D.
Parkinson, who had raised her since age six, loved making Kimberly laugh. It was so easy and fun. Parkinson would later say she’d laugh until she could hardly breathe. Greg and Kimberly were high school sweethearts. They had married just 6 months earlier, their whole lives stretched before them, and they had a daughter.
Miranda Malnery was 22 months old, less than a month from her second birthday. She was the center of her parents’ world. That afternoon, the family loaded into their pickup truck. Greg drove. Kimberly sat beside him. Baby Miranda was secured in her car seat in the back. The family dog came along, too.
They drove to the South Florida Sod Farm to meet James Ford. They had no idea they were driving toward their deaths. The South Florida sod farm was not a place you stumbled upon by accident. Remote, isolated. 7,000 acres of flat land, fields, reservoirs, and dirt roads leading nowhere. The nearest neighbors were miles away. If something happened out here, no one would hear you scream.
Greg pulled his truck onto the property and drove to the meeting spot near a reservoir on the south side. James Ford was already there waiting. [music] To Greg, Ford was just a co-orker. They had worked together, made small talk. Ford seemed like a regular guy, quiet, maybe rough around the edges, but harmless. Greg had no reason to suspect anything.
Kimberly got out and stretched her legs. The Florida sun was warm. Baby Miranda stayed content in her car seat. The family dog wandered around sniffing the ground. A normal scene. A young family on a Sunday outing. A friend waiting to take them fishing. But James Ford had not invited the Malnores to go fishing. Somewhere nearby, Ford had stashed his weapon, a 22 caliber singleshot bolt-a- rifle he called Old Betsy.
The Malnories didn’t see it. They were relaxed, [music] unsuspecting. And then everything changed. At some point that afternoon, James Ford retrieved his rifle. Greg may not have seen it coming. Ford approached from behind, raised the weapon, and fired a single shot into the back of Greg’s head. The bullet entered his skull but did not kill him immediately.
It disabled him, left him wounded and disoriented. Greg stumbled, staggered, and driven by survival instinct moved away from the truck. He made it into the middle of an open field trying to escape, trying to survive, but he was badly wounded and Ford was right behind him. Ford caught up to Greg in that field, far from any help.
He pulled out a blunt instrument, something the medical examiner would determine was consistent with an axe, and he began to beat Greg [music] Malnery. The blows rained down. 1 2 3 4 5 6 [snorts and music] 7. At least seven blunt force injuries to Greg’s head and face. The weapon crushed bone, destroyed tissue, left wounds so severe Greg would barely be recognizable.
But Ford was not finished. With Greg lying on his back, Ford pulled out a knife. He knelt beside his coworker, the man he had invited fishing just hours earlier and slit his throat. The wound stretched nearly ear to ear, so deep that underlying muscle tissue was exposed. Blood poured onto the grass, soaking into the Florida soil. Greg Malnery was dead.
25 years old. A loving husband, a loyal friend, a dedicated father. Gone. But back at the truck, his wife was still alive. Kimberly had witnessed the attack. She had seen Ford shoot Greg. She had watched her husband stumble into the field. She may have heard the sickening thuds of metal against bone. She knew what was coming for her.
Kimberly had been injured during the initial attack. Ford had struck her, [music] tried to disable her, but she was still conscious, still moving. And in those desperate moments, Kimberly thought of only one thing, her daughter. Miranda was still in the truck. 22 months old, helpless, Kimberly made a decision.
Instead of running into the vast emptiness of the farm, she went to the truck. She went to her daughter. With whatever strength remained, Kimberly secured Miranda in the car seat, made sure the straps were tight, made sure her baby was safe. It was a mother’s final act of love performed in the shadow of her own death. And then James Ford caught up to her.
Ford dragged Kimberly away from the truck. What happened next was almost too horrific to describe. James Ford sexually assaulted [music] Kimberly Malnori. He raped her near the truck with inside of her daughter’s car seat. Forensic investigators would later recover his seaman from her body. But the assault was only the beginning.
After he finished, Ford beat her. Nine separate blunt force injuries to her skull. One blow fractured her skull and penetrated her brain. She had defensive wounds on her arms. She had fought back, tried to survive. [music] Ford picked up his rifle, reloaded the singleshot weapon, then he forced the barrel into Kimberly’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Kimberly Malnery died near the family’s pickup truck. She was 26 years old, married 6 months, a daughter who would never remember her. The last thing Kimberly did was protect that daughter. She strapped Miranda into the car seat, kept her safe. Now fate would determine whether anyone found the little girl in time. [music] James Ford stood in the aftermath.
Greg lay dead in the field, throat cut, head beaten beyond recognition. Kimberly lay dead near the truck, broken and destroyed. And in the back seat, 22-month-old Miranda sat in her car seat, alive, covered in her mother’s blood, on her clothes, her tiny shoes. Ford could have killed the baby, eliminated the only witness, but he didn’t. Instead, he left.
Left the bodies where they fell. Left the truck doors wide open. Left a baby strapped in a car seat in the middle of a 7,000 acre farm miles from town with no food, no water, no one coming. Ford took his rifle and drove away. His truck ran out of gas. He ditched the rifle in a ditch. Night fell over the sod farm.
Mosquitoes emerged from the reservoirs. Other insects came out to feed. Miranda remained in that car seat, hungry, thirsty, [music] surrounded by her dead parents. Hours passed. The night stretched on. She was alone. 18 hours. That’s how long Miranda remained in that car seat before anyone found her. The mosquitoes swarmed through the open doors, biting her exposed skin.
By morning, her small body was covered in bites. Other insects crawled across the seats, landed on her blood soaked clothes. But Miranda was alive. Her mother’s final act had saved her. The car seat kept her secure. Did she cry out for her parents? Did she eventually fall silent, too exhausted and dehydrated to make a sound? We will never know.
Miranda has no memory of that night. The trauma is locked away. perhaps mercifully forgotten. When the sun rose on Monday, April 7th, 1997, [music] Miranda Malnori was still alive and she was about to be found. Monday morning at the Sod farm started like any other workday. Employees arrived, equipment was checked, but something was wrong.
Greg Malnery, the reliable new hire who was always on time, had not shown up. Calls to his home went unanswered. Concern [music] grew. Greg had mentioned fishing at the farm Sunday. Maybe something happened. A search began across the 7,000 acres. Shortly after lunch, three employees approached a reservoir on the south side. [music] They saw a pickup truck in the distance, doors open.
They drove closer and then they saw him. A body in the middle of the field. A man face up, head destroyed, throat cut so deeply muscle tissue was visible. Greg Malnery, their shock barely registered before they saw the second body. A woman near the truck, beaten, broken. Kimberly Malnery, [music] blood everywhere. Two bodies, the smell of death in the Florida heat.
But then they heard something. A sound from inside the truck. One worker approached, looked into the back seat. There, strapped in a car seat covered in dried blood and insect bites, was a baby. Miranda Malnori was alive. Within hours, law enforcement swarmed the scene. The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office took control.
Crime scene technicians documented everything. Major James Kenville supervised the investigation. He saw firsthand the brutality of what had been done. Baby Miranda was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Port Charlotte, severely dehydrated, covered in insect bites, clothed soaked in her mother’s blood, but alive. The medical examiner conducted autopsies.
[music] Greg had been shot in the head, bludgeoned at least seven times, throat slit ear. Kimberly sustained nine blunt force injuries, defensive wounds on her arms, sexual assault, shot through the mouth. The violence was extreme, personal, savage. Investigators needed to find who did this. One name kept surfacing. James Ford, [music] Greg’s coworker, the one who invited them fishing, the last person to see the Mounties alive.
Detectives brought Ford in for questioning. Major Kenville spent hours with him. [music] He was very cool, Kenville recalled. Believable when you talked to him. Ford claimed he went hunting alone after fishing with them. Said he never saw what happened. Denied everything. But Kenville knew something was wrong.
The physical evidence was telling us that wasn’t the case. Witnesses had seen Ford with the Malnor just before the killings. That evening, he was spotted in a distracted state with blood on his face, hands, and clothes. The next day, fresh scratches covered his body. Forensic evidence mounted. Ford’s rifle, Old Betsy, was found in a ditch where his truck ran out of gas.
Parts were recovered at the murder scene. His pocketk knife contained traces [music] of Greg’s DNA. Kimberly’s DNA was in Ford’s [music] truck, and the semen recovered from Kimberly’s body matched James Ford. He had raped her before killing her. The forensic evidence proved it beyond doubt. To understand how James Dennis Ford ended up on death row, we have to look at the life that led him to that fishing trip.
Ford was born on July 23rd, 1960. His childhood was troubled from the start. His father was an alcoholic who spent the last years of his life [music] drinking just about around the clock. When James was 14, his mother abandoned the family. Despite the dysfunction, James and his father shared an unusually close [music] bond. His first wife, Paige, would later say they were closer than any two people she had ever known.
James dropped out of school to work alongside his father as a cemetery caretaker in Arcadia. Then tragedy struck. His father died at age 52 when James was in his early 20s. Ford was devastated. According to court records, his grief was so overwhelming that Paige would find him missing at night. She would search and find him at the cemetery lying on his father’s grave crying.
After that, Ford’s drinking spiraled. At his worst, he consumed 18 to 24 beers a day, plus whiskey. He suffered from untreated diabetes, causing blackouts and erratic behavior. Psychological testing revealed Ford functioned mentally at the level of an 11 to 14year-old. One childhood IQ score was 65, below the threshold for intellectual disability.
Yet, Ford had no significant criminal record before April 1997. Family and friends described him as nonviolent. He remarried, had three daughters, held jobs. No one predicted what he would do to Greg and Kimberly Malnery. On April 6th, 1997, whatever restraint Ford had left finally [music] broke. Ford’s murder trial began in February 1999.
A competency hearing determined he was mentally fit to stand trial. [music] The trial lasted 11 days. The prosecution built their case on physical evidence. The DNA match between Ford and the seaman on Kimberly’s body. Ford’s pocketk knife with Greg’s DNA. Rifle parts from the scene matching Ford’s gun.
The defense challenged the DNA evidence, claiming contamination. [music] They argued Ford had no motive. Why would he murder his coworker and wife for no reason? The evidence was too strong. [music] On March 8th, 1999, the jury found Ford guilty of sexual battery with a firearm, child abuse, and two counts of first-degree murder.
The penalty phase followed. The prosecution argued Ford made a conscious choice to brutally murder the couple, rape Kimberly, and abandon a helpless baby. The defense called over two dozen witnesses, including mental health professionals, asking for mercy due to diminished responsibility from alcohol intoxication. The Malnori families delivered victim impact statements.
Connie Anky, Greg’s [music] mother, Greg will never get to walk his daughter down the aisle when she gets married. D. Parkinson, Kimberly’s stepmother. I like to make her laugh. It was so easy and fun. She’d laugh until she could hardly breathe. Linda Griffin, Kimberly’s mother. She was my life, my laughter, and my tears. On April 23rd, 1999, the jury voted 11 to1 to recommend death for each murder.
On June 3rd, 1999, Judge Cynthia Ellis sentenced Ford to death, calling the murders heinous, atrocious, and cruel. He also received 5 years for child abuse and 19 years for [snorts] sexual battery. Ford was transported to Florida State Prison and placed on death row. For the next 25 years, Ford lived in a 6×9 f-t cell at Florida State Prison in rural Bradford County.
He waited as lawyers filed appeals. He waited for rulings on motions. The legal system ground forward year after year. September 2001, Florida Supreme Court dismissed his direct appeal. April 2007, second appeal rejected. October 2009, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied. March 2012, US Supreme Court rejected his case, ending regular appeals.
April 2015, 3rd Florida Supreme Court appeal dismissed. January 2018, fourth appeal denied. During this time, something significant happened. In 2016, the US Supreme Court’s Hurst v Florida ruling required unanimous jury recommendations for death sentences. Florida made this retroactive, but only to cases finalized after June 24th, 2002.
Ford’s case finalized in May 2002. He missed the cutoff by 27 days. Had his appeals taken slightly longer, he might have received a new sentencing hearing. Instead, he remained on death row. The Melnori families waited, too. In 2000, Greg’s mother, Connie Anky, supported a bill to speed up death penalty appeals.
She didn’t want Ford spending 20 years on death row. The average stay was 14 years. Ford [music] would spend 25. On January 10th, 2025, Governor Ronda Santis signed Ford’s death warrant. Execution scheduled for February 13, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. Ford’s attorneys launched final appeals. They argued his mental and developmental age was below 18, citing the 2005 Roper vers Simmons decision that banned executing juvenile offenders.
They claimed this protection should extend to those with a mental age below 18. A Charlotte County judge rejected the argument. On February 7th, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the ruling. Because Ford was 36 at the time of the murders, it is impossible for him to demonstrate that he falls within the ages of exemption.
Ford’s lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court. On February 12th, the eve of execution, the court denied the appeal without comment. All legal options exhausted. The execution would proceed. February 13th, 2025. James Ford woke at 3:30 a.m. When guards came to move him to death watch after the warrant was signed, Ford had been doing his weekly Bible study with neighboring inmates.
With tears in his eyes, he thanked one neighbor for teaching him scripture over the years. On his final day, three family members visited. For his last meal, Ford requested steak, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, sweet potato, pumpkin pie, and sweet tea. Florida Law Cap’s last meals at $40 purchased so locally. As 6:00 p.m.
approached, 25 witnesses gathered in the execution chamber. Greg’s mother, Connie Ankne, was there. Kimberly’s stepmother, D. Parkinson. Assistant State Attorney Dan Fineberg, who handled Ford’s postconviction motions. Outside the prison, over 70 death penalty opponents gathered. Nearly 50 from Our Lady of Lord’s Church in Daytona Beach.
They struck a bell with a hammer before 6:00 p.m., a sound audible from death row. Miranda Malnori, now 29, did not attend. [music] She had debated for weeks. I wanted to go, she later said, but that could be triggering. Seeing his face up close after all those years could bring up something locked away for 27 years. At 6:00 p.m.
, the execution began. Ford was strapped to a gurnie. Asked for final words, he declined to speak, but prison officials revealed he had written a statement. Hugs, prayers, love, God bless everyone. The three drug protocol commenced. Atomidate as seditive, roaronium bromide as paralytic, potassium acetate to stop the heart. Ford’s chest began to heave.
Then all movement ceased. A staffer approached, shook him. He yelled, “Ford, Ford.” No response. At 6:19 p.m., James Dennis Ford was pronounced dead. He was 64 years old, 25 years on death row, the first Florida execution of 2025, the fourth in the United States that year. One hour later in Texas, Richard Lee Tabler was also put to death.
After the execution, the family spoke. D. Parkinson, you don’t have justice as long as he’s alive. [music] We have justice and relief now. Connie Anne, I got to see the day that my son’s murderer got to go to sleep. I hope he burns in hell. Miranda released a statement. [music] Living my whole life without them left me with a void that I had no idea would hurt so bad.
While I know this will never bring me back to my mom and dad, I will never get a chance to meet them. It is giving me peace of mind. Later, she revealed that night was the first good sleep she had gotten in years. There’s a weight lifted off us. We can move forward. We’re never going to move past it, but it’s not looming there all the time.
She addressed Ford’s denial until the end. He’s a coward. He still up until his last breath was like, I hope they find out who murdered Kim and Greg. Well, you did. We were all there. Today, Miranda lives in Cape Coral, Florida. She has no memories of her parents. She knows them only through photographs and stories. A picture of them holding her as a baby sits on her desk taken the weekend before they were murdered. I grieve what could have been.
She has said, “That’s the missing piece. I so wish I could have gotten to know them.” Greg and Kimberly Malnery are buried together. The case of James Dennis Ford is now closed. A brutal double murder. A baby left alone in a blood soaked truck. 25 years on death row. And finally, on a Thursday evening in February 2025, justice was served.
