Trigger Warning: This article contains details of child abuse, assault, and death. Reader discretion is advised.
The family of six-year-old Becky Kunash had no idea that the night of May 11, 1979, was going to be her last. She had been sound asleep in her bedroom when Bryan Frederick Jennings broke into her home, took her away, and vanished into the night. Hours later, Becky’s body was discovered in a canal, sexually assaulted, beaten, and drowned.
As police jumped into action, they zeroed in on 20-year-old Jennings. His arrest, originally for a traffic warrant, took a sharp turn once investigators realized he matched the description of a man seen near Becky’s home. What began as a routine booking at the Brevard County Jail quickly spiralled into a murder investigation that would span decades.
Footprints and fingerprints further solidified suspicion on Jennings’. Officers determined that tracks found around the Kunash home matched Jennings’ boots. “Latent fingerprints were found on [Becky’s] windowsill,” court records later revealed. Neighbors also told investigators that Jennings returned home that night with “his clothes and hair wet,” around the same time Becky was believed to have been drowned.
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Prosecutors eventually pieced together the timeline. They alleged that Jennings, home on leave from the Marine Corps, pried open Becky’s bedroom window, carried her off while covering her mouth, and drove to a nearby canal on Merritt Island, roughly 60 miles east of Orlando. According to an October 2025 Florida Supreme Court order, Jennings sexually assaulted [Becky], “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull, and drowned her while she was still alive.”
Despite Jennings confessing after his arrest to the authorities, a long and tangled legal battle continued that lasted nearly five decades. Jennings was convicted three times for Becky’s murder. His first two convictions were overturned, allowing retrials. His third conviction, however, stuck, and with it, he was handed a death sentence.
Bryan Frederick Jennings has been executed in Florida, he died at 6:20 P.M justice is now served to:
Rebecca “Becky” Kunash (June 29, 1972 – May 11, 1979)
He was the longest serving in Florida death row and 16th execution in the state, the HIGHEST OVERALL. pic.twitter.com/Xv12rPIWTi
— Friday-Justice-Obsessions (@death_row0506) November 14, 2025
Court filings reviewed by PEOPLE show that Jennings’ 1986 appeal outlined how quickly suspicion fell on him following his arrest. The same filings detail the physical evidence and testimony that connected him to the crime. Despite repeated appeals, including motions filed in federal court, Jennings spent the next 40 years fighting to overturn his conviction.
That fight ended this week. On Thursday, 46 years after Becky’s murder, the state of Florida executed Bryan Frederick Jennings by lethal injection on November 13. The execution took place at Florida State Prison, with Jennings maintaining his innocence in the final days of his life. His attorneys filed a final appeal that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied his petition just 24 hours before the execution.
Jennings is the 16th person executed in the state this year, doubling the previous record of eight executions set in 2014.
In addition to his death sentence for murder, Jennings also received life sentences for kidnapping, sexual assault, and burglary, ensuring that even if his death penalty were lifted, he would have to spend his life in prison.
