A Florida man who killed an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother on the night he drank heavy and used drugs was executed Thursday evening.
Jail officials said 63-year-old Edward James was declared dead at 8:15pm after receiving a triple injection at a Florida prison near Stark.
He accrued the death penalty on September 19, 1993 after pleading guilty to 8-year-old Toni Neuner and her grandmother, Betty Dick, 58.
As he was waiting for the injection, James said he didn't want to make a final statement.
After that, when the drug was administered, James flipped his arm, then he was still there.
Neuner's brother Jared Pearson said the family was able to find a kind of peace that was a process.
“But we lost a generation for him,” Pearson said. “It's all pure evil. That night was horrifying.”
Three other executions took place in the United States this week. This includes the fatal injection of an Oklahoma man for a fatal shooting of a woman during a home invasion.
Arizona executed the man with an injection on Wednesday, while Louisiana first used nitrogen gas on Tuesday, killing the man as the condition ended his 15-year hiatus in execution.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected James' final appeal earlier in the day, clearing the state's second execution.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a warrant for James' death earlier this year, and another warrant for execution in early April.
James had rented a room at Dick's house in Casselbury about 10 miles north of Orlando. There, Neuner and three other children were staying on the night of the attack.
According to court records, James drank up to 24 beers at the party, beat gin, and took another LSD before returning to Dick's room.
The girl was raped and strangled. The other children were not harmed.
Pleading guilty to the charges, James was found guilty of stealing Dick's jewel and car after raping a girl and stabbing her 21 times.
According to court documents, James drives cars all over the country and occasionally sells gems until his arrest in Bakersfield, California on October 6th of that year.
Police have obtained a video-recorded confession from James.
James' attorneys had filed several appeals in state and federal courts, all of which were denied.
More recently, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the argument that in 2023 his long-standing drug and alcohol, several head injuries and heart attack use led to a mental decline that executed him cruel and unusual punishment.
Instead, the judiciary agreed to a lower court's decision that “James' cognitive issues will not protect him from execution.”
The court also rejected the argument from James' lawyer that the heart attack he suffered in prison had affected his brain, leading to oxygen deprivation that it should be seen as new evidence to halt plans to execute him.
The nonprofit death penalty information center said Florida is using three-drug cocktails for deadly injections: sedatives, paralytics, and heart-stopping drugs.
Earlier this year, James Ford was executed for the 1997 murder of a couple in Charlotte County.
Florida officials said they are next preparing for Michael Tange's April 8 execution for the 2000 murder of a woman in Florida Keys.
