James Dennis Ford to be executed today in Florida for young couple's murder. What to know.

Warning: This story contains details about a disturbing crime.

Florida is set to execute Death Row inmate James Dennis Ford on Thursday for the savage murders of two young parents in front of their toddler daughter.

Ford, 64, is set to be executed by lethal injection after being on death row for more than two decades for the 1997 murders of Gregory and Kimberly Malnory, who were in their mid-20s.

If the execution moves forward, Ford will be the first inmate executed in Florida this year and the fourth in the U.S. His lawyers have been arguing that the death penalty should not be applied to Ford because he has a mental developmental age 20 years younger than his actual age.

Kimberly Malnory's mother, Linda Griffin, was devasted by her daughter's death.

“She was my life, my laughter and my tears,” she said during Ford's 1999 trial, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. 

Here's what you need to know about Thursday's execution, which will happen about an hour before the execution of Richard Lee Tabler in Texas for a double murder in 2004.

When and where is the execution?

James Dennis Ford is set to be executed at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida, at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, Feb. 13.

What happened to Greg and Kimberly Malnory?

On April 6, 1997, court records say that Ford invited his co-worker Gregory Malnory and Malnory's wife Kimberly on a fishing trip to the South Florida Sod Farm in Punta Gorda, a southwestern Florida city just north of Fort Myers. The Malnorys brought along their 23-month-old daughter Maranda.

Police believe Ford first attacked Gregory, shooting him in the back of the head, bludgeoning him and slitting his throat. Kimberly, who was injured during the initial attack, managed to save Maranda by strapping her in the backseat of the couple's truck. But court records say Ford returned, then raped and beat her before shooting her dead.

About 18 hours later, an employee of the sod farm found the Malnorys' bodies. Maranda survived but the 23-month-old was dehydrated, full of insect bites and covered in her mother's blood.

Ford told police that he went fishing with the family and that they were alive when he left them to go hunting, records show.

Witnesses told investigators that they had seen Ford with blood on his face, hands, and clothes and that he had large scratches on his body. Prosecutors say Ford's DNA and gun connected him to the crime scene.

Who were the Malnorys?

Greg’s co-workers at the South Florida Sod Farm remembered the couple fondly.

“He was an all-American good ol’ boy. He loved to hunt and fish,” Wiley McCall, Greg’s supervisor told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “He was a model employee, always on time.”

Joseph Shackleford, Greg's childhood friend, said he knew the Malnorys well and described Kimberly as a selfless person. “She was the kind of person that would give you the shirt off her back. Everybody loved her,” he said.

During the trial against Ford in 1999, Connie Ankney described her son Greg as a loving husband a loyal friend and a dedicated father. “Greg will never get to walk his daughter down the aisle when she gets married,” she said.

Dee Parkinson, Kimberly’s stepmother since the age of 6, described her stepdaughter as having "a vivacious, bubbly, talkative personality."

"I liked to make her laugh," Parkinson said. "It was so easy and fun. She'd laugh until she could hardly breathe."

She added that their friends and family would never get over their deaths. "Words cannot express how much we miss them both."

Who was James Dennis Ford?

Ford had no significant criminal record before the murders, and friends and family said he never showed signs of violence. Ford had a troubled childhood with an alcoholic father and a mother who left when he was 14, court records say.

Rodney McCray, a close friend of the family, said that the last few years of his life, Ford's father was "drinking just about around the clock,” according to court records.

Still, Ford was close with his dad. He dropped out of school because he preferred to spend time with his dad at his job as a cemetery caretaker in Arcadia. Ford and his father shared a "very close" bond, Ford's first wife said, remarking that they were "closer than any two people she had ever known in her entire life.”

Ford was in his early 20s when his dad died at the age of 52.

“He was devastated that he had lost his best friend,” Ford's defense attorneys wrote in court records. “There were times when Paige Ford [his first wife] would find him missing at night, and she would find him at the cemetery lying on his father’s grave.”

The loss compounded Ford's decline. He had begun drinking in his late teens and eventually worked his way up to 24 beers in a day, records say.

Ford's options are running out

On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Ford's execution, and a day later Ford's attorneys sought a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court on Tuesday issued a ruling upholding Ford's execution.

Ford's last hope for a stay is with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for Paste BN. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.