In Starke, Florida, a man guilty of committing heinous crimes against his own family was put to death on Thursday evening. Edward James, at 63, faced execution as a consequence of a night in September 1993, when he brutally ended the lives of his 8-year-old relative, Toni Neuner, and her grandmother, Betty Dick, aged 58. This grim event unfolded in Casselberry, 10 miles from Orlando, after he consumed a significant amount of alcohol and drugs. James was sentenced to death after admitting guilt to these charges.
The execution took place at Florida State Prison, where he received a three-drug injection and was declared deceased at 8:15 p.m. Before the lethal injection was administered, James chose not to make a final statement. As the process unfolded, he displayed signs of heavy breathing and arm movement before falling silent.
Addressing the aftermath, Jared Pearson, the brother of the young victim, expressed a sense of closure for the family but highlighted the immense loss they endured. “We lost generations because of him,” Pearson remarked, describing the events of that night as pure evil and horrific.
This execution followed a week with three others across the United States. On the same day, a man in Oklahoma was executed via lethal injection for a deadly home invasion, while Arizona executed another individual earlier in the week, and Louisiana utilized nitrogen gas for its first execution after a 15-year hiatus.
The final efforts to appeal James’ sentence were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier that day, confirming this as Florida’s second execution for the year, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed James’ death warrant along with another one set for early April.
James had been living in a room rented in Dick’s residence, where Neuner and three other children stayed on the night of the incident. Court documents reveal James indulged excessively in alcohol and LSD before perpetrating the crimes. He raped and strangled the young girl, while the other children were unharmed. He was also convicted for the girl’s sexual assault and for robbing and subsequently stabbing the grandmother 21 times, stealing her valuables and car. Following this, he traveled across the country, disposing of the stolen jewelry before being apprehended in Bakersfield, California.
Despite pleading guilty, James received a death sentence, supported by an 11-1 jury recommendation. His legal team pursued numerous appeals, ultimately unsuccessful, arguing his long-term substance abuse, past head trauma, and recent health issues, including a heart attack, impaired his mental faculties, making his execution ethically and legally questionable in terms of cruel and unusual punishment. However, judicial authorities upheld the decision, stating that his cognitive impairments did not exempt him from facing execution. The claim regarding his heart attack leading to brain damage was also dismissed as insufficient evidence to halt his execution.
Florida employs a three-drug cocktail in its lethal injections: a sedative, a paralytic, and a heart-stopping agent. Earlier this year, another Florida man, James Ford, was executed for murders witnessed by a toddler in Charlotte County. The state is preparing for the forthcoming execution of Michael Tanzi, scheduled for April 8, for his crime in the Florida Keys in 2000.
