RAIFORD, Fla. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied the final appeal of a 65-year-old Florida death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed Thursday.

It comes after Florida's highest court rejected his appeal earlier this month.

James D. Ford was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1997 killings of Greg Malnory and his wife Kimberly.

According to court documents, Ford was supposed to go fishing with the couple — who were his coworkers at a South Florida sod farm — on April 6, 1997. Investigators say Greg Malnory's throat was cut after he was shot in the back of the head "execution style" and hit with a blunt object at least seven times.

Kimberly Malnory was raped and beaten so savagely that one hit actually penetrated her skull, before a rifle was inserted into her mouth and she was shot, court documents say.

Nearby, the pair's 22-month-old daughter was uninjured, but had been left strapped into her car seat for more than 18 hours before being found.

"She was covered in mosquito bites and her mother's blood, dehydrated, and flushed with heat," the opinion from the Florida Supreme Court said.

Physical evidence and eyewitness testimony "provided overwhelming proof that Ford was responsible for the murders and the rape," the opinion said. He was ultimately convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, sexual battery with a firearm and child abuse.

During the sentencing phase of his trial, the jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death sentence for each murder.

The Feb. 7 Florida Supreme Court opinion — which justices noted was Ford's third attempt to overturn his death sentence — indicated that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the convict's death warrant on Jan. 10.

In that appeal, Ford's attorneys argued, among other things, that the time limit on appeals in death sentence cases in Florida law violated his rights under the Florida Constitution and the U.S. Constitution; and that a previous U.S. Supreme Court opinion precludes the death penalty in his case because he had a mental and developmental age below 18 years.

In the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ford's attorneys say that while he was 36 years old when Greg and Kimberly Malnory were killed, "he had the mental and developmental age of no more than fourteen years old at the time of the offense for which he was convicted."

At the age of 65, the appeal says Ford's mental and developmental age was more recently determined to be closer to 13.3 years.

The filing asked the Supreme Court to stay his Thursday execution to allow time "to address the compelling constitutional questions in his case on the merits."

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling of denial came without comment.

If his sentence is carried out Thursday as scheduled, Ford's will be the first execution of 2025 in Florida, and the state's first since August 2024.

He is currently being held at Florida State Prison in Raiford.