Courtesy: Florida Department of Corrections
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A Florida man was put to death on Thursday for the rape and murder of his brother's 13-year-old stepdaughter nearly 50 years ago.
James Ernest Hitchcock, 69, was put to death by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m., according to the Department of Corrections.
Hitchcock is the sixth person to be executed by the state of Florida this year.
The Florida Supreme Court denied Hitchcock’s request for postconviction relief and a stay of execution last week.
According to court documents, on July 31, 1976, Hitchcock sexually assaulted his step-niece Cynthia Driggers in her bedroom in Orange County. When she threatened to tell her mother, Hitchcock took Driggers outside and strangled her, leaving her body in some bushes. Hitchcock went back inside, showered, then went to bed.
In his trial, Hitchcock claimed the actions were consensual and that his brother, who entered the bedroom shortly afterward, killed the girl by strangulation.
In his first sentencing in 1977, a majority of the jury voted for death. In subsequent resentencings, the jury voted for death in a 7-5 vote in 1988, 12-0 in 1993 and 10-2 in 1996.
Dig deeper:
Last Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a warrant for Richard Knight, 47, to be executed May 21 for the 2000 murder of Odessia Stephens and her four-year-old daughter Hanessia Mullings in Broward County.
The warrant for Knight is the eighth DeSantis has signed this year.
One of the warrants DeSantis signed this year expired after the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay.
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court reversed a trial court order that now gives James Duckett’s legal team access to DNA data.
Duckett is a former police officer convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1987.
The stay was issued March 26 partly because Duckett awaited postconviction DNA testing, which the court noted he claimed will "provide newly discovered evidence of his actual innocence."
DNA Labs International was selected to conduct the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) test of a sample located on McAbee’s jeans. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced on March 27 that the testing was inconclusive.
Duckett argued for further testing by Orthram Inc., which his defense hired to analyze the data.
Timeline:
Ronald Heath, 64, was put to death on Feb. 10 for a 1989 murder outside Gainesville.
Melvin Lee Trotter, 65, was executed Feb. 24 for the June 1986 murder of Virgie Langford, 70, who was found by a truck driver on the floor at the back of Langford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was executed on March 3 for the death of Fort Pierce police officer Danny Parrish during a 1991 traffic stop.
Michael King, 54, was executed March 17 for the 2008 murder of a North Port woman, Denise Amber Lee, 21.
Chadwick WIllacy, 58, was put to death on April 21 for the 1990 murder of his Palm Bay neighbor who found him burglarizing her home.
Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025, a modern-era record. The modern era represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after it was halted by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The Source: This article was written with information gathered by the News Service of Florida.