Florida man executed for raping and murdering girl, 8, and stabbing her gran 21 times

Edward James was put to death by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Raiford on Thursday, more than three decades after he raped and murdered eight-year-old Toni Neuner before killing her grandmother

A Florida man, found guilty of raping and murdering eight year old Toni Neuner before killing her grandmother, has been executed more than three decades after the crime.

Edward James, 63, had his death warrant signed by Governor Ron DeSantis last month and was put to death by lethal injection. He died just after 8pm ET on Thursday, March 20 at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, there was a roughly two-hour delay in the execution, which prison officials didn't immediately explain.

James died roughly nine hours after Wendell Arden Grissom's execution in Oklahoma for a home-invasion murder. It also comes two days after Louisiana executed Jessie Hoffman by nitrogen gas on Tuesday and a day after Arizona put Aaron Gunches to death by lethal injection on Wednesday.

James received the death penalty for the 1993 killings of eight year old Toni Neuner and Betty Dick, 58, the child's grandmother. James had been renting a room in Dick's house in Casselberry, where Toni Neuner and three other children were also staying that night.

He brutally raped and strangled the child to death, but the other children were left unharmed, reports the Daily Star.

James, who pleaded guilty to the charges, was also found guilty of the rape and of stealing Dick's jewellery and car after stabbing her 21 times. Court documents show James drove the car across the country, occasionally selling pieces of jewellery until he was arrested on 6 October of that year in Bakersfield, California.

Police obtained a videotaped confession from James, who despite his guilty pleas was sentenced to death upon an 11-1 recommendation by the jury.

James' attorney Dawn Macready has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution to reconsider the death sentence, pointing to his claimed "cognitive decline" in recent court documents. According to WUSF, Macready argued executing him would defy the ban against cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

In a turn of events, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed an appeal claiming that James's chronic substance abuse, along with multiple head injuries and a heart attack suffered in 2023, had led to mental deterioration to a degree that his execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices stated: "James's cognitive issues do not shield him from execution."

They also dismissed the claim presented by James' lawyers that the heart attack he experienced in jail — which they suggested resulted in brain-damaging oxygen deprivation — should be recognised as novel proof to terminate the execution process.

Even accepting it as new evidence, the court concluded that the "defendant cannot establish that such evidence would likely yield a less severe sentence at a new penalty phase."

The Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organisation, has stated that Florida utilises a triad of drugs for its lethal injections: it begins with a sedative, follows up with a paralytic, and finally uses a drug that causes cardiac arrest. Abraham Bonowitz from the nationwide advocacy group Death Penalty Action raised his voice on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, outside the state capitol in Tallahassee, protesting the impending execution of Edward James on March 20, 2025.

This incident comes amidst a spate of executions in the states known colloquially as the "killing states", where Jessie Hoffman faced execution in Louisiana on Tuesday, and Aaron Brian Gunches met the same fate in Arizona on Wednesday.

April is bracing for four more scheduled executions in America: Florida is preparing to execute Michael Tanzi on April 8, South Carolina has Mikal Mahdi's execution dated for April 11, Texas is gearing up to execute Moises Sandoval Mendoza come April 23, and James Osgood awaits execution in Alabama on April 24.

Out of these, all are slated to face lethal injection except for Mahdi, who has until next week to decide his mode of death between lethal injection, the firing squad, or the electric chair.