Daughter of the murdered couple Florida reflects the execution of Killer

Gainesville – The first sleep for good at night for years for the daughter of a murdered couple came at the night when Florida executed her parents' murderer last month, she says in a new interview.

“There is a weight that we canceled,” said Maranda Maltnory, 29, from Cape Coral in a phone call from home. “We can go forward. We will never come by, but it doesn't come all the time. ”

The 29 -year -old Malnory was less than a month from her second birthday when James Ford murdered her parents Greg and Kim Malnory in the rural district of Charlotte in the southwest of Florida. Maltnory was left to the elements in a car seat in the blue collection of her father after her parents 'murders, and the police found her and her parents' body the next morning.

The residents of Charlotte County heard details about the 1997 deaths of her parents, far before she did.

“It was no secret that my parents had died because it was always spoken,” she said, “but it was somehow secretly in the fact that I didn't know the facts of what had happened up to the age of 13.”

“It was shocking,” she said.

After her parents died, the grandmother of Malnory's maternal, Linda Griffin, took her in.

“She over -comprised a little so that my parents weren't around,” said Malnory. “She felt like my mother's mother, she should have protected my mother as my mother, but I had a happy childhood.”

Maltnory said that she had a handful of stories about her parents, who were passed on by her friends and family, but she has no memories.

“There is a missing piece,” she said. “I have never experienced the traditional families things that have a mother and a father and celebrated Mother's Day and Father's Day with them.”

Although Maltnory grew up without her parents, she said that she learns more about her when people pass around her.

“The way I can get to know my mother and father by talking about her,” she said. “I still get Facebook messages from people who went to school with my parents or detective because I went to school with some children of the detective. … for me it is to know who they were as humans, not just this idea of ​​them by talking to people they knew. ”

Some of the stories that have heard of her parents have come from her employees at East Elementary in Punta Gorda, where she works paraprofessional as special education.

“For the longest time I wanted to become a lawyer and in contact with most lawyers in the event of my parents … I think my heart would be too invested,” she said. “At least in education I can give something back. I call it cardiac work. They don't just do it because they want. It comes from the heart. ”

The first person with whom Malnory spoke when the death command was signed was a school employee who knew her mother in the high school. Malnory said the call on Friday morning from the governor's office “came completely out of the blue”.

“I had mixed feelings because it was something I talked about in December … and in a sense I almost spoke the existence,” she said. “It was also very stressful for me. It was a lot more revicating. … Everyone seemed to concentrate on Ford instead of my parents, so that it always saw a picture of him, as if it were in a sense. ”

Less than two weeks before the execution, Malnory visited her parents' graves for the first time in six years.

“It is my aunt who is there, my mother's sister, my grandmother's mother's side, who died, and then my parents. For me this is just an area with heartache, because there are four people who meant the world in a line, ”she said. “It wasn't as scared as I thought. … I wasn't there alone and we were there to clean. It was more: “Hey, we try to do this good thing for you, so it's clean when people take pictures of their graves.”

“At the same time I was somehow sad,” she said. “That's how I want to spend my Saturday. I would rather spend my Saturday with you. ”

When the execution approached, Malnory had to decide whether to participate – or even a witness to Ford, which would die from injection.

She said she wanted to answer Ford when she was younger.

“He is a coward,” said Malnory. “He said until his last breath:” I hope you find out who murdered Kim and Greg. “Well, you did it. We were all there. When I was younger, I wanted to talk to him, but the older I got, the more I realized that he would never say.”

Malnory finally decided not to take part in the execution on February 13 on February 13th.

“I actually went back and forth, and nobody in my family knows that, but I even thought about it, probably until it happened,” she said. “I wanted to go, but at the same time it could trigger it for me. His face personally, up close to all the years, could cause a kind of things that had been locked up for 27 years. ”

Malnory said she called family members who took part in the execution when the press conference was over.

“It was justice. Peace, not closure, but for her it was the last closure of the chapter, ”she said. “I feel peace from it, but I mourn what I could have had and they actually mourned them as people.”

Maltnory said she initially had mixed feelings about Ford's execution, but she now has a feeling of closure.

“We don't go into the 28th year.” Oh, he lived 28 years longer than she, or he did 28 years of the days and the days and Christmas of mother. ”

The end of Ford's life does not signal the end of the effects of its crimes on Mangels.

“It influenced in a large way (my life),” she said. “When it comes to relationships, I am looking for men who are older than me because it is like trying to fill the emptiness that my father would have. I don't want to say that I have Daddy problems, but I do it. … it also scares me to have children because I don't want my children to ever have to grow up without me. ”

Maltnory said people around them, especially those who knew their parents, carry them through their hardest days.

“Nobody forgot us in the 27 years that needed it,” she said. “Nobody from Charlotte County has ever forgotten us. It is home to me. ”

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service from the University of Florida College for Journalism and Communication. The reporter can be reached at blounardini@uffl.edu. You can donate to support our students Here.