‘Our monster is dead’, say family of teen girl as Florida man executed nearly 50 years after her murder

Hitchcock sat on Florida’s death row for almost five decades for the murder of 13 year-old Cynthia Driggers (Pictures: Florida Department of Correction/Getty Images)

The final moments came quickly in the end, though the story behind them has dragged on for five decades.

A man convicted of killing his brother’s 13 year-old stepdaughter almost 50 years ago has been put to death in the state of Florida, finally bringing one of the state’s longest-running cases to a close.

The execution of James Ernest Hitchcock took place on Thursday evening at the state prison in Starke, after years of appeals.

Earlier that day, the US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute attempt to halt the process. With that, the final legal ...