James Hitchcock is scheduled to be executed by the State of Florida for the sexual assault and murder of his niece in 1976
According to court documents James Hitchcock would be living with his brother and his family when he would sexually assault and murder his thirteen year old niece Cynthia Ann Driggers.
James Hitchcock would be arrested the day after the murder, convicted and sentenced to death
James Hitchcock is scheduled to be executed on April 30 2026
James Hitchcock Case
James Hitchcock has been sentenced and resentenced to death for the same crime four times and is now heading for Florida’s execution chamber. Prosecutors said that in the summer of 1976, he raped and strangled to death his 13-year-old step-niece, Cynthia Driggers.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 30 issued a death warrant for Hitchcock, 69. Barring a successful appeal or stay, Hitchcock will be the seventh person scheduled to be executed in Florida in 2026 as part of DeSantis’ newly accelerated pace. Last year, 19 people were executed, nearly 2½ times the previous one-year record of eight.
The Florida Supreme Court halted one scheduled execution last week. A former Lake County police officer, James Duckett, was convicted of the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee and was scheduled to be put to death March 31 but his attorneys filed a motion to stay the execution pending DNA testing. The Florida Supreme Court on March 30 declined the state’s motion to lift the stay. Duckett’s death warrant runs until April 7.
The advocacy group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has started a petition urging DeSantis to stay Hitchcock’s execution and commute his sentence to life without the possibility of parole.
Here’s what to know.
When is James Hitchcock scheduled to be executed?
Hitchcock is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection starting at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 30, at Florida State Prison near Starke.
In July 1976, 20-year-old James Hitchcock was living with his brother, Richard, in his Orlando home.
He went out drinking and smoking marijuana with friends in Winter Haven before returning home, prosecutors said. According to Hitchcock’s initial statement to police after his arrest, he arrived home around 2:30 in the morning on July 31 and entered the house through the dining room window before going into his room.
Then he went into the room of Cynthia Driggers, his brother’s 13-year-old stepdaughter.
Hitchcock admitted to police he had sex with her, and grabbed her by the neck after she said she was hurt and going to tell her mother. He carried her outside and tried to talk her out of telling anyone, he said, but when she started “hollerin’,” he choked her, hit her twice, then strangled her to death. He then shoved her body into some bushes before returning inside, taking a shower, and going to sleep, he said.
During his trial, Hitchcock changed his story and said that his brother Richard murdered his stepdaughter after finding out what she and Hitchcock did, which he claimed was consensual. Hitchcock said his initial statement was to protect his brother, court records show.
The age of consent in Florida is 18. Children under that age may not legally give consent.
After his initial sentencing, Hitchcock appealed over the trial judge’s instructions for the jury not to consider mitigating factors. The Florida Supreme Court reaffirmed the death sentence in 1982, but the circumstances led to a 1987 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that said states couldn’t limit the type of evidence a killer facing a possible death sentence can present to a trial court during a sentencing hearing.
Hitchcock was sentenced to death a second time in 1988, a year after his first sentence was vacated. The state Supreme Court upheld that sentence in 1990, but was forced to examine the case again after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on instructions given to juries. Hitchcock continued to appeal on various procedural grounds. The state Supreme Court vacated Hitchcock’s second death sentence in 1993 and ordered a new sentencing. It threw out his third death sentence in 1996, and a jury sentenced him to death again.
In 2000, the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Hitchcock’s fourth death sentence.
DeSantis appears to be maintaining the same rapid pace he set for state executions last year, when Florida put four times the number of inmates to death as any other state in the country. The record-breaking 19 death warrants in 2025 more than doubled the previous modern era record for Florida executions in one year, which was eight in both 1984 and 2014.
DeSantis signs death warrant for man who killed teen 50 years ago
