Death Row inmate James “Jimbo” Ford’s days are numbered.

Ford, 52, has exhausted all his appeals, according to John Lucas, press secretary for the state Attorney General’s Office. Gov. Rick Scott now can sign a death warrant, although it’s not clear when that will happen.

Ford, originally from DeSoto County, was convicted of murdering Greg and Kimberly Malnory on April 6, 1997, on a sod farm off State Road 31 in rural Charlotte County. He was convicted of two counts of murder, and one count each of sexual battery and child neglect, the latter of which stems from the fact that Ford left the Malnorys’ 23-month-old daughter alive at the scene with her two slain parents.

“Mr. Ford, you not only have forfeited your right to live among us,” 20th Circuit Judge Cynthia Ellis said during his sentencing in 1999, “you have forfeited your right to live at all.”

Ford has spent 13 years on Death Row, which is about the average stay for inmates before being executed, according to the Department of Corrections.

“At least we know he’s not getting out and killing anyone else,” said Greg’s mom, Connie Ankney, a Punta Gorda resident. “I don’t like the word ‘closure,’ but it gives me some peace to know we have finally come to the end of the road.”

Ford is one of five men currently on Death Row for murders that took place in Charlotte County. No one who has been convicted of a crime in Charlotte County and sentenced to death has been executed in the state’s history, according to the DOC.

There are 403 inmates on Death Row, of which 59 percent were sentenced to death before Ford.

Two executions took place earlier this year: Robert Waterhouse and David Alan Gore, both from Pinellas County.

For more about Ford and his possible involvement in the disappearances of a 21-year-old woman and her 8-month-old infant in 1994, see Sunday’s paper.

Email: cfeinberg@sun-herald.com