By: Dylan Kretchmar

When a parent tucks their child into bed and kisses them goodnight, they expect to find them still sleeping soundly in the same spot when morning comes. A home is supposed to be the safest place a child can be, shielded from the dangers of the outside world. But that was not the case for six-year-old Becky Kunash. After her father lovingly put her to bed, something unthinkable happened. In the middle of the night, an intruder opened Becky’s bedroom window, entered her bedroom, and abducted the little girl. She was never seen alive again.

Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. While nonfamily abductions, or those committed by strangers, are far rarer than other types of kidnapping, they are also far more likely to involve sexual assault or murder (Facts & Stats). What happened to 6-year-old Becky and her family was not unique in circumstance. Still, the fact that Becky was abducted from her own bedroom – a place synonymous with safety in the minds of many parents – makes it all the more chilling and necessary to discuss. 

This past November, Florida man, former Marine, and convicted child murderer Bryan Jennings was executed by lethal injection. His death marked Florida’s sixteenth execution of 2025. Nearly forty-six years earlier, Jennings had been tried and convicted of the abduction, rape, and murder of Becky Kunash (Myers, 2025).

Sweet Dreams

Becky Kunash was a vivacious, stubborn, and determined little blonde girl whose boundless energy brought joy to everyone around her. The night before her murder, she had been excitedly practicing her lines for her role of narrator in the upcoming first-grade play, proudly reciting them over and over with her father.

After tiring herself out, her father, Robert Kunash, tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead. “I love you,” he whispered, never imagining they would be the last words he’d ever say to her. “Catch ya in the morning.” Becky fell asleep with a smile on her face, while her parents settled in for the night, comforted by the belief that she was safe from the outside world. 

Through the Window 

At the same time, 20-year-old Bryan Jennings had moved back in with his mother and aunt in a house not far from the Kunash family, having recently returned from military service in Okinawa, Japan. According to his mother, Jennings had a lifelong pattern of troubling behavior: Bryan had always been restless and impulsive, prone to destruction and increasingly difficult to manage as he got older. At one point, she even considered having him admitted to a mental hospital in Boston. But his doctor advised against it, warning her that a psychiatric record could jeopardize his chances of joining the military. 

So Bryan Jennings went off to the military and never received the help he desperately needed. It was a decision that would echo far beyond anything his family could have imagined.

According to Jennings’ cellmate, to whom he confessed all his crimes to, this was not a premeditated attack. Before the abduction, Jennings had no prior knowledge of the Kunush family nor what he was about to do. 

It was in the early morning hours of May 10, 1979, while walking home from a bar, that Jennings passed by Becky’s bedroom window, looked inside, and saw the little girl sleeping peacefully. And impulsively, he stopped. Looking at the young girl, Jennings was overcome with lust. He quietly removed the window screen and slid the unlocked window open. With nothing to stop him, he climbed inside, tore Becky from her bed before she even knew what was happening, and carried her into the night without waking her parents.

Jennings then forced a terrified Becky into his car and drove to a secluded spot near a canal a few miles away. There, beside the rushing water, he brutally raped her. Nobody heard Becky cry for help. Jennings then lifted her limp body upside down and smashed her head into the concrete ground, fracturing her skull. Not done yet, he held the small girl’s face underwater for ten minutes. When he finally released her, Becky’s small, naked body floated away down the canal, and Jennings wiped his hands clean of what he had just done. 

The Arrest

At 7 a.m., Robert Kunash entered his daughter’s room to wake Becky up for school. He immediately sensed something was wrong when cold air hit his face. His eyes moved from the open window to the empty bed and the empty, twisted sheets. Panicked, he shouted for his wife, and the couple called the police.

Half a mile from the Kunash home, a fisherman on the Banana River dialed authorities as well. As he waited for a bite, he spotted something large, pale, and limp floating in the water. When he looked closer, he saw the naked, bloodied body of a child. The police identified her as the missing Becky Kunash.  

Later that same day, Jennings was arrested on an unrelated traffic offense. While being held, investigators were able to connect him to Becky’s murder when they noticed that his fingerprints matched those found on Becky’s window, and his shoe prints matched those outside the home. 

The Aftermath

Even though the Kunash family now knew who Becky’s killer was, it still didn’t bring back their little girl. Becky was buried by her father alone, in a casket with her favorite jump rope and stuffed elephant nestled in her arms. Her mother could not bring herself to attend, unable to face the brutality of what had been done to her daughter.

Jennings’s case moved through the courts for years. Between 1980 and 1986, his first two convictions were overturned on appeal, but a third trial resulted in life sentences for kidnapping, sexual assault, and burglary, as well as a death sentence. Becky’s parents, unable to endure the repeated trials and reliving of their daughter’s murder, divorced soon after.

Forty-six years later, Bryan Jennings was finally executed by lethal injection in Florida, bringing the case to a long-awaited closure. Becky, if Jennings had not gotten to her, would have been 52 years old. 

A Disturbing Pattern: What the FBI Found

While relatively rare, what Bryan Jennings did to Becky Kunsh was not unprecedented. Each year, hundreds of children are abducted by strangers, and many of these cases end in assault or murder.

In 2017, an FBI Behavioral Analysis study on child abductions from the home revealed numerous unsettling trends (Shelton et al., 2017). Contrary to prior assumptions held by prosecutors, most offenders who abduct children from their residences are not highly organized planners. Instead, they tend to act impulsively and are often driven by immediate sexual motivation, as was the case in Jennings’s case, when he passed by Becky’s window that one night. 

One driving question behind the study was why, with the many options available to offenders wanting to abduct a child, a perpetrator would risk entering an occupied home where a child was just one scream away from alerting both their parents and the neighbors. 

After combing through the cases, a few patterns began to emerge that could answer this question:

• Offenders often choose children because they are physically smaller, easier to overpower, and more easily manipulated. A sleeping child would put up little to no fight. 
• Adults are generally asleep or temporarily absent when a child is sleeping, providing a good window of opportunity for an uninterrupted abduction. 
• Substance abuse frequently lowers offenders’ inhibitions and makes them more willing to enter occupied homes impulsively.
• Prior experience with burglary increases comfort with entering dark or unfamiliar residences.
• Most perpetrators will exit the home on foot with the child, meet little resistance, and transport them to a secondary location for the actual assault.
• Nighttime and early-morning hours mean fewer witnesses and neighborhood activity.

The Victims of residential abductions themselves were young, averaging nine years old, with 41 percent being between the ages of six and eleven. Most Victims were Caucasian and female, as was the case with Becky. Additionally, approximately 63 percent of children abducted were murdered, with the most common causes of death being asphyxiation and blunt-force trauma (Shelton et al., 2017). 

Nearly every element of this profile aligned with Jennings and the crimes he committed against Becky. This study points to the necessity of increased vigilance and awareness, even in one’s home, and stronger child-safety protections. 

One Story of Many

What happened to Becky Kunash was horrifying, and her story is just one among millions. While her killer was eventually brought to justice, countless children continue to go missing every year, and many at the hands of strangers driven by impulse, opportunity, and violent intent from locations often thought of as safe. Many of these cases remain unsolved. And for Becky’s family, no amount of justice can fill the space left by a little girl who should have woken up smiling the next morning.

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Sources: 

Facts & Stats on Missing Children. (n.d.). Child Find of America. https://childfindofamerica.org/resources/facts-and-stats-missing-children/#:~:text=78%25%20of%20abductors%20are%20the,taken%20by%20a%20male%20relative 

Myers, A. L. (2025, Nov. 13). Predator who kidnapped, murdered sleeping girl becomes Florida’s record 16th execution. USA TODAY. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/predator-kidnapped-murdered-sleeping-girl-234535656.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHgRAwMUcJ2PiEpjXmDmnDbi2Igw3RBGAQ0zgx4DLptSzNcywCGNvGZJMpA9B3nBz84jmW5Lx-6xrcoOIa6qCob5K-GPgtPfmbAi24enRdGl5s94RGOUKccHy_SfQ0QGpVmr7pa1IFtNPbBiU3L3fxK0o3iq9rNII367YiPncHnn 

Shelton, J., Hilts, M., & MacKizer, M. (2017, Nov. 15). Residential Child Abduction Cases. Law Enforcement Bulletin. https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/residential-child-abduction-cases