Florida execution to be nation’s 2nd today, 4th this week. What to know about the case.

Edward Thomas James is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday for the brutal rapes and murders of a woman and her granddaughter. It’ll follow a morning execution in Oklahoma.

A Florida death row inmate is set to become the fourth man executed in the U.S. this week and the 10th so far this year.

Edward Thomas James, 63, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday for the brutal 1993 murders of 58-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Dick and her 8-year-old granddaughter, Toni Neuner, who was raped.

James’ execution is expected to come about seven hours after the scheduled execution of Wendell Arden Grissom in Oklahoma for a home-invasion murder. It also comes two days after Louisiana executed Jessie Hoffman by nitrogen gas on Tuesday and a day after Arizona put Aaron Gunches to death by lethal injection on Wednesday.

If his execution moves forward, James will be the second inmate to be executed in Florida this year and the 10th in the U.S.

“This defendant deserves no more mercy than that he showed his two victims,” trial prosecutor Tom Hastings told jurors in 1995, according to an archived Associated Press story.

Although James has previously said he deserves to be executed, his attorneys have recently been fighting to save his life.

Here’s what you need to know about James’ execution, including why his attorneys say he deserves to be spared.

What did Edward Thomas James do?

On the night of Sept. 20, 1993, Betty Dick was at home in the metro Orlando city of Casselberry with four of her grandchildren, who were between the ages of 2 and 10, when James arrived. He had been renting a room in Dick’s home for about six months and had known the family for years, according to archived news stories.

Drunk and high on crack and possibly LSD, James apparently snapped, grabbing a sleeping 8-year-old Toni Neuner, strangling and brutally raping her before he threw her lifeless body behind his bed. He told detectives that he remembered thinking, “Eddie, this ain’t no fun … I’ll get me a grown woman.”

He then went to Dick’s bedroom, where he admitted to bludgeoning her, attempting to rape her and then stabbing her 23 times before fleeing the state with her purse, jewelry and car − setting off a frantic manhunt.

James confessed to the crimes after he was recognized on the “America’s Most Wanted” television show and captured in California following a 17-day manhunt. He has always acknowledged his guilt and has even said he deserves the death penalty.

“I don’t want to die but I do believe it’s the proper penalty for what I committed,” he said in court in 2003, according to an archived story in the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. “From now until the time they execute me, I’m just going to exist, come as close to peace with what I did … I feel in my heart that I’m doing the right thing.”

Who were Betty Dick and Toni Neuner?

Betty Dick’s children told the Orlando Sentinel that their mother took James in out of the goodness of her heart and that no one in the family would have ever suspected him capable of murder.

That was just who Dick was: a loving grandmother always looking out for others, they said, adding that it was a struggle for her other grandchildren to understand what happened to her and Toni, described by her aunt as an outgoing girl who was inseparable from her older sister Wendi, who was in the home the night of the murders and tried to intervene before James tied her up.

“She’s got a lot of anger inside of her,” her aunt, Brenda Teed, told the newspaper. “It’s unbelievable what she watched happen. She thinks if she could have gotten up sooner, she could’ve saved them.”

She said that the family told Dick’s other grandchildren that “Grandma and Toni are in heaven, but they don’t understand why.”

“We tell them they can go outside and wave at the stars and they’ll be waving at Grandma,” she told the Sentinel.

As for James, she told the newspaper that they just wanted to understand why he did what he did.

“I’m angry as hell. I’m having a hard time believing in God,” Teed said. “We have to live with the images the rest of our lives of what he did to them.”

When and where will James be executed?

James is set to be executed just after 6 p.m. ET at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 40 miles west of Jacksonville.

What are James’ attorneys arguing?

James’ attorneys have been arguing that he isn’t fit for execution because he has experienced significant cognitive decline in recent years, to the point that he can’t remember simple words and loses track of conversations.

“He does not remember the homicides or his behavior leading up to them. However, he desired to be punished and even executed throughout the years,” psychologist Yenys Castillo wrote after evaluating James. “It is unclear whether Mr. James truly appreciated the seriousness and finality of being sentenced to die during his initial penalty phase and postconviction proceedings, and these competency concerns persist into the present day.”

In a recent court filing, his attorneys said that James pleaded guilty to the murders “despite a glaring lack of memory of the crimes,” adding that he suffers from “a nearly lifelong history of substance abuse, clear signs of mental illness, and memory impairment including indicators of early-onset dementia.”

His condition makes executing him cruel and unusual punishment, which is a violation of his constitutional rights, his attorneys have argued.

So far, all courts have rejected those arguments and little is standing in the way of James’ execution.