A Florida man who only wanted to sell his car via Facebook Marketplace was stabbed to death in front of his own wife and five-year-old daughter, allegedly by the buyer.

Joseph Michael Lynch, 47, pleaded no contest on Thursday to the brutal murder of Kenny Dale Ashby, 33, on July 3.

Ashby was selling a 2002 Dodge Neon on the online platform when he became the victim of ‘a senseless and violent attack,’ prosecutor Peter Overstreet said.

Lynch arrived at Ashby’s Springfield home at approximately 11.30pm, around three miles east of Panama City.

During the car buying meet up, Lynch and Ashby got into an argument about the vehicle’s missing title.

As Ashby looked for the title inside his home, Lynch became furious as the search took longer than he liked.

Suddenly, the buyer kicked down Ashby’s house door and aggressively stabbed him multiple times with a knife in front of the eyes of Ashby’s own wife and child, and three other guests at the house.

‘The victim’s wife, young daughter and three other adults were in the home,’ a press release from state attorney Larry Basford read and added that Lynch ‘took their cell phones before fleeing.’

According to an affidavit viewed by the Daily Mail, Ashby’s wife, Ashlee, made Lynch aware of the child in the room which led him to drop the phones again.

She then called the police and told officers that her husband was ‘not breathing.’

Police found Ashby severely wounded as ‘broken glasses and other items were strewn about the kitchen,’ the affidavit stated.

The officers brought Ashby to a hospital, but he died in the early morning of July 4.

Despite leaving the scene, Lynch had also encouraged bystanding juveniles down the road to call the police ‘because something bad had taken place.’

Officers found the killer nearby Ashby’s home, lying with his face toward the ground and admitting the crime.

‘I’m the one you are looking for,’ Lynch told the officers while taken into custody, according to the affidavit viewed by the Daily Mail.

In court on Thursday, Lynch pleaded no contest to the counts of murder in the second degree and burglary with assault or battery and was sentenced to 40 years in prison by Circuit Court Judge Brantley Clark.

While the court assessed whether the sentences should run at the same time or one after another, ‘the family agreed with the plea and the 40 years in prison, which essentially is a life sentence for this defendant,’ Overstreet said.

The prosecutor read aloud a statement from Ashby’s wife: ‘He was not just taken from us, but violently taken and in front of us, leaving a void that can never rebuild. This loss has shattered his family completely.

‘We have no sense of safety anymore, not even in our own home.’

The victim’s mother, Shelby Frix, said: ‘He was my child, my hero and a deeply loved member of our family whose life mattered. His life mattered to me, the mother who carried him for nine months.’

Overstreet also read a statement on behalf of Ashby’s daughter: ‘I want to express what the murder of my dad has done to me and my family. The life he lived, the love he gave, and the pain he left behind. Some people say a girl’s first love is their brother, but mine is my dad.’

Ashby’s obituary described him as a man ‘with a heart that seemed bigger than the world itself.

‘He had a passion for big trucks – especially Dodges – and loved spending his days mudding, swimming at the creek’ or ‘making memories with those he loved most.’