Florida executes the 29th person on death row in 19 months — two more scheduled

The state of Florida put to death Dennis Sochor early Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison near Starke, making him the 10th inmate executed this year and the 29th since January 2025, as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues a record pace of executions.

Sochor was convicted in 1987 of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford on Jan. 1, 1982, shortly after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

At 74, Sochor is the oldest inmate executed in Florida history — for now. DeSantis has signed a warrant to execute 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone on July 28, one of two people scheduled for death that day.

Minutes before he received a three-drug injection that killed him Tuesday night, Sochor apologized several times to the Gifford family, saying that he was “deeply sorry,” according to an account by an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution. He was pronounced dead at around 6:14 p.m.

The Gifford family released a statement after the execution of Sochor was confirmed.

“This day did not bring Patty back, and it does not erase the 44 years our family has lived without her. Patty was 18 years old, full of life, and deeply loved by her family and friends. We are grateful to the prosecutors, investigators, witnesses, jurors, judges and advocates who carried this case for decades.”

Patty Gifford’s body has never been found.

“Today marked the end of a legal process that lasted nearly half a century,” the Gifford family statement said. “Patty’s remains were never recovered, but her life was never lost to us. She was our sister, our daughter, our friend, and she mattered. We ask that Patty be remembered not by the brutality of her death, but by the beauty and value of her life.”

The group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said in a written statement that they grieved “first and foremost for Patricia Gifford, whose young life was stolen in 1981, and for all who have carried the burden of grief for decades. Nothing can undo that harm. We also grieve for Dennis, for those who loved him, and for the people of Florida, whose government has once again chosen another unnecessary act of violence. Whether we support the death penalty or oppose it, we each bear the responsibility for this ongoing state-sanctioned killing.

“We are now halfway through the year, and we again own the dark distinction as the state that is killing the highest numbers of its own citizens. In fact, Florida has executed more people in 2026 alone than all other states combined. This is not something to celebrate or use to score political points.”

Meanwhile, Gov. DeSantis on Tuesday rescheduled the execution of James Aren Duckett for noon July 28. Duckett had originally been scheduled to be executed on March 31, but that was stayed pending additional DNA testing and analysis. The Florida Supreme Court lifted the stay of his execution on July 8.

Duckett, a former police officer in Mascotte, was convicted of first-degree murder and sexual battery on May 10, 1988 and sentenced to death on June 30, 1988, for the death of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee.

Also scheduled to be executed on July 28 is Dominick Anthony Occhicone, who, at 80, would be the oldest man ever executed in Florida.

Occhicone was convicted in Pasco County in 1986 of first-degree murder for killing his girlfriend’s parents, Martha and Raymond Artzner. His execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. July 28.

If both executions take place that day, it would be the first time in modern history that the state of Florida has executed two people on the same day.

If executed as planned, Occhicone would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of Southern mail bombs.