Dennis Sochor, one of the oldest prisoners ever put to death in Florida, was executed Tuesday evening at the state prison near Starke. He was 74. The execution marks the state's 10th this year, cementing Florida's grip on the nation's death penalty machinery.
Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection. He had been convicted of murdering Patricia Gifford on New Year's Day 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old at a Fort Lauderdale-area bar where she was celebrating with a friend. According to investigators, Sochor lured Gifford away under the pretense of getting breakfast, then drove to a secluded area and attacked her. He later confessed to choking her and disposing of her body, which has never been recovered.
In his final moments, Sochor apologized repeatedly to the Gifford family, said he was "deeply sorry," and thanked his own loved ones for their support over four decades on death row. He commended his spirit to Jesus Christ before the lethal injection began at 6:03 p.m. He underwent heavy breathing for about a minute, then sputtering for several seconds. After two minutes of apparent stillness, the warden checked his eyes, shook his shoulders, and called his name without response. A medic was summoned and pronounced him dead at 6:14 p.m.
Marilyn Gifford, Patricia's sister, witnessed the execution and spoke afterward about the bittersweet nature of the moment. While she said Sochor's death brings some closure, the family has never been able to lay Patricia to rest without her remains. "He had 45 years to return Patty's remains to us, but he cruelly chose not to," Gifford said in a statement. "We never got a chance to lay her to rest in God's arms. Without closure, every happy memory of Patty is immediately crushed by the tragedy of her murder." She also noted that Sochor lived more than twice as long on death row as her sister had lived in total.
The execution is part of a remarkable execution pace in Florida. The state has carried out 10 of the nation's 16 executions so far this year, more than every other state combined. Even more striking is the age of prisoners now on Florida's death row. Earlier this month, the state executed another 74-year-old, Dusty Ray Spencer, for the 1982 killing of his wife, Karen. Spencer had previously held the record as Florida's oldest executed inmate.
Later this month, Florida plans to execute Dominick Anthony Occhicone, age 80, for the killings of his ex-girlfriend's parents. If the execution proceeds as scheduled on July 28, Occhicone would become the state's oldest execution ever and the second-oldest known execution in modern U.S. history. Only Walter Moody Jr., executed in Alabama in 2018 at age 83 for killing a federal judge and a civil rights attorney, would rank older.
The clustering of elderly executions underscores a broader shift in America's death penalty system. Prisoners sentenced to death decades ago are aging in place, and states with active death chambers are now working through cases involving septuagenarians and octogenarians who have spent most of their adult lives on death row.
Author James Rodriguez: "Florida's execution binge is accelerating through its oldest cases, and it raises hard questions about what punishment means when it takes 40 years to carry out."
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