Florida executed one of its oldest prisoners in history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was part of a group of three older inmates scheduled for execution within a month in the state with the highest number of death penalties in the country.
Dennis Sochor was declared dead at 6:16 p.m. after receiving a lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was found guilty of murdering Patricia Gifford on January 1, 1982, shortly after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.
Sochor was already secured to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber lifted at the scheduled execution time of 6 p.m. Upon being asked by the warden if he had any final words, Sochor expressed his apologies several times to the Gifford family, acknowledging his deep remorse for his actions. He also thanked his loved ones for their unwavering support and concluded by entrusting his spirit to Jesus Christ.
The lethal drugs started administering at 6:03 p.m. Sochor experienced heavy breathing for about a minute followed by some moments of sputtering. After two minutes of calmness, the warden attempted to get a response from him but to no avail. A medic was summoned into the room at 6:14 p.m., and shortly after, Sochor was pronounced deceased.
A week before, another 74-year-old inmate, only slightly younger than Sochor, was executed. Furthermore, later this month, the state is gearing up to execute an 80-year-old, the first octogenarian in Florida scheduled to receive a lethal injection.
These execution plans underscore the aging death row population in the U.S. and the bustling death chamber in Florida, where 10 out of the 16 executions in the nation this year have taken place — surpassing all other states combined.
The reason behind Florida’s consecutive scheduling of the three executions remains unclear. Maria DeLiberato, the legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, pointed out that in Florida, the governor essentially has the sole authority to schedule executions, unlike in many other states where the courts handle the scheduling process.
The office of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis did not respond to an email before Tuesday’s execution seeking comments on the executions.
In court records, it was revealed that Gifford met Sochor and his brother at a Fort Lauderdale area bar while celebrating the impending New Year with a friend.
They engaged in conversation for several hours, but when the friend fell ill and went to sleep in her car, Gifford left with Sochor and his brother supposedly for breakfast. However, Sochor halted his truck in an isolated area and assaulted Gifford when she refused his advances, as per investigators’ accounts.
Sochor was apprehended in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and was brought back to Florida. His brother informed the police that Sochor was involved in Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor later admitted on tape to strangling Gifford and disposing of her body, which was never found. In 1987, he was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping and received a death sentence.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Sochor’s final plea for intervention.
Additionally, the state Supreme Court rejected Sochor’s appeals, including claims of the state violating his right to a fair trial by failing to disclose a 2022 letter sent to his brother from a detective seeking information about Gifford’s whereabouts.
On June 25, Florida executed Dusty Ray Spencer, a 74-year-old, for the murder of his wife Karen. Spencer held the record as the oldest inmate executed in Florida until Sochor’s execution.
Records from the Florida Department of Corrections indicate that before Spencer, the oldest inmates executed in the state were both 72 years old: Samuel Lee Smithers in 2025 for the 1996 killings of two women and R. Charlie Gifford in 1951 for shooting state representative Charles Schuh Jr. in 1950.
Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is set to be executed on July 28 for the murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
If executed, he would become the second oldest prisoner put to death in recent U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018 for the killings of a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a series of Southern mail bombings.