Starke, FL – A Florida inmate convicted in a Broward County homicide more than 40 years ago is scheduled to be executed after Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant authorizing the sentence to move forward.<\/p>\n
According to state records, 74-year-old Dennis Michael Sochor is set to be executed at Florida State Prison after being convicted in the 1981 murder of 18-year-old Michelle Gilliam. <\/p>\n
Court documents show Gilliam disappeared following a New Year’s Eve celebration in South Florida before her body was later discovered.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said evidence presented during the trial showed Sochor met Gilliam during the holiday celebration and later abducted and killed her. <\/p>\n
Investigators linked him to the crime, leading to his arrest, prosecution and eventual conviction on first degree murder charges. <\/p>\n
A jury ultimately recommended the death penalty, and a judge imposed the sentence.<\/p>\n
The case has remained active in state and federal courts for decades as attorneys pursued multiple appeals and post conviction challenges. <\/p>\n
Court records indicate those efforts included reviews of the conviction, sentencing procedures and other legal claims. <\/p>\n
Despite years of litigation, judges repeatedly upheld both the conviction and death sentence.<\/p>\n
Under the warrant signed by DeSantis, the execution is scheduled for July at Florida State Prison in Starke. <\/p>\n
The action continues a recent increase in executions carried out in Florida after several death warrants were signed in recent years.<\/p>\n
The murder of Gilliam attracted significant attention in South Florida and has remained one of Broward County’s most notable homicide cases from the early 1980s. <\/p>\n
With legal appeals largely exhausted, state officials are preparing to carry out the sentence unless a court intervenes before the scheduled execution date.<\/p>\n
The case has moved through Florida’s judicial system for more than four decades before reaching its current stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starke, FL – A Florida inmate convicted in a Broward County homicide more than 40 years ago is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[25783,124657,127860,2195,249,251,250,5892,29755,127861,1933,412,124659,124661,807,87750,127007,124660,42468],"class_list":["post-305598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-author","tag-coming-soon-include-featured-widget","tag-dennis-michael-sochor","tag-execution","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-headline","tag-keywords","tag-michelle-gilliam","tag-murder","tag-ron-desantis","tag-seo-title","tag-slug","tag-south-florida","tag-starke","tag-summary","tag-thumbnail","tag-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}