{"id":340242,"date":"2026-07-14T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/340242\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:17:08","slug":"man-executed-for-murder-of-18-year-old-in-fort-lauderdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/340242\/","title":{"rendered":"Man executed for murder of 18-year-old in Fort Lauderdale"},"content":{"rendered":"

STARKE (AP) \u2014 Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer from Broward County who was one of three older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation\u2019s busiest death penalty state.<\/p>\n

Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing an 18-year-old woman<\/a> on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year\u2019s Eve party.<\/p>\n

Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for the governor, said the execution was carried out without complications and that Sochor issued an apology in his final words, saying he was \u201cdeeply sorry\u201d for his actions.<\/p>\n

Another 74-year-old inmate just a week younger than Sochor at the time of execution was put to death<\/a> late last month. And later this month, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old, the state\u2019s first octogenarian scheduled to receive a lethal injection.<\/p>\n

The execution plans highlight the aging death row population in the U.S. and the busy death chamber in Florida, which has now carried out 10 executions this year \u2014 more than every other state combined.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear why Florida scheduled the executions of the three prisoners consecutively.<\/p>\n

Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to scheduling executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.<\/p>\n

DeSantis did not respond to an email prior to Tuesday\u2019s lethal injection seeking comment about the executions.<\/p>\n

As killer\u2019s execution approaches, victim\u2019s sister loses hope for closure<\/a><\/p>\n

A New Year\u2019s Day killing<\/p>\n

According to court records, Patricia Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother in the waning hours of 1981.<\/p>\n

The four spent several hours talking, but after the friend became ill and went to sleep in her car, Gifford left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast. But instead of going for food, Sochor stopped his truck in a secluded area and attacked Gifford when she refused to have sex with him, according to investigators.<\/p>\n

Sochor was later arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida. Sochor\u2019s brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford\u2019s disappearance<\/a>, and Sochor himself confessed on tape to choking Gifford and disposing of her body, which was never found. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, and he was sentenced to death.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Sochor\u2019s last request to intervene.<\/p>\n

And last week, the state Supreme Court denied Sochor\u2019s appeals. His attorneys had argued that the state violated his right to a fair trial by failing to disclose a 2022 letter sent to Sochor\u2019s brother from a South Florida detective asking for information about the location of Gifford\u2019s body. The attorneys also claimed that the execution drugs wouldn\u2019t effectively keep Sochor sedated.<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis photo of Patty Gifford was introduced as evidence during the trial of Dennis Sochor, who is standing behind Patty. It was taken by Patty’s friend, Delta Harville, who was with her that night. (Family of Patricia Gifford\/Courtesy)
\nOldest inmates executed in Florida<\/p>\n

On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old\u00a0Dusty Ray Spencer\u00a0for the killing of his wife Karen. Until Tuesday, Spencer was the oldest inmate executed in Florida.<\/p>\n

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates executed by the state before Spencer were both 72:\u00a0Samuel Lee Smithers\u00a0on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting of a state representative, Charles Schuh Jr.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n

He would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. history after\u00a083-year-old Walter Moody Jr.\u00a0Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of Southern mail bombs.<\/p>\n

A total of 16 executions have been carried out this year in the U.S., with Florida, so far, carrying out more than all other states combined.<\/p>\n

Florida carried out\u00a0a record 19 executions in 2025. DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was\u00a0eight executions\u00a0set in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"DennisDennis Sochor, 72, was sentenced in 1987 by Broward Judge Russell Seay, who died in 2011 at age 85.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STARKE (AP) \u2014 Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,112,28,29,249,251,250,114,266,115,109],"class_list":["post-340242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340242","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=340242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}