Florida executes its oldest death row prisoner for killing woman he met at New Year's Eve party
Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation's busiest death penalty state.
Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year's Eve party.
Sochor was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at at the 6 p.m. execution time. Asked by the warden if he had any last words, Sochor said he did.
He apologized several times to the Gifford family, saying he was "deeply sorry" for his actions and thanked his own loved ones for their support over the years. Then, he finished by commending his spirit to Jesus Christ.
The lethal drugs began flowing at 6:03 p.m. Sochor underwent about a minute of heavy breathing and then some seconds of sputtering. After two minutes of relative stillness, the warden looked into his eyes, shook his shoulders and yelled his name. There was no response. A medic was called into the room at 6:14 p.m., and Sochor was pronounced dead soon after.
The Gifford family released a statement Tuesday thanking prosecutors, investigators and others who carried the case forward and to "correct a painful misconception" that Patty Gifford "willingly went off with Dennis Sochor and his brother Gary."
"Sochor's conviction and sentencing in 1987 gave our family a measure of justice, consolation, and closure in knowing that he would never again be free to hurt another woman," according to the family's statement provided by Patricia Gifford's brother, Bob Gifford
"When he confessed in 1987 and led detectives to the Alligator Alley area in an attempt to locate Patty, we also came to understand that her remains would likely never be recovered."
"Today marked the end of a legal process that lasted nearly half a century," the statement continued. "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."
Sochor won't be the oldest prisoner executed for long
Later this month, Florida is also set to execute an 80-year-old prisoner who would be the state's first octogenarian to receive the death penalty.
The executions highlight the nation's aging death row population and the busy death row chamber in Florida, which has already carried out nine executions this year, more than every other state combined.
Sochor is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year's Eve party.
Just weeks earlier, Florida executed another 74-year-old inmate, Dusty Ray Spencer, over the killing of his estranged wife. He is currently the oldest inmate to ever die by lethal injection in Florida, and Sochor will be exactly one week older if Tuesday's execution is carried out as scheduled.
It's unclear why Florida set the executions for the three prisoners consecutively.
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 the scheduling of executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.
The office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, did not respond to an email seeking comment about the state's recent executions.
What court records say happened during the 1982 murder
According to court records, 18-year-old Patricia Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother.
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.
Sochor was later arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida. Sochor's brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford's disappearance, 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.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied Sochor's 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's brother from a South Florida detective asking for information about the location of Gifford's body. The attorneys also claimed that the execution drugs wouldn't effectively keep Sochor sedated.
A final appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates previously executed by the state were both 72: Samuel Lee Smithers on 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.
Nationwide, the oldest U.S. inmate executed in modern times was Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83. He was put to death in Alabama in 2018 for a wave of Southern mail bombs that killed a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney in 1989.
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.