Florida's Oldest Death Row Inmate Put to Death Nearly 40 Years After Conviction

Dennis Sochor, 76, was executed by lethal injection Monday evening at Florida State Prison near Starke, becoming the state's oldest inmate to be put to death for the 1982 murder of 18-year-old Patricia Gifford.

Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., following a three-drug injection that began at 6:03 p.m. He was strapped to a gurney with an IV already in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber rose at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time.

His Last Words

Asked by the warden if he had any final statement, Sochor said he did. He apologized several times to Gifford's family, telling them he was "deeply sorry" for his actions, and thanked his own loved ones for their support over the years. He concluded by commending his spirit to Jesus Christ.

According to witnesses, he underwent about a minute of heavy breathing followed by several seconds of sputtering after the drugs began flowing. After roughly two minutes of stillness, the warden checked his eyes, shook his shoulders and called his name before a medic was brought in to confirm his death.

The Crime

Gifford was celebrating the arrival of the new year with a friend at a bar near Fort Lauderdale when she met Sochor and his brother, Gary, on Dec. 31, 1981. According to court records, the four spent several hours together before Gifford's friend became ill and went to sleep in her car. Gifford then left with the Sochor brothers, reportedly to get breakfast. Instead, prosecutors said Sochor drove to a secluded area and attacked Gifford after she refused to have sex with him.

Sochor was arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and later extradited to Florida. His brother told investigators 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 recovered. He led detectives to the area near Alligator Alley in an attempt to locate her remains, though she was never found. He was convicted and sentenced in 1987.

The Family's Statement

Gifford's family released a statement following the execution thanking the prosecutors and investigators who carried the case forward over nearly four decades. The family also used the statement to correct what they called a "painful misconception," that Gifford had willingly gone off with Sochor and his brother that night. "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," the statement, provided by Gifford's brother, Bob Gifford, read. "Today marked the end of a legal process that lasted nearly half a century."

Final Appeals

The Florida Supreme Court denied Sochor's appeals last week. His attorneys had argued the state violated his right to a fair trial by failing to disclose a 2022 letter sent to his brother from a South Florida detective seeking information about the location of Gifford's remains. His legal team also argued the state's execution drugs would not effectively keep him sedated throughout the procedure. A final appeal remained pending before the U.S. Supreme Court at the time of his execution.

A Record for the State

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the state's previously oldest executed inmates were both 72 at the time of their deaths: Samuel Lee Smithers, put to death in October 2025 for the 1996 killings of two women, and R. Charlie Gifford (no relation to the victim in this case), executed in 1951 for the 1950 shooting of a state representative. Nationally, the oldest U.S. inmate executed in modern times was Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who was 83 when Alabama executed him in 2018 for a series of Southern mail bombings that killed a federal judge and a civil rights attorney in 1989.

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