Dennis Sochor was executed by lethal injection for the 1982 murder of 18-year-old Patty Gifford, who was raped and strangled. Her body was never found but her family still hopes to lay her to rest.Show Caption
Florida has executed a death row inmate for the murder of an 18-year-old woman who was killed while out celebrating New Year’s Eve more than 44 years ago.Dennis Sochor, 74, became the oldest inmate executed in state history when he was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday, July 14, for the 1982 rape and murder of 18-year-old Patty Gifford in Fort Lauderdale.Socor, who was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. ET, became the 10th inmate executed in Florida this year. He's also one of three elderly inmates set to be executed in Florida in a month as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues a record pace of executions in the Sunshine State.Patty Gifford's family has waited almost 45 years for what they see as justice. It's been so long that Gifford's heartbroken mother is no longer alive to see the day.Here's what you need to know about the execution, the crime and who Patty Gifford was.What was Dennis Sochor convicted of?On Dec. 31, 1981, 18-year-old Patty Gifford and her friend, 22-year-old Delta Harville, went to the Banana Boat bar in Fort Lauderdale to ring in the new year. Sochor and his brother also were there.Sochor, then 29, was wanted for a rape he had confessed to in his home state of Michigan in 1979, and he had been convicted of raping a 19-year-old Florida woman in 1980. He was sentenced to one year in prison and five years of probation, according to archived news reports.Patricia Borman, a bartender working at the Banana Boat that night, testified that Gifford and Harville were aerobics instructors who cared about fitness, so they only drank a few glasses of Champagne, according to an archived news report in the Miami Herald. By midnight, Gifford was drinking iced tea.Witnesses reported seeing Sochor staring at Gifford throughout the night, standing close to her, trying to buy her drinks, and lavishing compliments on her, according to an archived report in the Fort Lauderdale News. Gifford tried to brush him off, Harville later told investigators.Shortly after midnight, Harville didn't feel well. Gifford walked her to her car and told her she'd be back. Harville fell asleep, and when she woke around 5:30 a.m., she was still alone in the car and there was no sign of Gifford. Harville later told investigators that she thought she had been drugged, archived news reports say.Initially, investigators had no idea what had happened to Gifford. But when they went through the photos that Harville took in the bar that night, they found one with Sochor lurking in the background. The photo became the key to solving her murder.Sochor fled the state after the photo became public. Authorities tracked down his brother, who told investigators that Gifford had agreed to go with the men to breakfast in the early hours of Jan. 1, 1982. He told them that his brother attacked Gifford as they were driving and then began raping her by the side of the road, court documents say.He told investigators that he tried to intervene by throwing a rock at Sochor, but that his brother's eyes had rolled in the back of his head and it looked like he "was possessed by the devil," court records say. He later changed his account and said he didn't witness the rape, according to archived news reports.Sochor was arrested in May 1986, more than four years after the murder, when Georgia authorities stopped him on suspicion of drunk driving. He confessed to raping and strangling Gifford when she refused his advances and then dumping her body in a secluded place without his brother. He has since taken that back, saying that he took the fall for his brother, who was not charged in the case.In 1987, a jury convicted Sochor of kidnapping and murdering Gifford. They recommended the death penalty in a 10-2 vote, and a judge agreed.Patty Gifford's body has never been found. Her family continues to hope that she will be recovered. Her sister, Marilyn Gifford, told the Sun Sentinel this week: "I wish we had her home ... We want to lay her to rest."Who was Patty Gifford?At 18, Patricia "Patty" Marie Gifford was just getting started in life. She was a vibrant, beautiful young woman who was working as an aerobics instructor, had a longtime boyfriend and dearly loved her family, according to archived news reports.Her grieving brother, Bobby Gifford, couldn't stand that her body was left out in the elements somewhere, never to be properly laid to rest. He spent three months looking for his younger sister, according to an archived story in the Fort Lauderdale News."This has been such a horrible thing to deal with," he told the newspaper in 1983. "We'll sit around the dinner table, talking about her, and then I think to myself, 'Why didn't I try to talk her out of moving down to Fort Lauderdale?'"The four Gifford children had grown up in eastern Massachusetts, and Patty Gifford moved to Fort Lauderdale with her high school sweetheart just three months before her murder.The Gifford family had to wait for nearly five years for an arrest and now 44 years for the execution. Patty Gifford's late mother, Barbara Ryan, sobbed in court when Sochor was found guilty of murdering her daughter, according to the Sun Sentinel."It's a feeling of relief," she told the outlet. "You just can't imagine how devastated our family has been."In 2022, Gifford's sister, Marilyn Gifford, told the Sun Sentinel that she still can't celebrate New Year's because of what happened to her sister and that some of her family can't even say her name now because it's too painful."When somebody dies this way and you have no closure, and you don't get to say goodbye and there is no funeral − it never stops hurting," she told the newspaper. "You are immediately crushed by the horrific way she exited the planet and our entire family."Who was Dennis Sochor?Sochor's parents, brother, and sister each begged for his life to be spared at his sentencing hearing in 1987, saying that he was the victim of an extremely violent childhood back in Michigan and didn't deserve to die, according to an archived report in the Miami Herald.Both his siblings recalled how their father relentlessly beat Sochor, and his mother described herself as abusive. "I treated him horribly," she told jurors, the Herald reported.At the same hearing, Sochor told the judge that he deserved to die."I have contemplated suicide," he said. "I felt that if I could hurt somebody, I don't deserve to live myself."At the same hearing, Sochor's violent nature toward women came to light, with jurors hearing about how he was convicted of kidnapping a 19-year-old Florida woman and beating and raping her repeatedly in 1980. They also heard a taped confession of Sochor admitting to raping another woman in Michigan, saying that sometimes he wants to have sex so badly that he loses control, the Miami Herald reported."All I can relate it to was like an airplane jump," he told a Michigan detective. "There was no feeling, no emotion. At that point, I wasn't existing."Sochor's ex-wife, who was married to him for less than two years, told jurors that if he wanted sex, "he got it, because he would get violent if he didn't."She said: "His eyes would glaze over, and he'd get wild. Denny's temper was very violent."Sochor appealed his death sentence repeatedly over the years. Most recently he argued that Florida's lethal injection method amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment because it could cause excessive pain and a sensation that feels like drowning. Instead, Sochor wanted to be executed by firing squad. The Florida Supreme Court rejected his arguments on July 8 as "meritless."When is the next execution?The next execution in the U.S. will be that of Dominick Anthony Occhicone, Jr. in Florida on July 28. Occhicone, 80, is set to become the second oldest person ever to be executed in the U.S.He's being executed for the 1986 shooting deaths of Raymond and Martha Artzner, the elderly parents of his ex-girlfriend.Last month, 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer became the oldest person executed in recorded Florida history when he was put to death on June 25 for the brutal 1992 murder of his wife in front of her teenage son. He was born a little less than two weeks before Sochor, but Sochor also lived 19 days longer.Contributing: C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network - Florida Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the death penalty, cold cases, and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
