The family of an 18-year-old woman, tragically murdered after a New Year’s Eve celebration, revealed that the man responsible took the truth about her missing body to his grave. This revelation comes after his execution in Florida.
On Tuesday, 74-year-old Dennis Sochor was executed for the murder of Patricia Gifford, which occurred on January 1, 1982, just hours after their initial meeting. The execution, which involved a three-drug lethal injection, was carried out at Florida State Prison, with Sochor declared dead at 6:16 p.m.
Patricia’s sister, Marilyn Gifford, who witnessed the execution, expressed that while it provided the family with some closure, the absence of Patricia’s remains left it bittersweet.
Reading from a prepared statement, Gifford remarked, “For 45 years, he could have returned Patty’s remains to us, but instead, he cruelly chose to withhold them.”
“We were never able to lay her to rest in God’s arms,” she continued. “Without the closure we needed, every fond memory of Patty is swiftly overshadowed by the tragedy of her untimely death.”
Gifford also pointed out that Sochor spent more than twice as many years on death row as her sister was alive.
‘Tonight´s execution was appropriate because Dennis Sochor was a lifelong brutal and sadistic man,’ she said.
The mystery surrounding Patricia’s body has remained unresolved for 44 years, with her sister telling the South Florida Sun Sentinel before his execution: ‘Even with the death penalty, he lived twice as long on death row as Patty ever lived at all.’
Dennis Sochor, 74, was executed Tuesday at Florida State Prison. He was pronounced dead at 6.16pm after receiving a three-drug lethal injection
Sochor was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on January 1, 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year´s Eve party
The killer’s own brother testified that Sochor, who was 29 at the time, raped and killed Patricia before hiding her body.
‘He has, multiple times, told law enforcement, and also told me, that he was too drunk to remember where the body is,’ Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty advocate who has met with Sochor as a spiritual adviser, told the outlet.
‘He has been unable to remember,’ he added. ‘He wants people to know that if he could help locate the body, he, of course, would.’
Sochor’s brother Gary also testified under oath that he believed Sochor was ‘demon-possessed’ when he attacked and raped Patricia and said he didn’t know where her body was.
In an interview with the Sun Sentinel earlier this month, Patricia’s sister questioned the sincerity of Sochor’s claims that he wanted to help police find her body.
‘I don’t believe him for a second,’ Marilyn told the outlet.
She said his supposed willingness to help was strikingly similar to his brother’s own efforts after Sochor was arrested and charged with murder in 1986.
‘He knows damn well where she is,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe him for a second. He’s a liar. He’s a murderer. He’s a brutal killer whose word cannot be trusted.’
In Sochor’s final statement, he repeatedly apologized to the Gifford family, saying he was ‘deeply sorry’ and expressed gratitude to his own loved ones for standing by him
Marilyn said Sochor’s death meant the secret her sister’s remains would die with him, leaving her family without the answers they had spent decades waiting for.
With an IV in his arm and strapped to a gurney, Sochor watched as the curtain to the death chamber opened. Asked by the warden if he had any last words, he answered that he did.
In his final statement, he repeatedly apologized to the Gifford family, saying he was ‘deeply sorry’ and expressed gratitude to his own loved ones for standing by him.
He then commended his spirit to Jesus Christ shortly before the lethal drugs began flowing at 6.03pm. Sochor breathed heavily for roughly a minute and briefly sputtered before becoming still.
After about two minutes without movement, the warden looked into his eyes, shook his shoulders and called his name. A medic was then summoned, and Sochor was officially pronounced dead.
Patricia was celebrating the New Year with a friend at the Banana Boat lounge in Fort Lauderdale when she met Sochor and his brother.
She was later supposed to meet her boyfriend, chef Johnny Vasel, who was working a nearby hotel party, according to the Sun Sentinel.
The group spent hours talking before Patricia’s friend became ill and went to sleep in her car. Investigators said she then left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast, but he instead drove to a secluded area and attacked her.
According to authorities, his brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor later confessed on tape to choking her and disposing of her body.
In 1986, Sochor was arrested in Georgia on unrelated charges and later extradited to Florida. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, sending him to death row.
His last legal challenge ended Tuesday when the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal without comment.
Florida executed another 74-year-old inmate just last month, only a week younger than Sochor. Now, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old later this month, a first for Florida.
The back-to-back executions highlight the growing age of death row inmates and Florida’s unusually active death chamber. The state has carried out 10 of the 16 executions nationwide this year – more than every other state combined.
It remains unclear why the Sunshine State scheduled the three executions within the span of a month.
Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Florida’s governor has broad authority to set execution dates, while courts typically handle that role in many other states.
On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer for the killing of his wife, Karen. Until Tuesday’s execution, Spencer was the oldest inmate put to death in the state.
Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed on July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant late last month.
Occhicone was sentenced to death in 1987 for fatally shooting Raymond and Martha Artzner at their home, just months after their daughter called off the engagement.
Florida executed another 74-year-old inmate last month, only a week younger than Sochor. Now, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old later this month
His legal team filed a motion in Pasco County last week in an attempt to stop his execution, arguing that his advanced age and poor health should spare him, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
They argued that, over the past 39 years, Occhicone has rarely slept more than three hours at a time each night and now suffers from poor vision and hearing loss, requiring the use of a hearing aid.
According to court documents, he has declining renal function, kidney disease and cysts on one of his kidneys. His attorneys also claimed that their client has a blocked artery and suffers from irregular heart rhythms.
His defense argued that carrying out executions places a significant mental burden on prison staff, urging the judge to impose a six-month moratorium on all state executions.
If executed as scheduled, Occhicone would become the second-oldest person executed in modern US history, behind Walter Moody Jr, who was put to death in Alabama in 2018 at age 83 for killing a federal judge and a black civil rights attorney in mail bomb attacks.