Dennis Sochol was executed by lethal injection in 1982 for the murder of 18-year-old Patti Gifford, who was raped and strangled. Her body was never found, but her family still hopes to put her to rest.
Dennis Socho appeals alleging brutality of Florida’s execution method
Dennis Sochol’s appeal argues that Florida’s lethal injection law causes “severe air starvation” and violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Florida has executed a death row inmate who murdered an 18-year-old woman celebrating New Year’s Eve more than 44 years ago.
Dennis Socholl, 74, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, July 14, for the 1982 rape and murder of 18-year-old Patti Gifford in Fort Lauderdale, making him the oldest inmate in state history.
According to the Associated Press, Sochol’s last words before her death were that she “deeply regretted” her actions and that she had given her soul to Jesus Christ.
Sokol was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. ET, becoming the 10th inmate executed in Florida this year. He is also one of three elderly Florida inmates scheduled to be put to death within a month, as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to carry out executions at a record pace in the Sunshine State.
Patti Gifford’s family has waited more than 40 years for what they consider justice. After so many years, Gifford’s grieving mother is no longer with us.
“This day does not bring Patty back, nor does it erase the 44 years our family spent without her,” the family said in a statement after the execution. “She was our sister, our daughter, our friend, and our beloved. We hope that we will remember Patty not for the cruelty of her death, but for the beauty and worth of her life.”
Here’s what you need to know about executions, crimes, and Patti Gifford.
What was Dennis Sochol convicted of?
On December 31, 1981, 18-year-old Patti Gifford and her friend, 22-year-old Delta Harville, went to Fort Lauderdale’s Banana Boat Bar to ring in the New Year. Socheol and his brother were also there.
Sochol, then 29, was wanted for a rape he confessed to in his home state of Michigan in 1979 and was convicted of raping a 19-year-old woman in Florida in 1980. He was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for five years, according to archived news reports.
Patricia Bowman, a bartender working at the Banana Boat that night, testified that Gifford and Harville, both fitness-minded aerobics instructors, had only had a few glasses of champagne, according to archival reporting in the Miami Herald. By midnight, Gifford was drinking iced tea.
Witnesses reported seeing Sochol staring at Gifford throughout the night, standing close to her, trying to buy her a drink and lavishing her with compliments, according to archived Fort Lauderdale News reports. Gifford tried to brush him off, Harville later told investigators.
Shortly after midnight, Harville began to feel unwell. Gifford walked her to her car and told her he would be back. Ms. Harville fell asleep and when she woke up around 5:30 a.m., she was still alone in the car and there was no sign of Ms. Gifford. Harville later told investigators he thought he had been drugged, according to archived news reports.
At first, investigators had no idea what happened to Gifford. However, when Harville examines the photo he took at the bar that night, he finds one with So-cheol lurking in the background. That photo became the key to solving her murder case.
Sochol fled the state after the photo was published. Authorities searched for her brother, who told investigators that Gifford had agreed to go to breakfast with the men in the early hours of January 1, 1982. The brother told police he struck Gifford while driving and then began raping her on the side of the road, court documents said.
He told investigators he tried to intervene by throwing rocks at Sochol, but his brother’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he looked like he was “possessed by the devil,” according to court records. He later changed his account and said he did not witness the rape, according to archived news reports.
In May 1986, more than four years after the incident, Sochol was arrested by Georgia authorities on suspicion of driving under the influence. When Gifford refused her advances, he confessed to raping her, strangling her, and abandoning her body in a secluded area without her brother. He later recanted and said he blamed his brother, who was not charged in the case, for the fall.
In 1987, a jury convicted Sochol of kidnapping and murdering Gifford. They recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote, and the justices agreed.
Patti Gifford’s body has not yet been found. Her family continues to hope that she will recover. Her sister, Marilyn Gifford, told the Sun Sentinel this week: “We wish we could have sent her home…We just want to put her to sleep.”
Who is Patti Gifford?
At 18 years old, Patricia “Patti” Marie Gifford was just getting started in life. According to archived news reports, she was a vibrant, beautiful young woman who worked as an aerobics instructor, had a long-term boyfriend, and loved her family dearly.
Her grieving brother, Bobby Gifford, couldn’t forgive her body being left out in the elements and not properly laid to rest. He spent three months searching for his sister, according to an archived article in the Fort Lauderdale News.
“This is really terrible,” he told the newspaper in 1983. “We’d sit around the dinner table and talk about her, and then I’d think, ‘Why didn’t I just talk to her about moving to Fort Lauderdale?'”
Gifford’s four children grew up in eastern Massachusetts, and Patti Gifford moved to Fort Lauderdale with her high school sweetheart just three months before the murder.
The Giffords had to wait nearly five years for their arrest and 44 years for their execution. According to the Sun Sentinel, Patti Gifford’s late mother, Barbara Ryan, sobbed in court when Sochol was found guilty of killing her daughter.
“I feel relieved,” she told the outlet. “You can’t imagine how devastated our family was.”
After Sochol’s execution, Gifford’s family said in a statement that Sochol was “full of life and deeply loved by her family and friends.”
“Sochol’s conviction and sentence in 1987 provided our family with a measure of justice, comfort and closure, knowing he was never free to harm another woman again,” they said. “When he confessed in 1987 and led detectives to the Alligator Alley area to locate Patty, we also came to understand that her body would likely never be recovered.”
Who is Dennis Sochol?
At his 1987 sentencing hearing, Sochol’s parents, brother and sister each begged for his life to be spared, saying he was the victim of an extremely violent childhood in Michigan and did not deserve to die, according to archived reports from the Miami Herald.
Both of his siblings recalled that their father beat Socheol relentlessly, and that their mother described herself as abusive. “I treated him badly,” she told jurors, the Herald reported.
At the same hearing, Sochol told the judge that he deserved death.
“There were times when I thought about suicide,” he said. “I felt like if I could hurt someone, I didn’t deserve to live.”
At the same hearing, Sochol’s violent nature toward women was revealed, and jurors heard how he was convicted of kidnapping, repeatedly assaulting and raping a 19-year-old woman in Florida in 1980. Jurors also heard a recorded confession from Sochol in which he admitted to raping another woman in Michigan and said he sometimes has sex with others and loses control, the Miami Herald reported.
“I just thought it was like a plane jump,” he told a Michigan detective. “I had no feelings, no emotions. At that point, I didn’t exist.”
Sochol’s ex-wife, who had been married for less than two years, told the jury that if he wanted sex, “he understood that. If he didn’t, he would be violent.”
“Denny’s eyes became misty and angry. Denny had a very bad temper,” she said.
Sochul repeatedly appealed his death sentence over the years. Most recently, a lawsuit argued that Florida’s lethal injection law constitutes unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment because it can cause undue pain and the sensation of drowning. Instead, Socheol wanted to be executed by firing squad. On July 8, the Florida Supreme Court rejected his argument as “without merit.”
When is the next execution?
The next execution in the United States is scheduled for July 28th, when Dominic Anthony Occhicone Jr. is executed in Florida. Otschkorn, 80, is scheduled to become the second-oldest person ever executed in the United States.
He was sentenced to death in 1986 for shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend’s elderly parents, Raymond and Martha Artzner.
Last month, 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer became the oldest executioner in Florida’s recorded history when he was sentenced to death on June 25 for the brutal 1992 murder of his wife in front of their teenage son. He was born less than two weeks later than Sochol, but Sochol lived 19 days longer.
Contributor: CA Bridges, USA TODAY Network – Florida
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering the death penalty, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow @amandaleeusat on X.
