A 74-year-old man is set to become the oldest inmate executed in Florida history after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal Tuesday, clearing the way for his execution.
Dennis Sochor was found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping after 18-year-old Patricia Gifford refused to have sex with him on Jan. 1, 1982. He has been on death row since the 1980s and will be executed Tuesday after the Supreme Court denied his appeal.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, without comment, denied Sochor’s request for a stay of execution and rejected his petition for review, allowing the execution to move forward as scheduled.
Sochor will be executed through a three-drug injection scheduled to start at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Bradford County.
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Sochor was with his brother when he met Gifford as she was celebrating on New Year’s Day at a bar in the Fort Lauderdale area, according to Fox 13.
The group talked through the night, but Gifford left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast. Sochor drove his truck to a secluded area and asked Gifford if she wanted to have sex, and she refused. Sochor then attacked the teenager, according to investigators.
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Sochor was arrested in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida, where he confessed to choking Gifford and disposing of her body.
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His brother told authorities Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and her body was never found.
In 1987, a jury convicted Sochor of first-degree murder and kidnapping, and he was sentenced to death.
While Sochor will be the oldest inmate in Florida to be executed, an 80-year-old prisoner is scheduled to be executed later in July.
Fox News’ Bill Mears contributed to this report.
