Florida Breaking Recent Record, Executing Oldest Inmate In State History
Tonight, 74-year-old Dennis Sochor is set to die by lethal injection for the 1982 rape and murder of an 18-year-old girl he met on New Year’s Eve. Even though Sochor confessed to the crime, he never revealed where he left her body. To date, Patty Gifford’s body has never been found and the family has been tortured by that fact, in addition to waiting 44 years for Sochor’s execution. Still, there are many who believe it is cruel and unusual to execute elderly inmates, and this is just the second in a series of three executions in Florida that are setting records, each inmate older than the next. At the end of this month, Florida plans to execute an 80-year-old convicted murderer.
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Speaker 1: Hey, folks, it is Tuesday, July fourteenth, and it was just a couple of weeks ago that Florida executed the oldest inmate in that state's history. Tonight they're going to execute somebody even older. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. At seventy four year old on death row being executed. People have feelings about it, but well, we know how Florida feels.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Yes, because this is the second seventy four year old in a matter of weeks that Florida is set to execute. This This gentleman's name and I hate to even say gentlemen because when you hear what he's done, that probably wasn't the right term to use. Seventy four year old Dennis Soker is said to die tonight at six pm Eastern Time by lethal injection. And yes, he will officially be the oldest inmate ever to be executed in Florida because he will be exactly one week older than Dusty Ray Spencer, who was executed last month at the age of seventy four.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: The chances is that intentional do they go through and look for the oldest as that's clear the books here that it just seems like a bizarre coincidence that back to back oldest in history.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: And then add to that, later this month, in just a couple of weeks, they're going to beat their own record once again with an eighty year old death row inmate scheduled to be executed. So yes, three in a row, each one setting a record for being the oldest inmate ever executed in the state of Florida.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: And people are having that debate what is cruel and unusual? Is it cruel and unusual because of the age, because of the health problems, because of the skin, the difficulty in finding a vain, because of all these things rodes people have the question, do you execute an elderly person? Is that automatically cruel and unusual?
00:01:47
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: But the argument on the other side is, yeah, where he's still being punished for the crime he committed. Correct, it doesn't matter what. It doesn't lessen the impact of what he did, and it doesn't lessen the punishment just because he's aged by forty years.
00:02:03
Speaker 2: And some would say that it's been cruel and unusual to the family of their victims to have to wait forty plus years, and in this case, I believe it's forty four years for justice for their loved ones murder. And in this particular case with Dennis Soaker, his victim was an eighteen year old girl, her name was Patty Gifford, who was celebrating New Year's Eve on nineteen eighty one. So in the early hours of nineteen eighty two.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: So am I crazy? But why does this seem like we've had so many murders on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
00:02:33
Speaker 2: Maybe it's true, it's true. Maybe it's the drinking, maybe it's just the energy of that evening. But you are correct.
00:02:41
Speaker 3: We have absolutely.
00:02:42
Speaker 2: Covered several recently, some many of them called like old murders. We're talking years and years and years ago. But New Year's Eve has been a theme for sure. But when you hear what Soacer did to this young woman, I don't know, it definitely will impact how you feel about him dying tonight at the age of seventy four, and will also let you know what the family of Patty Gifford has to say about it, And they are very clear in how they feel about tonight's execution. But this, again, yes, happened in the early morning hours of nineteen eighty two. But this young woman was celebrating with her friend at a Fort Lauderdale bar at the Banana Boat. She was with another girlfriend. Her girlfriend wasn't feeling well, went back into her car to go to sleep and so to rest her to sleep it off. And so Patty was alone and had been in the same bar with yes then twenty nine year old Dennis Soker, who was there with his brother. And there's an eerie photo if you can look this up. There was an eerie photo of him behind her. She's almost taking a selfie back in the day in nineteen eighty one with her camera. She's smiling, she's got New Year's Eve gear on. She looks adorable. He is literally in the background like staring at her. And that photo, which was developed after her death, ultimately led them to find her killer. It took them five years, almost five years to find him and arrest him. But that photo was part. It was a key part of the evidence.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: It's so creepy and do I have right show it to me. It's creepy now would have been creepy in the moment if none of this had happened. It was a weird shot of him that didn't even look actually he didn't look menacing.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: But knowing what no, no now And at the time, when he's twenty nine years old in this bar flirting with this young woman, he was already a convicted serial rapist. It's actually we'll get into this too. It's actually appalling and disgusting that he was out, that he was free a year two years later after this heinous crime, that he was already just walking the streets, able to do what he does or do what he had been doing. But yees. She left with him to go grab some food, to get some breakfast, and so that is when he pulled off to the side of the road. He claims he got angry when she wouldn't have sex with him, so he raped her, strangled her, and dumped her body. But here's the deal. They never found her body, and there have been some accounts that he's refused to tell them. There have been other accounts that he was too drunk to remember. But at the end of the day, that's a huge part of this story because of the lack of closure for the family, and it's something he even used in his appeals later to say, hey, we don't even know if she's dead. Nogay didn't and hasn't worked. But ultimately he was arrested in Georgia in nineteen eighty six, so almost five years later, for a dui and that is when he was ultimately charged, tried, and convicted of first degree murder and kidnapping. Now he confessed on tape. And it's interesting is he still tried to fight to live. We always talk about this among death row inmates. Despite what they did, they always at the end want to live. But at his sentencing he told the judge, I have contemplated suicide. I felt that if I could hurt somebody, I don't deserve to live myself. So he told the judge, I deserve to die.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: This is not one where we're going to This happened one other in Florida where they didn't go through their appeals. It didn't fight it. I don't know worlds, We don't know much about him, but there's more to how it seems he's preparing robes for the end and he's not preparing to fight in the end like so many others do.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: That's right, So yes, the Florida Supreme Court denied his final appeal on July eighth. And look, I just also wanted to point out the violent history of this man, just to give a full picture of Dennis Soker. But as I mentioned, I referenced he was convicted of kidnapping, beating, and raping a nineteen year old woman in nineteen eighty Again, this crime happened on New Year's Eve of nineteen eighty one. Going into nineteen eighty two, he also confessed to raping another woman in Michigan, and all of that was taken into account when he was sentenced to death at his hearing. And that makes a lot of sense. But as you kind of we're referencing there, his spiritual advisor has been speaking out and talking about his conversations with Soker in the past few weeks.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: And look, Grobes, we I don't know, have you seen anywhere where he has he's in touch with family and visitors of his own family, right, Okay, no, not at all. There's something about that. In the end, I know, we I don't know. We all should have mercy for people.
00:07:25
Speaker 3: Robes.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: That the heinousness of some of this that's described, I mean, it makes you sick in the stomach. But where does mercy come in Robes, we're supposed to be better than he is, so we're not supposed to wish pain or harm or death even or discomfort. But or this, this something is just the solemnity of just death right, no matter if it's gone through a ceremony like this and doing it or going through the horror of the way he killed this girl. Just something about it. Robes is just that nobody just doesn't feel good on these days. But to hear all the moments that is where some of these guys like him his only I guess the only person that seems to care about him is a spiritual advisor, like the only person on earth he is getting any comfort from.
00:08:15
Speaker 3: That's tough.
00:08:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker 2: At his sentencing, I believe it was his siblings who did speak up about his violence upbringing and how horrific their father was to him, beating him, abusing him, and so he had a life of violence, Not that it excuses what he then chose to do with his own life towards other women. But his spiritual adviser told he gave a couple interviews and he said he has been encouraging Soker to think about where her body is before he dies, to encourage him to be able to maybe give that information to the family that they so desperately want before he dies. He said that he believes Socer is genuinely remorseful, and he said he discussed writing a letter to the Gifford family. He's encouraged him to do that to give something to the family because they've been just anguished for decades about where their loved one is. And he said he also has been discussing with him what his last words will be. So that'll be interesting tonight because it sounds as if there's been real thought given to what his final words.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: Will be used to that.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: I've not heard that before.
00:09:25
Speaker 3: Usually they're off the cuff.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: And they're short and sweet and not a whole lot of thoughts seemingly put into them. He got my attention on this one.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we will be waiting to hear about that when we get the details of tonight's scheduled execution again at six pm. But when we come back, we are going to tell you what Patty Gifford's family has to say about tonight and how they feel about Dennis Soker. Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ or the oldest man ever in the state of Florida is set to be executed Tonight's seventy four year old Dennis Soaker, convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering an eighteen year old girl her name was Patty Gifford, on the early morning hours of New Year's Day on nineteen in nineteen eighty two. So this is forty four years that Patty Gifford's family has had to wait to see this day. And they say they will all be there tonight at this execution.
00:10:32
Speaker 1: Did I I'm johnas when was his to think they've waited this long?
00:10:37
Speaker 2: He was convicted or sentenced to death in nineteen eighty seven. I mean it took a long time for justice, even on that level.
00:10:44
Speaker 3: But my god, forty years.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: Forty years on death row, forty years on death row.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: If you got a problem with the death penalty, and this would be my biggest problem with it takes too damn long, right, if you want to keep it and want to be legal, it takes to them long. I might say, I'm not in an avoc I'm not pushing for I think we got too many problems with it. If you want to get rid of the death penalty. I would support that, but if you're going to keep it, what fan force it forty four years? Yes, it's the death of their loved one. We got to wait for what you all told us is justice.
00:11:14
Speaker 2: Obviously members of her family have died. Her sister has been very outspoken, and she also tells this tale about this is and he plans to be here tonight. But Gifferd's sisters said that her high school, her sister's high school sweetheart. I mean they were madly in love. They were going to get married, and you think back in nineteen eighty one, that was that was the track for most.
00:11:33
Speaker 3: Folks, right.
00:11:34
Speaker 2: He never got over her death. I got chills, and he never married anyone. He is single to this day because he said his heart is still with Patty. That just gives you a sense of the impact of this awful, horrific night that left so many people broke. And she says her family can never celebrate on New Year's Eve. I mean, think about that, everyone's celebrating, everyone's partying. That's the night that someone horrifically, horrifically raise and murdered your sister, your loved one. That she said, New Year's eve is just an awful and will always remain an awful night for all of them. I just to give that level of pain that never goes away. That's what this family has been living with. But her sister said this, I expect to sleep like a baby tomorrow night for the first time in decades. She gave this interview yesterday.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Good car and yep, rhaps that's punt. That's cruel and on usual. Forty four years an entire lifetime. And again this happens in Florida. They have the look the appeals process they have to go through all this, and they have one there in Florida that takes.
00:12:36
Speaker 3: A long long time. Fine the ropes.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: The Santis is trying to clear these roles, and some of them are now finally through their appeals process, moving up to the front of the front of the list romes. They have a bunch of people over eighty on death row in Florida.
00:12:51
Speaker 3: We might see a lot of this this year.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I believe we will, because that is what DeSantis has said he is going to do. And for many of these victims family, it's what they've been waiting for. Some of them haven't lived to see the day and I think that's sad because if you're going to have the punishment, and again this is not about us being pro death penalty, in fact, quite the opposite. But if you're going to have this be the punishment for those families who are expecting that closure, to not get it and to have to wait for so long seems torturous to those families. And I just this stuck with me. Her quote and what they want more than anything, Yes, they want to see him die tonight, but more than anything, they want to know where Patty Gifford is. And when he dies, it absolutely seals the faith for them that they will never know.
00:13:35
Speaker 3: Any chance he gives that to him tonight.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: It's possible, or even in a letter that he may have been writing, maybe tonight that is perhaps the hope. Because her sister said this, it's unfinished. Where is she? What did he do to her? Where did he leave her? It just matters. It matters so much to us because yes, you can hear I guess what happened in court, they can speculate how she died. But if you don't have the body, and you don't have the forensic evidence, and you don't know where her final resting place is there will always be questions, and so that is one of the sad things for the family that if he goes to his death without giving them that information, it will never be known.
00:14:16
Speaker 1: He's putting a plan together. Can you imagine how dramatic would that be, Ropes? If he used his last breath to give the family that, it.
00:14:23
Speaker 2: Would be remarkable. It would be a gift actually at that moment, and that's pretty much the only gift he can give them. I don't think I'm sorry is going to be enough at this point, because he's still holding on to information that they desperately want to know. So we shall see what happens in that execution chamber tonight at six pm Eastern time in the state of Florida, making history once again and without everyone. We always appreciate you listening to us. I maybe roboch alongside TJ.
00:14:51
Speaker 3: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
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