Florida’s Oldest Death Row Inmate Faced a Little-Known Final Meal Policy Before Execution

The execution of Dennis Sochor on July 15 marked the end of one of the longest-running death penalty cases in Florida’s modern history. After spending nearly four decades on death row, the 74-year-old inmate was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, becoming the oldest prisoner ever put to death in the state.

His execution closed a legal case that had stretched across multiple generations, involved decades of appeals, and remained connected to the disappearance and death of 18-year-old Patty Gifford, whose body has never been recovered.