‘Her life was never lost to us.’ Broward teen’s killer executed 44 years later

More than four decades after 18-year-old Patricia “Patty” Gifford was raped and murdered, her killer took his final breath — without divulging where he placed her body when he tried to conceal his depraved crime.

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Dennis Sochor, 74, was executed by lethal injection at 6:16 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Raiford, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. Sochor declined a last meal and met with a spiritual adviser and a visitor before his execution, according to reports.

“This day did not bring Patty back, and it does not erase the 44 years our family has lived without her,” Gifford’s family said in a statement on Tuesday. “Patty was 18 years old, full of life, and deeply loved by her family and friends.”

In 1987, jurors convicted Sochor of the kidnapping, rape and first-degree murder of Gifford, who had moved to Fort Lauderdale from Massachusetts in 1981, months before she was killed. In a 10-2 vote, the jury recommended that Sochor be executed.

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Sochor is one of the oldest Death Row inmates to be executed in Florida’s recent history. Last month, Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, died by lethal injection for the 1992 fatal stabbing of his wife near Orlando. Dominick Occhicone, 80, is set to be executed on July 28 for the 1986 murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents in Pasco County.

‘Dennis Sochor did it’

On New Year’s Day 1982, Sochor, a swimming-pool cleaner, came across Gifford at the then-Banana Boat lounge, located at 2650 State Road 84 near Hollywood. He helped Gifford move her ill friend into her car to rest, and Gifford ultimately got in Sochor’s car, according to the Miami Herald’s archives.

Gifford, an aerobics instructor, went to the bar with a coworker for a girls’ night out, the family said in the statement. Her high-school sweetheart, Johnny Vasel, a chef with whom Gifford had relocated to Fort Lauderdale, was working a holiday dinner shift that day.

The evidence presented during the trial, Gifford’s family said in the statement, showed that Gifford did not willingly go off with Sochor and his brother Gary Sochor that night. Sochor had repeated unwanted interactions with Gifford and her friend, according to witnesses.

“Patty was loyal, protective, and responsible,” the family’s statement said. “The idea that she casually left her unconscious friend alone in a car to go off with the men who had been harassing them that night is unthinkable to us. It is unfair to Patty and Johnny, and deeply hurtful to everyone who knew and loved them.”

Gifford was never seen again because, prosecutors say, Sochor raped and killed her at the side of a deserted road.

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During Sochor’s trial, prosecutors presented evidence tying Sochor to Gifford’s disappearance and murder: They showed jurors a photo of Gifford celebrating New Year’s Eve at the lounge, according to the archives. Gifford was holding a glass of iced tea, with Sochor looking over her shoulder.

The jury also heard Sochor, in a taped confession, admit that he pursued Gifford, lured her into his truck and drove her to a remote construction site, where he sexually assaulted Gifford, beat her and strangled her.

Sochor’s brother, Gary Sochor, testified that he was with Sochor when he invited Gifford to hop into his truck, pulled over and dragged Gifford to the ground, according to the archives. Gary Sochor said he didn’t help Gifford because he was drunk and scared of Sochor. Gary Sochor was never charged with a crime.

Sochor fled Florida after the murder and remained on the run until a traffic stop in Georgia four-and-a-half years later.

At the time of Gifford’s murder, Sochor had been convicted twice for sexual assaults. However, he had changed his name, which allowed him to remain free on probation.

“There’s no question as to his guilt,” prosecutor Kelly Hancock told the Herald last week. “Dennis Sochor did it.”

Hancock, who attended Sochor’s execution, said the killer destroyed Gifford’s family and robbed Gifford of the opportunity to live a life. He pointed out how Gifford would have been 62 this year and would’ve likely been bracing herself for retirement and grandchildren.

“Life is so precious …,” Hancock said. “And if someone takes that precious gift from someone in such a violent and vicious matter, they forfeit [it]. We will never know what [Gifford] would have accomplished, achieved in her life because of what he chose to do.”

In the statement, Gifford’s family said Sochor’s conviction and death sentence gave them “a measure of justice, consolation, and closure” because Sochor could never hurt another woman. But the family members said they “came to understand that [Gifford’s] remains would likely never be recovered” despite Sochor once leading detectives to an area in Alligator Alley.

“Today marked the end of a legal process that lasted nearly half a century,” the family said in the statement. “Patty’s remains were never recovered, but her life was never lost to us. She was our sister, our daughter, our friend, and she mattered. We ask that Patty be remembered not by the brutality of her death, but by the beauty and value of her life.”

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