Patty Gifford was 18 years old when she went out to celebrate New Year's Eve and never came home.
She trusted a stranger at a Fort Lauderdale bar – and he strangled her to death with his bare hands because she wouldn't have relations with him.
Now, 44 years later, Ron DeSantis just signed the death warrant that will finally put Dennis Sochor in the ground.
The Night Patty Gifford Never Came Home
It was New Year's Eve 1981 at the Banana Boat lounge near Fort Lauderdale.
Patty Gifford – 18 years old, blonde, wearing gold chains with heart-shaped charms – came out to celebrate with her friend because her boyfriend had to work.
Dennis Sochor and his brother Gary were already there, drinking, working the room.
Sochor spent hours trying to buy Patty drinks.
She kept saying no.
When Patty's friend got too drunk to drive, Patty helped get her settled in the car in the parking lot – and that's when Sochor moved in.
He offered to drive her to breakfast.
She got in the truck.
Sochor drove to a secluded spot, stopped the vehicle, and attacked her.
When Patty fought back, he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed until she stopped moving.
Then he dumped her body in a location he has never revealed – her remains have never been found in 44 years.
A Get-Out-of-Jail Head Start
Here's the detail that makes this case even more enraging.
Sochor hadn't just always been a bad guy – Florida had already caught him once.
In 1980, the year before he killed Patty, Sochor forced a 19-year-old woman out of a Fort Lauderdale cocktail lounge, took her somewhere she didn't want to go, and assaulted her repeatedly when she refused him.
The system sentenced him to a year in jail and five years probation.
He served five months.
Five months for assault – and 21 months later, Patty Gifford was dead.
https://twitter.com/FLDeathPenalty/status/2064810256329322923?s=20
After the murder, Sochor saw his photo on television from that New Year's Eve night and ran.
He dumped his employer's truck in Tampa, then put as much distance between himself and Florida as he could – New Orleans first, then Atlanta.
He lived free for five years.
Police finally caught him in 1986 – running a red light in Georgia.
At trial in 1987, the jury heard three taped confessions in Sochor's own voice – and sentenced him to death.
DeSantis Is Doing What Other Governors Refused to Do
Dennis Sochor sat on Florida's death row for 39 years while governors came and went and nobody moved.
Ron DeSantis ended that era.
Last year, DeSantis executed 19 Florida death row inmates – the highest total in any state since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.
Florida alone accounted for 40 percent of every execution carried out in the entire United States in 2025.
DeSantis explained it simply: "Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger."
He wasn't talking about politics.
He was talking about families who waited 30, 40 years for a system that kept finding reasons to delay.
https://twitter.com/STARING_KRYSTAL/status/2064807498280788217?s=20
Sochor is now scheduled to die by lethal injection on July 14 at Florida State Prison – the 11th death warrant DeSantis has signed this year alone.
While Democrats Protect Killers, DeSantis Protects Victims
The contrast couldn't be sharper.
While Democrats in blue states work overtime to abolish the death penalty, empty death rows, and rename every killer a "victim of systemic injustice," DeSantis is systematically closing a 44-year backlog of justice for real victims.
Patty Gifford had a boyfriend who loved her.
She had friends who watched her walk out of that bar and never saw her again.
Her body was never recovered – her family never got to bury her.
For 44 years, the man who did this to her ate three meals a day, slept in a bed, and breathed air he had no right to breathe.
That ends July 14.
The argument from death penalty opponents – that the system is too slow, too flawed, too expensive to justify – collapses entirely when you understand what DeSantis actually grasped.
The system wasn't broken because the death penalty existed.
The system was broken because governors refused to use it.
Florida just showed the rest of America what justice actually looks like when someone in charge has the spine to deliver it.
Sources:
- Jim Turner, "DeSantis signs death warrant for man who killed woman he met in Florida bar 44 years ago," News Service of Florida, June 11, 2026.
- Rafael Olmeda, "DeSantis signs death warrant for man convicted of killing 18-year-old woman," South Florida Sun Sentinel, June 11, 2026.
- "Florida set a record for executions in 2025. What to know," Yahoo News / Tampa Bay Times, December 2025.
- "Florida sets up a third execution in 2026 as state leads US death penalty surge," AP, January 30, 2026.
- "Dennis Sochor Florida Death Row," My Crime Library.
- "Patricia Marie Gifford," The Charley Project.
