RAIFORD, Fla. — Florida prison officials conducted a rare double execution on Tuesday, the first time since 1964 that two inmates were put to death in the state on the same day.
One of the inmates who died by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison was Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, who was executed at 6:13 p.m. ET. Earlier, former police officer James Aren Duckett, 68, was executed at 1:19 p.m. ET, prison officials said.
Occhicone was executed for the June 10, 1986, murder of the parents of his ex-girlfriend, Anita Gerrety, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. Gerrety had ended their three-year relationship, citing Occhicone’s temper, violence and acts of physical abuse.
Prosecutors said that Occhicone, who blamed Gerrety’s parents for the breakup, went to their home, cut the phone line and fatally shot Raymond Artzner in the face and killed Martha Artzner when he shot her four times, according to the newspaper.
In his final statement, Occhicone thanked his Christian brothers for visiting him over the years, WFLA reported. He also apologized to his own family for what he put them through, as well as the family of the victims.
“I know it don’t mean much, but I’m sorry,” Occhicone said. “I never meant to do what I did.”
Occhicone is the oldest prisoner executed since Florida began keeping records more than a century ago, WFLA reported. Nationally, Walter Moody was 83 when he was executed by lethal injection in Alabama in 2018, The Associated Press reported. He was put to death for sending mail bombs in 1989 that killed a federal judge and wounded a Black civil rights attorney
Duckett, who was a police officer in the Lake County city of Mascotte, was executed for the 1987 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee, the Lakeland Ledger reported.
Prosecutors said that McAbee was abducted by Duckett from a convenience store, where the girl had gone to buy a pencil, according to the newspaper. Her strangled, drowned body was found in a lake the next day.
Duckett was scheduled to be executed in March but won a reprieve from the Florida Supreme Court pending new DNA testing, USA Today reported. The tests were inconclusive and his reprieve expired on July 11.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant on July 14 to reschedule his execution, according to the newspaper.
“I’m glad all this is done,” McAbee’s mother, Dorthy Tula, told reporters, according to the Democrat. “I’ve been waiting 40 years to have him dead.”
Florida has executed 12 inmates this year, ABC News reported.
According to Florida’s archives, the youngest person executed in the state was a 15-year-old boy, the Democrat reported. He was executed in Volusia County in 1910 for the stabbing death of a 13-year-old girl.
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