Florida is set to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out a double execution in one day with the lethal injections of a child murderer and an octogenarian.
Former police officer James Duckett, 68, died by lethal injection at 1.19 p.m. Tuesday at Florida state prison near Starke for raping and drowning an 11-year-old girl in 1987.
The execution of Dominick Occhicone, 80, a murderer convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986 is scheduled for 6 p.m.
If he is put to death, Occhione will become the oldest death row inmate ever executed in Florida –– and the second oldest prisoner known to have been put to death in modern US history.
Earlier this month, Dennis Sochor became the eldest inmate executed in Florida when he was put to death for killing a woman he met at a New Year’s Eve party in the first hours of 1982.
The oldest prisoner known to have been executed in US history is Walter Moody Jr., who was put to death aged 83 in Alabama in 2018.
Moody was convicted over a mail bomb campaign in 1989 that killed a federal judge and a civil rights attorney.
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