A 68-year-old former police officer, James Aren Duckett, was executed in Florida for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in 1987. Duckett, the 11th inmate to be executed by the state in 2026, chose not to make a final statement before his death by lethal injection at the Florida state prison near Starke.
Following Duckett’s execution, 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone was also executed at the same prison, marking the state’s first same-day double execution in over 60 years. Occhicone was put to death for the 1986 double murder of Raymond and Martha Artzner, the parents of his ex-girlfriend, Anita Gerrety.
In June 1986, Occhicone went to his ex-girlfriend’s parents’ home in Pasco County to reconcile, but after a confrontation, he shot Raymond and fatally wounded Martha. Despite Occhicone’s claims of no premeditation, he was sentenced to death and remained on death row until his execution.
After the Florida Supreme Court rejected his final appeals, Occhicone became the oldest person executed in modern Florida history and the second-oldest in the US. His execution, six hours after Duckett’s, marked Florida’s first double execution day since 1964.
Governor Ron DeSantis has increased the pace of executions in Florida, making the state’s death chamber the busiest in the US. The rise in executions in Florida contrasts with the nationwide decline in the use of the death penalty over the past two decades. Since 2025, Florida has accounted for nearly half of all state executions in the US.
