Florida has taken the ‘incredibly rare’ step of executing two prisoners on the very same day.
Former police officer James Duckett, 68, and Dominick Occhicone, 80, both died at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday.
The two men were put to death by lethal injection just five hours apart, becoming the 11th and 12th people executed by the state this year.
Duckett was convicted of the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. Occhicone received the death penalty for murdering his former fiancée’s parents, Raymond and Martha Artzner, in 1986.
‘Two executions in a day is incredibly rare,’ Robin Maher, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told The Guardian.
The last time it happened was in Arkansas in 2017, when two men were put to death three hours apart.
Florida hasn’t explained why both were scheduled for the same day.
Duckett was the first to die, following a final meal of eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits and chocolate milk. He gave no last statement and was pronounced dead at 1.19pm.
His victim, Teresa, disappeared after leaving her home in Mascotte to buy a pencil for her maths homework on May 11, 1987.
Duckett, one of the small town’s two police officers, found her outside the shop after curfew and placed her in his patrol car. He later claimed he gave her a lecture and let her go. Her body was found in a lake the next morning.
An autopsy found Teresa had been raped, strangled and drowned. A jury convicted Duckett of her murder and recommended that he receive the death penalty by eight votes to four.
At his trial, an FBI analyst said a hair found on Teresa’s underwear was nearly identical to Duckett’s. A jailhouse informant also claimed she saw him drive away with the girl.
The analyst was later discredited after giving false information and misleading evidence in other cases. The informant also recanted her statement, while Duckett continued to maintain his innocence.
Duckett sought DNA testing for years. Further tests were carried out after Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant, but the results were inconclusive and the Florida Supreme Court refused to halt the execution.
His lawyers made one final attempt to delay it hours before he was due to die.
They asked the US Supreme Court to allow additional testing of Teresa’s clothes, swabs and material taken from beneath her fingernails. Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the appeal without comment.
A spiritual adviser sat beside Duckett reading from a prayer book as the lethal injection was administered. Prison officials pronounced him dead shortly afterwards.
35 people watched, including relatives of 15-year-old Jeanifer Weldon, whose unsolved murder had previously been linked to Duckett.
He was never charged in connection with her death. Her relatives said the execution gave them some closure.
Teresa’s mother, Dorthy Tula, said: ‘I waited nearly 40 years to have him dead.’ The girl’s cousin, Tracy Mcfall-Buskirk, added: ‘This man took advantage of his badge.’
Five hours later, Occhicone was strapped to the same death chamber gurney.
He had been convicted of killing the Artzners after their daughter, Anita Gerrety, ended her engagement to him. She testified that he had threatened her and her family.
Authorities said Occhicone went to the family’s home armed during the early hours of June 10, 1986. He disabled the phone line and returned after Gerrety told him to leave.
Her father, Raymond, went outside carrying a broomstick and ordered Occhicone to go.
Gerrety said her former fiancé grinned at her before she saw a ‘flash of fire’ and her father fell. As she escaped with her daughter, Occhicone broke into the house and shot Martha four times.
His lawyers argued that alcohol abuse and his distressed mental state left him incapable of forming an intent to kill. A jury nevertheless recommended the death penalty by seven votes to five.
Florida law has since changed and now requires at least eight jurors to support a death sentence. That didn’t alter Occhicone’s punishment, though.
He ate eggplant parmesan, salad, garlic bread and Pepsi for his final meal.
With a spiritual adviser praying beside him, Occhicone apologised to his victims ‘for the hurt I caused them’. He added: ‘I know it don’t mean much, but I’m sorry. I never meant to do what I did.’
80-year-old Occhicone was pronounced dead at 6.13pm, making him Florida’s oldest known executed prisoner since modern records began a century ago.
The Artzners’ children said his death brought their family to ‘the end of a long and painful journey’.
Florida has carried out 12 of the 19 executions recorded across the entire US this year, more than all the other states combined. DeSantis said last year: ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’
