Death row inmate shared message to victim's family before he died by lethal injection
The oldest inmate to be executed in the state of Florida has put to death by legal injection after he shared one final message to his family and the family of his victims.
On Tuesday (July 28), Dominick Anthony Occhicone died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Occhicone received a three-drug injection made up of an aesthetic or sedative, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, as per the Death Penalty Information Center.
He was pronounced dead at 6:13pm, becoming the oldest inmate executed in the state of Florida at the age of 80 years old.
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The death row inmate was convicted in 1986 of the murders of Raymond and Martha Artzner, the parents of his ex-girlfriend.
Shortly before he was executed, he was asked if he wished to make a statement.
Occhicone is reported by CBS News as thanking those who visited him while he was on death row from his Christian community.
He also shared a message to his own family, alongside the family of the Artzners.
He said: I know it don't mean much, but I'm sorry. I never meant to do what I did."
And Occhicone wasn't the only person to die by lethal injection in Florida State Prison that day.
Former police officer, James Aren Duckett was also delivered a lethal dose in the same death chamber earlier that day.
The 68-year-old was similarly delivered a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 1:19pm.
He was convicted of raping and drowning 11-year-old Teresea McAbee while working as a police officer in 1987.
However, contrary to Occhicone, when asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Duckett responded: "No sir."
Both inmates made last minute appeals to the US Supreme Court ahead of their executions.
The Florida Supreme Court ultimately denied both appeals, denying Duckett's attorneys attempts to claim he was innocent and that the state's handling of the DNA in his case had been flawed.
They also shut down Occicone's attorneys argument that his execution was at risk of being cruelly painful as a result of his kidney and prostate problems.
News of the executions was met with resistance from outside both inmates' legal teams too, the Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty issuing a statement.
The group's executive director, Grace Hanna, said, as quoted by PBS: "July 28 represents an unprecedented escalation of Florida's use of the death penalty. These are two profoundly different cases, but they point to the same troubling reality: Florida continues to expand the use of capital punishment, despite mounting evidence that it is not what Floridians want."
Nevertheless, the two executions went ahead, marking the first time in 60 years Florida has carried out a double execution.
The executions also mark it as the state to have carried out more executions than all other states combined, Florida having conducted 12 to date since the beginning of 2026.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org
Poppy Bilderbeck