James Duckett was executed at 1:19 p.m. EST for the 1987 slaying of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. Photo courtesy Florida Department of Corrections/Website
Florida carried out a rare double execution on Tuesday, putting James Duckett and Dominick Occhicone to death via lethal injection for separate murders.
Duckett, 68, was pronounced dead at 1:19 p.m. EST for the 1987 slaying of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee, the Florida Department of Corrections said in a statement. Occhicone, 80, was sentenced to death for killing his girlfriend’s parents, Raymond Artzner and Martha Artzner, also in 1987.
Occhicone was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m., the department said in a separate statement, making him the oldest person to be put to death in the state’s history.
Death Penalty Information Center said he was also the second octogenarian to be executed in the U.S. death penalty’s modern era.
It was the first time Florida has executed multiple people in the same day in more than six decades, CNN reported.
Robin Maher, executive director of the DPIC, said having two executions in the same day in the same state was “incredibly rare.” She also said the plan to move forward with the double executions had been shrouded in secrecy, The Guardian reported.
“That is consistent with the secrecy that has surrounded every execution and every execution decision that Florida is making these days,” she said.
Florida has increased the frequency of its executions in recent years, putting to death a record 19 people in 2025. There have been 10 executions so far in 2026.
Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, told CNN: “This is the most active death penalty administration we’ve ever seen.”
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Thursday. Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo
