Story thread · 8 reports / 7 sources

Florida carries out rare double execution including ex-cop who killed girl, 11

metro.co.uk · 11dShare

Both executions took place at Florida State Prison, near the city of Starke (Picture: Florida Department of Corrections) 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. James Duckett was executed for the 1987 murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee (Picture: ZUMA

First report: Polk sheriff ties James Duckett to 1987 cold case murder: ‘Pure evil in the flesh’ — fox13news.com, 12d