Florida executed James Duckett, 68, a former police officer, by lethal injection on Tuesday afternoon for the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee. Duckett's execution took place at the Florida state prison near Starke at 1:19 p.m.
Duckett's death was scheduled to be followed by the execution of 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone later Tuesday evening. Occhicone was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986. If executed, Occhicone would become the oldest death row inmate ever put to death in Florida and the second oldest prisoner executed in modern U.S. history.
Florida is set to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions on the same day.
Earlier this month, Dennis Sochor, who was executed for a 1982 murder, became Florida's oldest executed inmate. The oldest prisoner executed in U.S. history is Walter Moody Jr., who was 83 when he was put to death in Alabama in 2018 for a 1989 mail bomb campaign that killed a federal judge and a civil rights attorney.