DNA tests fail to solve Spirko case

The results do not appear to undermine or strengthen the case against condemned inmate John G. Spirko Jr., Ohio's most controversial murder case since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1999.

Through a public-records request to Attorney General Marc Dann's office, The Dispatch obtained all DNA results completed to date.

Among the items tested: dozens of cigarette butts collected in and around the tiny Elgin post office the day of the crime; victim Betty Jane Mottinger's green slacks and brown shirt (19 stains were examined); numerous hair samples; and a cord, tarp and 9 pieces of tape used to wrap the postmistress' body.

Items that belonged to Spirko, including his boots, handkerchief, socks and underwear, also were tested.

The results were compared with DNA samples taken from Spirko, his former prison cellmate, Delaney Gibson, and other individuals who defense attorneys have suggested might have killed Mottinger or been involved in her murder.

However, the sophisticated scientific tests showed just two things conclusively: Blood on duct tape used to wrap the body and hair samples both matched Mottinger, the 48-year old postal supervisor who was kidnapped and murdered Aug.2, 1982.

While much of the work was done at the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a branch of the attorney general's office, some was conducted privately by Identigene of Houston and LabCorp in North Carolina. That cost the state about $47,000.

Like his predecessor Jim Petro, Dann appears willing to go the extra mile in the case. On Friday, Dann asked Gov. Ted Strickland to grant a 120-day delay in Spirko's execution, now scheduled for April 17.

It would be the sixth reprieve for Spirko, 60, since his original execution date of Sept. 19, 2005. Former Gov. Bob Taft granted the previous five.

Thomas C. Hill, the head of Spirko's Washington, D.C., legal team, said tests so far confirm "what we knew all along - that it wasn't going to be John Spirko's DNA."

The DNA, Hill said, "is not the only evidence by a long shot.

"We certainly contend the entire body of evidence and the history of the case overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that Mr. Spirko is innocent and was wrongfully convicted."

Some items tested appeared to be unrelated to the crime, including a wood-handle knife found under a bridge several miles away and a quilt from an abandoned house near where the body was found.

What turned out to be a finger bone was sent for identification to Nancy E. Tatuck, a sociologist and anthropologist at Ohio University. The bone, determined to belong to an adult woman, was found wrapped in the tarp with Mottinger's badly decomposed body, which was missing bones on the right hand.

The results seem to support Petro's assertion in a Nov. 7, 2005, letter to Spirko's attorneys in which he predicted that the DNA would prove neither "innocence nor guilt under the facts and circumstances of this case."

In other recent cases, the power of DNA testing to convict and exonerate has been clearly shown.

DNA taken from Jonathan J. Gravely as part of a child-support investigation led officials to charge him last year with the 1994 murder of Ohio State University student Stephanie Hummer.

In 2005, DNA cleared Clarence Elkins, a Carroll County man freed after six years of wrongful incarceration for the murder of his mother-in-law. A cigarette butt discarded by a fellow inmate and collected by Elkins provided the crucial DNA match to samples taken from the murder victim.

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