Spirko's lawyers say DNA test could ID real killer

Letters sent to the FBI, the Ohio Attorney General, and the Ohio Parole Board followed a lie-detector test conducted last week in Tennessee taken by John Edwin Willier, a former Findlay man now living in Tennessee.

He told a Wyandot County investigator in 1997 that he believed his former boss, house-painter Dale Dingus, kidnapped and killed Mrs. Mottinger when an attempt to pick up a heroin-filled package went awry.

Spirko, 59, faces execution two weeks from today for the brutal stabbing of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, whose body was found six weeks later wrapped in a paint-splattered drop-cloth in a soybean field near Findlay.

The polygraph was funded by Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions, whose legal director, Steven Drizen, was highly critical of the state's handling of the Mottinger case during two clemency hearings.

Willier, who served time in Ohio for drug trafficking, reportedly passed the polygraph, conducted by a retired FBI veteran and former president of the Tennessee Polygraph Association.

"Under the circumstances, it is inconceivable and unconscionable that the execution of John Spirko can be allowed to proceed without testing the tarp," wrote Spirko attorney Thomas Hill in the letters.

"Mrs. Mottinger was likely murdered by the man who owned the tarp in which her body was wrapped," he wrote. "The tarp needs to be thoroughly evaluated using all modern scientific and forensic techniques, including DNA and paint analyses."

Kim Norris, spokesman for Attorney General Jim Petro, said the office had received the request and was reviewing it.

William Latham, an investigator for the Wyandot County prosecutor's office, testified at the clemency hearings that Willier volunteered the information during an investigation of an unrelated sexual assault case.

Willier told the investigator Dingus threatened him with a rifle if he said anything. Dingus is now serving a 25-year rape sentence in Louisiana. Mr. Lathan expressed frustration at recent subsequent clemency hearings that state and Van Wert investigators did not follow up on the potential lead.

In Willier's polygraph statement, he identified the tarp wrapped around Mrs Mottinger's body as appearing to be the drop-cloth used at the Findlay paint job. Spirko's lawyers urged the state to compare its DNA evidence with a sample from Dingus they believe should be in a federal DNA database.

The latest move comes as Spirko has turned again to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. District Court Judge James Carr last week refused to open a new path of appeals challenging the credibility of a U.S. postal service inspector whose testimony was crucial to convicting Spirko.

Spirko is also awaiting word on his clemency petition from Gov. Bob Taft. The parole board has twice voted 6-3 to recommend no clemency.

Contact Jim Provance at:
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