A case based on a "foundation of sand"

Eyewitness number one 

The postal inspectors and local Van Wert County police interviewed two “eyewitnesses” several times. One of the witnesses was Opal Seibert, a 65 year-old woman who wore heavy rimmed glasses. She said she was drinking coffee on her back porch that morning and that her husband was with her. She stated that she saw Betty drive up in her car at about 8:20 am and park near her house, just as she did each morning. Seibert said Betty got out of her car and started across the street, but then came back to the car to retrieve something. She then walked across the road to the post office, unlocked the door, entered the building, and then closed the door and locked it.

Seibert said that at exactly 8:30 am she saw a man drive up to the post office. He got out of the car and looked all around. Seibert stated that she had never seen the man before. She said she watched as he stood between the car and the open door with his arm on the car’s roof. She was certain there were no other cars or people in front of the post office. The postal inspectors interviewed Seibert several times and had her describe this man to a sketch artist. She gave the initial description of a lean, clean-shaven man, 6'4", who had heavy, dark eyebrows and dark hair that was combed straight back. He was wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he wore glasses. However, in subsequent interviews her descriptions of the man’s height went from 6'4", to 6'2", then 6'0", and finally, she said he was 5'8".

Seibert also said she had a clear view of everything in front of the post office. The only traffic was a semi-truck that came from the north at about 8:35 am. Seibert said that as soon as the truck passed, the man who had been standing by his car drove off at a high rate of speed heading south across the railroad tracks.

Eyewitness number two 

The other eyewitness was Mark Lewis, a truck driver for the Elgin Grain Company, located behind the post office. When The postal inspectors and local Van Wert County police interviewed he returned to the grain elevator on the afternoon of August 9th, Lewis was told of Mottinger‘s disappearance and gave a statement. Lewis recalled he left that morning for Toledo at about 8:20 am and noticed a man standing between the car and the open door with his arm on the roof of the car. Lewis said the man wore dark glasses, weighed about 240 pounds, had a potbelly, wore a short sleeve green shirt with orange stripes, and had sandy brown or reddish hair and a light mustache. Lewis said he drove by this guy heading north and only had a quick look at him -- no more then two or three seconds. Lewis could not remember if he stopped his truck to get cigarettes. However, he did say that Betty Jane Mottinger crossed the street in front of him that morning.

It is worth noting that the only similar aspect of Seibert and Lewis’ description of the stranger is that he wore glasses. Both witnesses later underwent hypnosis in an effort to gain more insight into what they saw that morning.

And Betty Jane is found, what is left of her 

The Task Force’s investigation involved scores of state and federal law enforcement officers, who conducted thousands of interviews spanning 38 states. Six weeks after the crime, Betty Jane Mottinger’s skeletal remains were found in a Hancock County bean field wrapped in a paint-smeared drop cloth. She was fully clothed and had been stabbed more than a dozen times.

The postal inspectors intensified their manhunt after Betty’s remains were found. Lewis was shown a photo array and picked out a photo of a man he said looked like the stranger. This man had been paroled from a federal prison for robbing post offices in the general area of Elgin. After a nationwide manhunt, the man was located in Texas. He was later cleared of involvement in Mottinger’s murder by a girlfriend’s alibi.

Borrowed from johnspirko.com & justicedenied.org

Footnote:

Ohio's largest circulation newspaper, Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, published an editorial on February 3, 2005 concerning John Spirko's case.
Titled "Lying Isn't A Capital Offense", that editorial stated in part: The 201 wretches who currently populate Ohio's death row are, without a doubt, troubled people. ... In at least one case, the state is prepared to kill a man even though a compelling body of evidence indicates that he literally lied his way into a death sentence.

In a three-part series, Plain Dealer reporter Bob Paynter meticulously detailed the web of lies, deception and stunningly inane logic that Spirko used to convince law-enforcement authorities that he was an eyewitness to a 1982 murder in Van Wert County.
The evidence, however, is overwhelming that Spirko had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, who ran a post office in tiny Elgin, Ohio. But using the impenetrable logic of a classic bumbling criminal, Spirko told authorities he was present at her murder, hoping to parlay a web of lies into a deal that would lessen the penalty he and a girlfriend faced in a unrelated assault case. There was no physical evidence that he was present at Mottinger's brutal slaying, and his stories - contradictory and constantly changing - made no more sense then than they do now.
Yet, with the help of a zealous postal inspector investigating the case of a lifetime, Spirko managed to get himself not only convicted, but sentenced to die. A number of courts have upheld the conviction, and Spirko is down to his final appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nor is he the only one involved in this case who is guilty of shading the truth. The Van Wert County prosecutors office failed to share with defense counsel compelling evidence that would have seriously damaged the case against Spirko. Failing a Supreme Court stay, Gov. Bob Taft should weigh the evidence and decide whether an execution would be an injustice.