CELL PORTRAITS DEATH ROW ART

Sunday Mail  http://www.sundaymail.co.uk

DEATH row Scot Kenny Richey is selling his artwork on eBay to pay for medicine to keep him alive.

He has already sold more than 30 portraits and 50 painted cards to raise almost £1000 to pay for drugs and treatment.

After more than 18 years behind bars for a murder he denies, Richey, 41, has heart and kidney problems and chronic diabetes.

He has also developed a potentially-fatal sleeping disorder that can stop him breathing several times a night. Speaking from his cell at Mansefield Correctional Institution in Ohio, Richey said: 'I'm touched so many people think enough of me and my artwork to spend their hard- earned cash.'

All their money has gone on medicines and treatments I desperately needed and wasn't getting in prison.

'I started painting and drawing to relieve the stress of being caged for something I didn't do. It helped take my mind off the horror of being prepared for execution three times.

'I painted how I felt about the death penalty and scenes from my childhood in Scotland, which was the happiest time of my life.'

The pictures are selling on the auction site for between £5 and £100 and have attracted dozens of collectors.

Successful bidders have left messages of support on the website for Kenny.

Three Federal judges are expected to rule within days on Richey's appeal and his lawyers are hopeful he will be freed.

Richey was sentenced to be executed for the killing of two-year-old Cynthia Collins after a blaze in the building where she lived.

Prosecutors claimed he had dismantled a fire alarm and started a fire to get back at an ex-girlfriend who lived in the same block.

But experts have cast doubts over forensic tests that found the fire was deliberate and the US courts have finally ruled Richey did not dismantle the alarm. He has had to endure three prison execution dates and, despite the evidence, the authorities continue to keep him behind bars.

Amnesty International have described his jailing as 'the most compelling case of innocence on death row'.

Richey has started to plan his possible return to Scotland next year to marry long-distance lover Karen Torley, 41, of Glasgow.

Karen, a grandmother of three, has been his guiding light for more than 10 years, raising worldwide awareness of his plight. He said: 'The end may be in sight at last. All I want is to get home and marry the woman who has fought so hard to keep me alive.'

She has been my rock. I don't think I'd be alive today if it hadn't been for her.'

Karen said: 'I'm marrying him because I love him with all my heart and soul.'

Last week, we told how Richey's brother Tom, a convicted killer, overcame doubts that Kenny was innocent.