Main Menu
Home News Injustice in Ohio Dying on Ohio's Death Row Dying on Ohio's Death Row
Monday, 17 July 2006
Some want to be with family. Others seek privacy.
They make phone calls (collect), watch television, listen to music, smoke, eat and read the Bible. There are tears, fears, remorse and anger.
The end, however, is always the same for Ohio's condemned men: 8 syringes of deadly chemicals pumped into their veins over a 5-minute period.
The problems that plagued Joseph Clark's execution May 2 were well publicized when prison personnel took more than an hour and 2 attempts to hook up his IV lines after a vein collapsed. Mostly, the drama in the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville
unfolds outside public view.
However, detailed, minute-by-minute records obtained by The Dispatch of all but two Ohio executions since capital punishment was re-instituted in1999 provide a rare and somber look at the rituals of death.
Before his lethal injection on Feb. 6 this year, Glenn L. Benner II had a 9-minute cell-front meeting with Rodney Bowser, the brother of TrinaBowser, 1 of 2 women he killed.
The prison log shows Bowser asking Benner, "Why you did what you did?" "I can grant you closure but not peace," Benner replied. "Today is the easy part. This isn't about me now."
In the end, after talking in hushed tones that guards could not overhear, the two men shook hands through the bars.
Not all go calmly.
William G. Zeurn was agitated before his execution, records show. At one point he told the warden, "Skip over all the B.S. and just come and get me when it's my turn." His turn came June 8, 2004, at 10:04 a.m.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction began keeping logs after the Feb. 19, 1999, execution of Wilford Berry. He was the first person executed in Ohio in more than 3 decades.
A prison official said there was no log available for the Sept. 25, 2002,execution of Robert Buell.
The logs begin about 24 hours before an execution when the inmate arrives at the Death House, a separate building within the prison complex. They include details about visitors, phone calls, meals, conversations with guards, sleep and bathroom visits.
Condemned men can make almost as many calls as they want - as long as they are collect.
While there are some common threads, visits and phone calls to family and prayers, for example, the records reflect individual differences in mens' final hours. Some watched sports, others concentrated on religious programs or didn't turn on the television at all.
John W. Byrd Jr., who was executed on Feb. 19, 2002, cried when he met with his attorneys, but later told guards that "he was not saying he was sorry" for the murder of Monte Tewksbury. Byrd maintained his innocence in his final words.
Inmate Lewis Williams struggled with the execution team, but the log reflects that he was calm before his last moments, was "talking about the mystery of God" with his spiritual adviser and "was in good spirits, laughing and joking with his attorney."
Williams had to be held down by the execution team while IV lines were inserted, then carried to the lethal injection table. He died Jan. 14, 2004.
William D. Wickline, a Columbus man sentenced to death for murdering and dismembering Christopher and Peggy Ann Lerch, was concerned about the 75 paintings he had completed while on death row. He was assured, just before his execution on March 30, 2004, that pictures had been taken of all of his artwork.
The one case logged by the department in which the inmate was not executed involved Richard Cooey, who got a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court on July 24, 2003.
At one point, Cooey was so angry he punched a wall in his cell in the Death House and required medical treatment.
Later, after getting word of his reprieve, Cooey called his grandmother "and offered to sweep and clean his cell" before being moved back to the main prison.