Glenn L Benner

Just before Glenn Benner aka Bim was executed for the murders of Trinna Bowser and Cynthia Sedgewick he spoke with Trinna’s brother Rodney. "Over the past 20 years, I've caused unimaginable pain," he said into a microphone, strapped to a table in the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution. "Cynthia and Trina were beautiful girls. They didn't deserve what I done to them. They are in a better place. I pray that God will grant you peace."
Looking at the family members of Trina Bowser and Cynthia Sedgwick, separated by a pane of glass, Benner mouthed, "I'm sorry."

As a lethal dose of drugs began to flow through Benner's veins, his eyes fluttered and a tear fell from his right eye. He shook his head from side to side. His right fist, moments before tightly clasped, fell slack.
Warden Edwin Voorheis pronounced Benner dead at 10:15 a.m. He became the 20th inmate executed since Ohio reinstated capital punishment in 1999.

But on the night before his execution, right after he had said goodbye to 17 family members and friends, Benner made a phone call to Rodney Bowser. It was the first time the two had talked in 20 years.
The call lasted for about 20 minutes. They agreed to meet the next morning, minutes before Benner would die.
But Benner wasn't sure officials would permit that. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction had never allowed a member of a victim's family to meet with a prisoner in the death house, the spartan building at the Lucasville prison in which all executions take place.
So Benner called Rodney Bowser back for a second talk -- just in case.
This one lasted 90 minutes.

They talked about their lives. They'd grown up two houses from each other -- Bowser in Tallmadge and Benner in Springfield Township. They'd played bows and arrows together.
Benner talked about how he hated prison. He implied that he had faced almost as much violence in prison as he had doled out on the outside. He said this was no way to live.
They talked about the awful details of Trina's death.
"Don't sugar-coat it," Bowser said he told Benner. "Give it to me straight."

About an hour after Benner and Rodney Bowser had their second phone conversation, Rodney was in the car, headed as planned to the Lucasville prison in southern Ohio.
His confidence buckled when he walked into the death house early in the morning on Feb. 7 for his person-to-person talk with Benner, who was scheduled to die at 10 a.m.
"I almost backed out," he recalled. "I was shaking like a leaf."

Major David Warren, the prison's head of security, was dubious. Before he let the two meet, he sat Bowser down. Stay calm, he warned him. Keep Benner calm.
Prison officials didn't want to have to drag an upset Benner to his execution, Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio prison system explained this week.
So Benner and Bowser talked in low voices through the jail bars. They went back over the same topics covered in the phone calls. About 10 members of Benner's execution team stood just out of earshot.
Bowser said Benner didn't know why he killed. He didn't blame marijuana and alcohol, his companions since age 12.
" 'All my friends did those, and they didn't end up killing anybody,' " Bowser quoted Benner as saying.
They called each other by their childhood nicknames -- "Bimbo" for Benner and "Rodney Man" for Bowser.
Bowser clocked their talk, which began at 8 a.m., at 17 minutes -- two minutes over the limit. They were calm. There were tears. They shook hands.
After that, Bowser was so overcome with emotion he gave up his execution witness seat to one of his brothers. He didn't want to see it happen. More surprising, he didn't want it to happen at all.
"I didn't want to deal with it," Bowser said, "and I didn't want to take away from what the rest of the family wanted."

At 8:55 a.m., he called Benner back. He was told that Benner was being readied for his execution and couldn't talk. But his spiritual advisor passed on Bowser's message -- that Bowser forgave him. As Rodney Bowser sees it, by the time of his death Benner was a changed man. He had become religious. He wanted the Bowser family -- and especially Rodney -- to learn what they wanted to know.
A weight has been lifted. Rodney Bowser doesn't have nightmares anymore.
He doesn't believe in the death penalty anymore, either. A life sentence for Benner would have been just fine, he says now. People can change, he now believes.
After all, his sister's killer did.

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)