Ohio executes Michael Beuke

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — Ohio executed a hitchhiker Thursday who admitted to killing one motorist who gave him a ride and shooting two others during a three-week string of shootings that terrorized the Cincinnati area in 1983.

Michael Beuke, 48, died by lethal injection at 10:53 a.m. EDT at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, about 90 minutes after the Ohio Supreme Court turned down his final appeal.

While on the gurney, Beuke recited the Roman Catholic rosary for 17 minutes before he died, choking back tears as he repeatedly said the Hail Mary. He also expressed his sorrow to the families of his three victims.

Beuke, dubbed by the media as the "homicidal hitchhiker," spend a quarter century on death row, where he said he had a spiritual conversion. He expressed remorse for his crimes and said in an unsuccessful request for clemency that he accepted responsibility and prayed "that God will ease the pain I have caused my victims."

Beuke was emotional as the hour of his death neared, crying frequently in his cell at the Lucasville prison, said Julie Walburn, an Ohio prisons spokeswoman.

He was convicted Oct. 5, 1983, of aggravated murder for the death of Robert Craig, 27, of Cincinnati and was sentenced to death. He also was found guilty of the attempted slayings of Gregory Wahoff of Cincinnati and Bruce Graham, then from West Harrison, Ind.

Late Wednesday night, Beuke lost appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, failing to convince the majority that he'd been on death row so long the execution would be unconstitutionally cruel and serve no purpose and that prescription medicine he takes could interfere with a drug used in Ohio's backup execution method. The state did not have to resort to the backup Thursday. Beuke died by Ohio's primary, intravenous injection method.

The Ohio Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay Thursday morning, turning aside an appeal related to a previously unsuccessful claim that brain damage contributed to Beuke's violent behavior. His lawyers said recent brain scans and expert conclusions showed Beuke suffered from moderate to severe brain damage.

Prison officials were concerned in the past week that they might not be able to procure enough thiopental sodium, the single drug used in Ohio executions, because of a worldwide shortage. However, the state was able to find enough of the drug to kill Beuke.

He was the 5th Ohioan executed in 5 months this year and the 38th since capital punishment resumed in 1999. With an execution scheduled each month through November, the state likely this year to eclipse the 7 men executed in 2004, the modern record.

Beuke becomes the 17th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1205th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: AP, May 13, 2010

There are six more executions scheduled in Ohio in 2010:

- RICHARD NIELDS, 59, of Hamilton County, is set to be executed June 10 for the March 27, 1997, murder of his companion, 59-year-old Patricia Newsome, at their Finneytown home.

- WILLIAM GARNER, 37, of Hamilton County, is set to be executed July 13 for the murder of five children on Jan. 26, 1992.

- RODERICK DAVIE, 38, of Trumbull County, is set to be executed Aug. 10, for the 1991 murder of three co-workers two months after he was fired.

- KEVIN A. KEITH, 46, of Crawford County, is set to be executed Sept. 15 for the 1994 murder of three relatives of a drug informer. He shot three other family members, who survived.

- MICHAEL BENGE, 38, of Butler County, is set to be executed Oct. 6, for the Jan. 31, 1993, murder of his girfriend, Judith Gabbard, on the west side of the Miami River.

- SIDNEY CORNWELL, 33, of Mahoning County, is set to be executed Nov. 16, for a June 11, 1996, murder of a 3-year-old girl in Youngstown. Cornwell attempted to kill the girl's mother and two others in gang-related shootings.