Some of Today's State News Headlines
Today is Friday January 4, 2008
AG: No DNA evidence links death row inmate to killing
COLUMBUS (AP) - The attorney general's office has concluded that no DNA evidence links an inmate with the killing for which he faces execution later this month.
Marc Dann's office made the determination after finishing years of testing on samples of DNA collected from the 1982 killing of northwest Ohio postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger.
The findings confirm what long has been believed about the lack of a DNA match connecting John Spirko to the crime, Dann spokesman Leo Jennings said.
"None of Spirko's DNA matches any DNA at the crime scene," Jennings said Thursday. "It doesn't mean he's guilty and it doesn't mean he's innocent." The news was first reported Thursday on the Web site of The Columbus Dispatch.
Spirko, 61, was convicted based on witness statements and his own comments to investigators.
No physical evidence ties him to the killing and charges against a co-defendant who linked him to the murder have been dropped.
(Refer to page 12 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
Coroner: LSD led to college student's mysterious death
CLEVELAND (AP) - A college student who died during a struggle with police was killed by a drug-induced heart attack, and the officers who had tried to arrest him were not at fault, a coroner said Thursday in a long-awaited ruling that still left some questions unanswered.
An attorney for the mother of William Parker Martin, 19, said she still suspects excessive force was used on her son, who was released from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center a day before his death on Aug. 16.
Martin, who police said had broken into a home, had LSD in his system and suffered an acute psychotic episode. He died of cardiopulmonary arrest as police from suburban Broadview Heights attempted to subdue him, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Frank Miller.
The coroner's office took more than four months to make the ruling as it waited on toxicology reports, Caesar said.
Martin's death also was ruled a homicide, which would allow a prosecutor to charge Martin's drug supplier with a crime, including manslaughter. It is unclear where Martin got the drug.
(Refer to page 12 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
Coroner: Man killed by pipe bomb had camera to record blast
WEST CHESTER (AP) - A man who died of severe face and head injuries when he helped detonate a pipe bomb in the backyard of his parent's house was using a camera to record the explosion, authorities said.
Daniel Ferraro, 19, a sophomore at Miami University, was with three others when they detonated the device in a wooden fort-like structure of a play set, authorities investigating Wednesday's explosion said.
Ferraro's injuries suggest that he was struck by pieces of the camera and parts of the metal pipe used to make the bomb, Butler County Coroner Richard Burkhardt said.
"He was taking pictures after someone else lit the fuse," Burkhardt said.
Police described the device as a homemade metal pipe bomb about 6 inches long and about 1 inch in diameter that was packed with black gunpowder.
The other three involved in the blast were not injured. The explosion caused damage to the back of the home and shattered at least one window at an adjacent house.
(Refer to page 12 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
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