Ohio executes one-time neo-Nazi who killed 3

LUCASVILLE, Ohio - Ohio has executed a one-time neo-Nazi who shot to death two men and a teen more than a quarter century ago on the campus of Cleveland State University in a shooting spree that targeted blacks.

Frank Spisak was pronounced dead at 10:34 a.m. Thursday following an injection of sodium thiopental at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Spisak's last words were seven verses of the book of Revelations, Chapter 21, verses 1 through 7 that he read in German. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that he struggled to get through the handwritten note.

"I can't read it. It's too blurry. I can't read it," he said.

According to the Plain Dealer, a prison staffer holding the note moved it slightly farther from his face and Spisak kept reading. Witnessing the scene, Eric Barnes, the brother of one of the victims said, "Speak English, you fool."

The 59-year-old Spisak set the Ohio record for the longest time on death row before execution, at more than 27 years.

He was also the last Ohio inmate to die by sodium thiopental, the scarce drug the state is giving up in favor of a more readily available substitute.

Spisak blamed the 1982 shootings on his hatred of gays, blacks and Jews and on his mental illness related to confusion about his sexual identity.

Spisak spent the night before resting, listening to music and watching TV news. He wrote a letter — it was unknown to whom — and slept a little. He showered at 5 a.m. and received communion in a Roman Catholic mass in his cell at 7 a.m. He declined breakfast but had a cup of coffee.

The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday afternoon rejected his final appeal, in which Spisak asked for a delay so he could argue the death penalty's constitutionality based on recent comments by a state Supreme Court justice criticizing capital punishment in Ohio.

Last month, his attorneys asked the Ohio Parole Board to spare his life, saying Spisak suffers from a severe bipolar disorder that was not diagnosed until years after he was convicted.

But both the parole board and Gov. John Kasich, making his first decision on a condemned killer's request for mercy, rejected Spisak's plea.

Cora Warford, whose son Brian Warford was 17 when he was fatally shot in the head Aug. 30, 1982, says she's making an exception to her opposition to capital punishment after talking with her pastor. Brian Warford's brothers, Jeffery Duke and Eric Barnes, were among those scheduled to view the execution.

Brian Warford was taking classes at Cleveland State as an alternative education student earning his high school degree when he was shot and killed in 1982.

Prior to his slaying, Rev. Horace Rickerson, 57, was killed Feb. 1 in a campus bathroom where he rebuffed Spisak's sexual advances. The following Aug. 27, Timothy Sheehan, 50, who worked in Cleveland State's maintenance department, was killed because Spisak believed Sheehan might have witnessed Rickerson's shooting.

John Hardaway was shot seven times as he waited for a commuter train by a man he later identified as Spisak. He survived and had planned to witness the execution. On Aug. 9, 1982, Coletta Dartt, a white university employee, was shot at as she exited a bathroom stall. She pushed Spisak away and ran.

Spisak was caught in early September 1982 after he was found firing a gun out of his apartment window. He told investigators he went on "hunting parties" to shoot black people.

During his 1983 trial, Spisak grew a Hitler-style mustache, carried a copy of Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and gave the Nazi salute to the jury.

Last weekend, Spisak met with his daughter. He was calm as he arrived at the death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on Wednesday morning, LoParo said. He had no visitors scheduled there.