Feb. 9
OHIO----impending execution
Killer seeks mercy as execution approaches----Man convicted in '87 murder,
rape tells parole board that he has brain damage
William Henry Smith was convicted of killing a grandmother of 6 after
taking her home from a Cincinnati bar.
A Cincinnati man who raped and killed a 47-year-old grandmother of 6 asked
the Ohio Parole Board yesterday to spare his life because he has "organic
brain damage" and was abused and neglected as a child.
Tim Bradford, grandson of victim Mary Virginia Bradford, wants William
Henry Smith to be executed.
"I support the death penalty. I believe (that for) what he did to my
grandmother, he gets what he gets," he said.
Smith, 47, is scheduled to be executed March 8 at the Southern Ohio
Correctional Facility near Lucasville. He was convicted and sentenced to
death for murdering Bradford in her Cincinnati apartment on Sept. 27,
1987.
"Sometimes people are just evil," said Ron Springman, assistant Hamilton
County prosecutor. "This was an extraordinary murder in its brutality."
Smith's attorneys made their case for clemency to the parole board which
will, in turn, make a recommendation next week to Gov. Bob Taft. Ohio law
empowers the governor to grant a temporary reprieve, permanently block the
execution or do nothing and allow it to go forward.
Smith met Bradford at the Race Inn, a Cincinnati bar, and drove her to her
home early in the morning of Sept. 27, court records show. After a
dispute, allegedly over cocaine, Smith stabbed the frail, 5-foot-3,
116-pound woman in the abdomen with a kitchen knife.
Bradford struggled to her bedroom where she had a machine she needed to
help her breathe because of tuberculosis and lung surgery. Smith then
stabbed her 9 more times - some of the blows so hard they broke her
sternum and ribs before raping Bradford as she lay dying in a pool of her
own blood.
Smith next made 4 trips to his car, carrying off Bradford's 2 televisions
and stereo, records show.
Police later found the televisions and Smith's bloody clothes and shoes at
an apartment he shared with his mother.
Smith's conviction and death sentence have been upheld by all state and
federal courts.
Jennifer M. Kinsley, one of Smith's attorneys, said an organic brain
disorder was previously diagnosed in her client and it may have affected
his ability to know right from wrong and control his actions. More
recently, another test found Smith has a brain lesion.
Kinsley also said Smith, grandson of a Mississippi sharecropper, was
beaten, raped, neglected and abandoned as a child. He spent time in a
Cincinnati mental hospital and was on the streets by the age of 14.
Smith's attorneys further argued that justice was undercut in his trial by
Hamilton County's method of picking grand jury foremen which, they said,
clearly favors whites and discriminates against blacks. A study by the
National Jury Project Midwest concluded that between 1982 and 1998 whites
were jury foremen on 81 grand jury deathpenalty panels compared with 4 for
blacks.
Gary Dorsey, Smith's cousin, asked for mercy.
"The execution of William will not make the pain go away," he said. Living
with his crime "is an ongoing punishment that has never stopped for
William and every day he wakes up to a nightmare that won't end."
Bradford's daughters, Martha and Glenda, said they struggled, but
eventually made peace with seeking the death penalty for their mother's
killer.
"I loved my mom," Martha Bradford said. "She was a beautiful person who
didn't live a perfect life. All I ask is that justice be done."
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
