Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 1:59:46 GMT -5
After life of lies, Spirko hopes DNA will free him
Almost a quarter century after Elgin, Ohio, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was killed, John G. Spirko Jr., the man convicted in 1984 of her murder, continues to fight the death sentence that was imposed largely based on self-incriminating statements and circumstantial evidence. ONN (Ohio News Network) and The Columbus Dispatch take a comprehensive look at the legal issues and circumstances surrounding the case.
By everyone's assessment - including his own - John G. Spirko Jr. is a bad, bad man.
But is he the consummate con man who murdered Betty Jane Mottinger and is now trying to talk his way out of being executed, or someone snared in a web of lies?
Those conflicting questions echo more than 2 decades after Mottinger's abduction and murder shattered the calm in Elgin on Aug. 9, 1982.
In exclusive interviews with The Dispatch and the Ohio News Network, Mottinger's relatives and Spirko staked out radically different versions of what happened in the Van Wert County village on that warm summer day — and afterward.
In the most controversial capital punishment case since Ohio resumed executions in 1999, Spirko's lethal injection is set for July 19. His hopes now hinge on new DNA tests. Spirko and his attorneys say the results could free him; prosecutors say they may prove nothing.
The Ohio Parole Board, after 2 5-hour clemency hearings, twice recommended against mercy. Gov. Bob Taft intervened 3 times to delay the execution but otherwise has not taken a position.
Spirko, who will turn 60 next month, awaits his fate in a 7-by-13-foot cell with a 5-inch slit for a window on death row at the Ohio Penitentiary in Youngstown.
"All I want is justice. Period," he said. "I spent 24 years now in a cage for something I didn't do."
In their first interviews in 15 years, Mottinger's relatives remained united in the belief that Spirko is guilty and should die.
"I hope we'll have peace of mind, what they call closure," said John Schroeder, 74, the slain woman's brother. "I just want to see this thing over with.
"She was my baby sister, and I loved her dearly."
The horrible crime sears the memories of Schroeder and Tom Varley, Mottinger's son-inlaw. Both recalled the torturous days after she disappeared without a trace.
"I was what my wife said was a basket case," Schroeder said. "I was spending time running the back roads between Ohio City and Delphos, looking in farmhouses, old barns, ditches, anywhere that somebody might have done away with her."
Meanwhile, out of desperation, Varley visited psychics.
2 decades later, he became visibly shaken when recalling what he heard from a Westerville psychic.
"She went nutso. I believe Janey was either being accosted at the time, or being killed. ... It was very disturbing to me. I've never really talked about it to this day."
After he got word of his sister's disappearance, Schroeder said authorities tapped his phone in case a ransom call came.
The phone rang on Sept. 19, but with bad news: His sister's body had been located.
"I don’t know how to say this. ... It was a relief that they found her, but you wished it hadn't been that way. ... I felt guilty about that, too, feeling relieved.
"After a certain amount of time, your mind kind of eases up. You never forget it, but it don't hurt us quite as bad. The hurt’s always there. ... You can't get rid of it."
From tipster to suspect
For months, there were no suspects.
Spirko's name came up unexpectedly after the body had been found - and only because he contacted federal officials to offer information about the murder.
In return, he wanted a deal for himself and his girlfriend, Luann Smith. She had been charged with helping him try to escape the Fulton County jail, where he was being held on an unrelated assault charge.
Spirko now says all he knew about the crime came from reading the newspapers.
"My thing was getting her off. Period. ... Everything else didn't matter," Spirko said.
What followed was a series of interviews between Spirko and investigators, mostly Paul Hartman, a U.S. postal inspector. Spirko's stories, and the cast of colorful characters that populated them, changed with each interview.
In all, Hartman and Spirko talked 16 times in Ohio and at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, where Spirko had been transferred under a federal witness-protection program. None of the interviews was recorded. Hartman relied on handwritten notes, later converted into investigative memos.
Hartman, 59, now retired and living in Medina County, has never wavered in his conviction about Spirko's guilt.
"No question at all in my mind.
"Notwithstanding all of the lies that he told, there were sprinkled among these various stories, various details, intimate details that could only have been known to the people who committed the offense.
"Now he's trying to lie his way off of death row."
Hartman said he had a feeling about him the first time they talked, when Spirko described what he said he had been told about Mottinger's murder.
Spirko became flushed and began trembling, Hartman said.
"It’s no question in my mind at that moment that he was reliving the actual murder. Right then and there, I said, ‘This is the guy.’"
But it wasn't until Jan. 11, 1983, that Hartman felt he had the final piece of evidence he needed.
Hartman's notes from the interview at Leavenworth reflect that Spirko told him, "Lay it all on me. I killed her."
Spirko denies confessing, that day or any day.
It came down to the word of a career criminal against that of a veteran U.S. postal inspector. All the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, sided with prosecutors, affirming the conviction and death sentence.
A dearth of evidence
Doubts remain.
Spirko’s high-powered defense team from Washington has been joined by Steven Drizin, legal director of the Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions.
"This is the weakest death case I have ever seen," Drizin said. "It’s actually the weakest case I have ever seen in both capital and noncapital cases."
Brad Bell, a former Hanthingy County deputy sheriff and the 1st law-enforcement officer to arrive after Mottinger's body was found in a soybean field near the Blanchard River, didn't question Spirko's guilt 24 years ago. He figured postal inspectors had nailed the case.
Now he's not so sure.
"I'm not aware of any tangible physical evidence," Bell said.
After all these years, "Something doesn't smell right to me as far as what went on there.
"I think there was a movie that came out about that time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I think Gov. Taft has to decide if John Spirko is Roger Rabbit."
Spirko was indicted Sept. 13, 1983, by a Van Wert County grand jury for kidnapping and aggravated murder.
Without any physical evidence or eyewitnesses, the prosecution's case relied largely on Hartman’s testimony. And that was enough for the jury.
After he was found guilty on Aug. 22, 1984, Spirko made a rambling, emotional 33-minute statement to the jury in the sentencing phase of his trial, during which he painted a vivid picture of his criminal past.
"I've done enough in my life to be executed 3 or 4 times. I have no problem with that at all.
"I ask for no mercy. I deserve none, not because of anything I've done, but because of my lifestyle. ... All my life, all I've done was harm people, innocent people that have done nothing to me. I have taken from them, stole from them, caused them undue heartache, and I am sorry for that."
He concluded with bitter words for Hartman.
"I might be bound for hell, but I know Paul Hartman will be right on my tail end. Him and I are going to have a goround in hell. You can believe that."
On Aug. 25, 1984, the jury did as Spirko asked. 2 days later, he was sentenced to death.
'There's no way'
Spirko is no longer the brash, angry young man who boldly confronted that jury. He is more subdued and now has a full head of neatly combed gray hair. During an interview at the state's maximum-security prison, he wore a white prison jump suit, handcuffs and manacles.
"My mouth is my worst enemy," Spirko said.
"I'm a liar. I’m not asking you to believe me. I'm asking you to believe the evidence and facts.
"There's a much bigger picture here and that's justice, not just for me, but for everybody. I'm somebody you can hate. I'm not the kind of guy anybody would stick up for."
Despite his claims of innocence, Spirko did not answer directly when asked, "Did you kill her? "
"There's no way I could have possibly killed her," he said after a lengthy pause. "I would have to have been 6 people."
Spirko repeated his version of events of that day, saying he visited his parole officer in Toledo, drove his sister to a doctor's appointment, came home and then visited the Swanton post office to fetch a package sent by Kentucky prison officials.
He argues that no conceivable timeline places him in both Elgin and Swanton on the same morning. The towns are 91 miles apart.
"I'll walk to the death chamber right now. Give me a timeline how I committed this crime."
He also discounts the prosecution's argument at trial that his accomplice in the abduction and murder was Delaney Gibson, his former cellmate in Kentucky. A witness identified Gibson as being there, but Spirko’s attorneys say they can prove that Gibson was hundreds of miles away in North Carolina at the time, working as farm laborer.
In the final analysis, Spirko blames himself.
"I talked myself right into a death sentence."
Reverberations of death
Betty Jane Mottinger's death changed the lives of all she touched.
"Everyone in the family felt helpless and lost," said Jane Varley, who joined the family when her brother, Tom, married Kay Mottinger. She became the family's liaison with prosecutors.
"They probably just had a feeling in the pit of their stomach that life’s never going to be the same," Jane Varley said.
Clarence Mottinger suffered most after losing his wife of 28 years.
He already was under medical care for a heart condition, and then his health worsened. He underwent heart bypass surgery but died in October 2003.
Life had lost its spark without his sweetheart.
"It was so clear that he just wanted to die," Varley said. "He didn't want to live anymore without Janey."
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
Almost a quarter century after Elgin, Ohio, postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger was killed, John G. Spirko Jr., the man convicted in 1984 of her murder, continues to fight the death sentence that was imposed largely based on self-incriminating statements and circumstantial evidence. ONN (Ohio News Network) and The Columbus Dispatch take a comprehensive look at the legal issues and circumstances surrounding the case.
By everyone's assessment - including his own - John G. Spirko Jr. is a bad, bad man.
But is he the consummate con man who murdered Betty Jane Mottinger and is now trying to talk his way out of being executed, or someone snared in a web of lies?
Those conflicting questions echo more than 2 decades after Mottinger's abduction and murder shattered the calm in Elgin on Aug. 9, 1982.
In exclusive interviews with The Dispatch and the Ohio News Network, Mottinger's relatives and Spirko staked out radically different versions of what happened in the Van Wert County village on that warm summer day — and afterward.
In the most controversial capital punishment case since Ohio resumed executions in 1999, Spirko's lethal injection is set for July 19. His hopes now hinge on new DNA tests. Spirko and his attorneys say the results could free him; prosecutors say they may prove nothing.
The Ohio Parole Board, after 2 5-hour clemency hearings, twice recommended against mercy. Gov. Bob Taft intervened 3 times to delay the execution but otherwise has not taken a position.
Spirko, who will turn 60 next month, awaits his fate in a 7-by-13-foot cell with a 5-inch slit for a window on death row at the Ohio Penitentiary in Youngstown.
"All I want is justice. Period," he said. "I spent 24 years now in a cage for something I didn't do."
In their first interviews in 15 years, Mottinger's relatives remained united in the belief that Spirko is guilty and should die.
"I hope we'll have peace of mind, what they call closure," said John Schroeder, 74, the slain woman's brother. "I just want to see this thing over with.
"She was my baby sister, and I loved her dearly."
The horrible crime sears the memories of Schroeder and Tom Varley, Mottinger's son-inlaw. Both recalled the torturous days after she disappeared without a trace.
"I was what my wife said was a basket case," Schroeder said. "I was spending time running the back roads between Ohio City and Delphos, looking in farmhouses, old barns, ditches, anywhere that somebody might have done away with her."
Meanwhile, out of desperation, Varley visited psychics.
2 decades later, he became visibly shaken when recalling what he heard from a Westerville psychic.
"She went nutso. I believe Janey was either being accosted at the time, or being killed. ... It was very disturbing to me. I've never really talked about it to this day."
After he got word of his sister's disappearance, Schroeder said authorities tapped his phone in case a ransom call came.
The phone rang on Sept. 19, but with bad news: His sister's body had been located.
"I don’t know how to say this. ... It was a relief that they found her, but you wished it hadn't been that way. ... I felt guilty about that, too, feeling relieved.
"After a certain amount of time, your mind kind of eases up. You never forget it, but it don't hurt us quite as bad. The hurt’s always there. ... You can't get rid of it."
From tipster to suspect
For months, there were no suspects.
Spirko's name came up unexpectedly after the body had been found - and only because he contacted federal officials to offer information about the murder.
In return, he wanted a deal for himself and his girlfriend, Luann Smith. She had been charged with helping him try to escape the Fulton County jail, where he was being held on an unrelated assault charge.
Spirko now says all he knew about the crime came from reading the newspapers.
"My thing was getting her off. Period. ... Everything else didn't matter," Spirko said.
What followed was a series of interviews between Spirko and investigators, mostly Paul Hartman, a U.S. postal inspector. Spirko's stories, and the cast of colorful characters that populated them, changed with each interview.
In all, Hartman and Spirko talked 16 times in Ohio and at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, where Spirko had been transferred under a federal witness-protection program. None of the interviews was recorded. Hartman relied on handwritten notes, later converted into investigative memos.
Hartman, 59, now retired and living in Medina County, has never wavered in his conviction about Spirko's guilt.
"No question at all in my mind.
"Notwithstanding all of the lies that he told, there were sprinkled among these various stories, various details, intimate details that could only have been known to the people who committed the offense.
"Now he's trying to lie his way off of death row."
Hartman said he had a feeling about him the first time they talked, when Spirko described what he said he had been told about Mottinger's murder.
Spirko became flushed and began trembling, Hartman said.
"It’s no question in my mind at that moment that he was reliving the actual murder. Right then and there, I said, ‘This is the guy.’"
But it wasn't until Jan. 11, 1983, that Hartman felt he had the final piece of evidence he needed.
Hartman's notes from the interview at Leavenworth reflect that Spirko told him, "Lay it all on me. I killed her."
Spirko denies confessing, that day or any day.
It came down to the word of a career criminal against that of a veteran U.S. postal inspector. All the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, sided with prosecutors, affirming the conviction and death sentence.
A dearth of evidence
Doubts remain.
Spirko’s high-powered defense team from Washington has been joined by Steven Drizin, legal director of the Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions.
"This is the weakest death case I have ever seen," Drizin said. "It’s actually the weakest case I have ever seen in both capital and noncapital cases."
Brad Bell, a former Hanthingy County deputy sheriff and the 1st law-enforcement officer to arrive after Mottinger's body was found in a soybean field near the Blanchard River, didn't question Spirko's guilt 24 years ago. He figured postal inspectors had nailed the case.
Now he's not so sure.
"I'm not aware of any tangible physical evidence," Bell said.
After all these years, "Something doesn't smell right to me as far as what went on there.
"I think there was a movie that came out about that time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I think Gov. Taft has to decide if John Spirko is Roger Rabbit."
Spirko was indicted Sept. 13, 1983, by a Van Wert County grand jury for kidnapping and aggravated murder.
Without any physical evidence or eyewitnesses, the prosecution's case relied largely on Hartman’s testimony. And that was enough for the jury.
After he was found guilty on Aug. 22, 1984, Spirko made a rambling, emotional 33-minute statement to the jury in the sentencing phase of his trial, during which he painted a vivid picture of his criminal past.
"I've done enough in my life to be executed 3 or 4 times. I have no problem with that at all.
"I ask for no mercy. I deserve none, not because of anything I've done, but because of my lifestyle. ... All my life, all I've done was harm people, innocent people that have done nothing to me. I have taken from them, stole from them, caused them undue heartache, and I am sorry for that."
He concluded with bitter words for Hartman.
"I might be bound for hell, but I know Paul Hartman will be right on my tail end. Him and I are going to have a goround in hell. You can believe that."
On Aug. 25, 1984, the jury did as Spirko asked. 2 days later, he was sentenced to death.
'There's no way'
Spirko is no longer the brash, angry young man who boldly confronted that jury. He is more subdued and now has a full head of neatly combed gray hair. During an interview at the state's maximum-security prison, he wore a white prison jump suit, handcuffs and manacles.
"My mouth is my worst enemy," Spirko said.
"I'm a liar. I’m not asking you to believe me. I'm asking you to believe the evidence and facts.
"There's a much bigger picture here and that's justice, not just for me, but for everybody. I'm somebody you can hate. I'm not the kind of guy anybody would stick up for."
Despite his claims of innocence, Spirko did not answer directly when asked, "Did you kill her? "
"There's no way I could have possibly killed her," he said after a lengthy pause. "I would have to have been 6 people."
Spirko repeated his version of events of that day, saying he visited his parole officer in Toledo, drove his sister to a doctor's appointment, came home and then visited the Swanton post office to fetch a package sent by Kentucky prison officials.
He argues that no conceivable timeline places him in both Elgin and Swanton on the same morning. The towns are 91 miles apart.
"I'll walk to the death chamber right now. Give me a timeline how I committed this crime."
He also discounts the prosecution's argument at trial that his accomplice in the abduction and murder was Delaney Gibson, his former cellmate in Kentucky. A witness identified Gibson as being there, but Spirko’s attorneys say they can prove that Gibson was hundreds of miles away in North Carolina at the time, working as farm laborer.
In the final analysis, Spirko blames himself.
"I talked myself right into a death sentence."
Reverberations of death
Betty Jane Mottinger's death changed the lives of all she touched.
"Everyone in the family felt helpless and lost," said Jane Varley, who joined the family when her brother, Tom, married Kay Mottinger. She became the family's liaison with prosecutors.
"They probably just had a feeling in the pit of their stomach that life’s never going to be the same," Jane Varley said.
Clarence Mottinger suffered most after losing his wife of 28 years.
He already was under medical care for a heart condition, and then his health worsened. He underwent heart bypass surgery but died in October 2003.
Life had lost its spark without his sweetheart.
"It was so clear that he just wanted to die," Varley said. "He didn't want to live anymore without Janey."
(source: Columbus Dispatch)