Ohio executes inmate who strangled neighbor in 1994 to get money for alcohol

Ohio executes inmate who killed neighbor in 1994

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — A death row inmate who tried to kill himself last week by overdosing on pills as his legal challenges dried up was executed Tuesday for robbing and strangling his neighbor in 1994.

Lawrence Reynolds Jr., 43, was executed by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility nine days after prison guards found him unconscious in his cell.

Ernie Sanders, a spiritual adviser who met with Reynolds in prison, said Reynolds wanted to die alone, not in the state’s death chamber.

“He just didn’t want his last act of life to be what he considered to be a sideshow or a circus,” Sanders said.

Reynolds became the fourth inmate to die by Ohio’s new lethal injection procedure, which uses one drug instead of three. Like the others, his death came quickly.

Reynolds was convicted of killing Loretta Foster, a 67-year-old widow who baby-sat children in her neighborhood and lived three doors down from him in Cuyahoga Falls near Akron.

Prosecutors said Reynolds was an alcoholic who was out of work and needed money for booze. He forced his way into Foster’s house, strangled her with rope and left with $40 in cash and a blank check from her purse.

“I came in like a lion and go out like a lamb,” Reynolds said in a brief final statement while lying on the gurney.

Addressing two women he didn’t identify, he said, “Erin and Emma will forever and always hold the heart of the lion.”

Reynolds then addressed other inmates on death row and his unsuccessful legal challenge of Ohio’s new execution method.

“To my brothers, I hope they will never have to walk these 15 steps I walked today,” he said. “I have tried to bring attention to the futility and flagrantly flawed system we have today. Stop the madness.”

In the witness room, Denise Turchiano, Foster’s niece, replied, “It’s going to stop right now.”

Reynolds had sued the state, saying it hasn’t corrected problems with accessing inmates’ veins before the single drug is injected. He lost his final court battle Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

Prison officials have released few details about his suicide attempt. It’s unclear if Reynolds had visitors before the overdose or stockpiled medication prescribed for him. Authorities have not identified the drug he took.

Reynolds’ crime shattered the victim’s family and tore apart his own.

Foster was like a grandmother to kids in the neighborhood and even baby-sat for Reynolds’ three younger siblings. Reynolds had few family visits while in prison, and his parents wanted nothing to do with his request for clemency last summer.

Patty Solomon, Foster’s granddaughter, said after the execution that justice had been served.

“It is time to put this behind us and move on with our lives,” she said. “Our hearts are as broken today as they were 16 years ago.”

Reynolds’ childhood was marred by alcohol abuse, according to prison records. He graduated from high school and then spent six years in the Army. When he returned home, he couldn’t hold down a job because of late-night drinking binges.

About a month before her murder, Foster hired Reynolds to paint her basement. Reynolds claimed he was promised $300 but only got $100, prosecutors said.

Reynolds harassed the widow for weeks — knocking on her door after dark, hiding outside and jumping out to scare her.

He went to the widow’s house on Jan. 11, 1994, this time wearing camouflage clothing and carrying a wooden tent pole, which he used to beat Foster when she reached for a phone and tried to call for help, prosecutors said. Then he strangled her and removed her clothes.

At a bar later that night, Reynolds told a group of friends what happened. Unsure whether to believe him, the group went to Foster’s house and saw her body lying on the floor. Two of the friends went to police.

Reynolds had expressed remorse for the killing while in prison, Sanders said.

“It was something he had done under the influence, as he said it, of ‘ignorant oil’” Sanders said. “He wished that he had never done it.”

At the trial, Reynolds’ defense team didn’t deny that Reynolds was responsible for the murder but attempted to show that he was drunk and had not gone to Foster’s house intending to kill her.

He was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and attempted rape.