Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Nation in brief
Death row inmate found dead; suicide suspected
By wire services
Published May 8, 2005
MANSFIELD, Ohio - A death row inmate who thanked jurors for recommending that he be sentenced to die for killing a police officer was found dead in his cell Saturday, an apparent suicide, a prisons spokeswoman said.
Martin Koliser was found on the floor of his cell at Mansfield Correctional Institution a half-hour after guards had last checked on him, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.
Koliser, 32, was alone in the cell and the death appeared to be "suicide by laceration to his arm and possibly suffocation," said Ohio Highway Patrol spokeswoman Sgt. Stephanie Norman.
Norman said she didn't know how Koliser might have cut himself.
The body was sent to Cleveland for an autopsy.
Koliser had been on death row since November 2003 for killing Youngstown Patrolman Michael Hartzell, 26, as the officer was investigating a shooting.
Mourners gather to remember "Precious Doe'
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday for a memorial service to remember the girl once known only as "Precious Doe," interrupting a pastor's remarks with applause and shouting the child's name in unison.
The girl remained unidentified for four years after her headless body was found in April 2001 in Kansas City. Days later, her head turned up nearby, wrapped in a trash bag.
She was called "Precious Doe" while authorities sought her identity. Police identified the child this past week as Erica Michelle Marie Green, who was nearly 4. The girl's mother, Michelle M. Johnson, 30, and Johnson's husband, Harrell Johnson, 25, each face charges of second-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child. Police say Harrell Johnson admitted that, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, he became angry with Erica when she refused to go to bed, grabbed her, kicked her and threw her to the ground. After she died, he said he used hedge clippers to sever her head.
[Last modified May 8, 2005, 00:46:16]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Letter to the editor
