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Beacon Journal
Inmate Gets Second Chance At Clemency Wed, Oct. 12, 2005 COLUMBUS, Ohio - A condemned inmate, given a two-month reprieve by Gov. Bob Taft after questions were raised about the actions of an investigator and the attorney general's office, is still maintaining innocence. John Spirko, 59, says he didn't kill Betty Jane Mottinger in 1982. His lawyers were given a chance to plead his case again during a rare second clemency hearing scheduled for Wednesday before the Ohio Parole Board. Spirko was scheduled to die by injection on Sept. 20, but Taft ordered the execution delayed until Nov. 15 after reports that the state presented inaccurate information at his clemency hearing. The parole board called for a second hearing, the first time it has done so since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported that Timothy Prichard, director of the attorney general's capital crimes office, made false statements and mischaracterized evidence regarding what Spirko knew about Mottinger's slaying and his whereabouts on the day of the killing. The parole board, which had voted 6-3 against recommending clemency, requested the rehearing, and the attorney general's office recommended it. Spirko's lawyers have asked for any documents from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service that involve an investigation into the behavior of former postal inspector Paul Hartman, the state's lead investigator and a star witness in the Spirko case. Gregory Duerr, a current postal inspector, wrote in a letter that more than a dozen colleagues filed complaints about Hartman in the late 1990s. Mottinger, 48, who was the postmaster in Elgin in northwest Ohio, was abducted and stabbed nearly 20 times, wrapped in a curtain and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later.
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