John Hicks was executed by the State of Ohio for a double murder
According to court documents John Hicks would rob his mother in law, Maxine Armstrong, who he would murder in the process. When he realized that his five year old stepdaughter could place him at the scene of the crime he would murder the child
John Hicks would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Hicks would be executed by lethal injection on November 29 2005
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When Was John Hicks Executed
John Hicks was executed on November 29 2005
John Hicks Case
More than 20 years after his convictions for murder, John Hicks received the ultimate punishment Tuesday.
With $66.43 worth of drugs, the state of Ohio executed the 49-year-old Hicks for the murder of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Brandy Green, and his 56-year-old mother-in-law, Maxine Armstrong, at a Walnut Hills apartment in August 1985. The execution began in his holding cell where medical staff inserted two intravenous shunts, one in each arm, and locked them into place to deliver the sodium pentothal that put him to sleep and the two other drugs to stop his breathing and his heartbeat.
Hicks then walked 17 steps into the death chamber where he was strapped to a bed that was bolted to the floor. He asked for his glasses, which the warden placed on his face. He looked to the left into the witness chamber searching for recognizable faces.
He then spoke his last words: “I know it’s been 20 years of pain and hurt, but during those 20 years I suffered, too. I cared and I loved, too, for Maxine and Brandy.” Hicks, whose quest for drug money in 1985 led to the murders, said, “It began with a syringe in my arm and this day is ending with a needle in my arm. It’s come full circle.” He thanked his attorneys and singled out four death row inmates to “hang in there and stay strong.” Then he said, “Take care, ’cause I’m coming home.”
With that, the drugs began to flow. As they did, he shook his head and said, “Lord, hallelujah.” He laughed, smiled and said, “Yes, thank you.” Then he fell silent. Warden Edwin Voorhies Jr. declared the time of death to be 10:20 a.m.
On his last night alive, Hicks spoke to his mother, brother and a friend by phone. A death row minister, Rev. Gary Sims, counseled him. In his final days and hours, Hicks remained calm and compliant, reading the Bible, listening to the radio and talking with Sims. “He had a peaceful night,” said prison spokesperson Andrea Dean.
His two attorneys, Marc Mezibov and William Lazarow, were the only witnesses representing Hicks. His parents stayed in Toledo. Brandy Green’s aunt and uncle, Pamara and Douglas Hughes, and her cousin, Tia Tuskin, witnessed the death from the victim’s side. Hicks and his attorneys made a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused to hear it and did not comment.
Hicks became the 19th person to be executed in Ohio since the state resumed the death penalty in 1999. He was the 999th person to be put to death nationwide since a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to move forward with the death penalty.
In 1985, Hicks was cocaine user desperate for money to buy the drug. He had already stolen his mother-in-law’s VCR and pawned it for drug money. But he worried his wife would notice the missing VCR – she had already confronted him earlier that summer about money missing from their bank account. So Hicks went back to his mother-in-law’s apartment to steal money to buy back the VCR. He found his stepdaughter asleep on a sofa and took her to her bedroom, waking her in the process. After he put her to bed, he returned to the living room and his mother-in-law, eventually choking her to death. An hour or more later, he returned to the apartment, after realizing that Brandy had been the last to see him in the apartment, and could potentially identify him as her grandmother’s killer. Hicks used a pillowcase and duct tape to smother Brandy.
In February 1986, a Hamilton County Common Pleas court jury found Hicks guilty of seven counts, including two counts of aggravated murder. A week later, then-Judge Simon Leis Jr., now the Hamilton County sheriff, imposed the death sentence. The Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both refused to review Hicks’ case.
Two other executions are scheduled this year, including John Spirko, who continues to maintain his innocence in the death of a postmistress. Seven Ohio inmates were executed last year, second-highest in the nation after Texas.
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051129/NEWS01/511290384
