Kevin Hough was executed by the State of Indiana for a double murder
According to court documents Kevin Hough was upset that his brother’s landlords had taken property from his apartment. Kevin would go to the landlords residence along with his brother. Once inside of the home Hough would shoot and kill Ted Bosler and Gene Rubrake.
Kevin Hough would also murder Antoni Bartkowiak during a home invasion 11 days before the double murder
Kevin Hough would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kevin Hough would be executed by lethal injection on May 2 2003
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When Was Kevin Hough Executed
Kevin Hough was executed on May 2 2003
Kevin Hough Case
Kevin Lee Hough didn’t confess to killings committed nearly 18 years ago, but was thinking of his victims’ families when he was put to death by lethal injection early today. Hough, 43, was pronounced dead at 12:25 a.m. after three lethal chemicals were pumped into his blood. His last words were: “I hope the victims’ families get some measure of satisfaction. Hopefully their grief won’t be as much.” Eleven members of the victims’ families attended, but did not witness the execution. None of them wished to speak afterward.
Hough was sentenced to die by lethal injection for his role in two 1985 Fort Wayne slayings, becoming the 10th man put to death in Indiana since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1977. The last time an Allen County resident was executed was in 1961. Hough offered no physical resistance a few minutes after midnight when he was placed on a gurney. IVs were inserted into his arm and his death warrant was read. The Rev. Joe Lanzalaco spent more than four hours with Hough immediately before the execution. He said they talked, watched TV, listened to music and prayed. At one point, Lanzalaco said, Hough’s stomach became upset from eating candy all day with his family. Prison officials brought him Maalox to calm him. “He never swayed from saying he didn’t do it,” Lanzalaco said. “He seemed to be at peace with himself at the end.”
Hough spent his last day alive visiting his family, talking on the telephone and praying. Hough didn’t ask for any special meal. Instead, he ate scrambled eggs with toast and jelly prepared by prison staff. Hough had eight witnesses on hand to watch his death. A smattering of abolitionists gathered at the Indiana State Prison about 8 p.m., lighting candles and carrying homemade signs protesting the death penalty. “The only thing we can do is come and be a witness and hold a candle and hope this country becomes a more civilized land,” said Helen Boothe, who has attended nine executions.
Hough killed three Fort Wayne men within 11 days of one another. The first, Antonio Bartkowiak, was the roommate of an alleged drug dealer whom Hough and two others went to rob. According to court records and testimony, Hough tortured Bartkowiak with a cattle prod before handcuffing the man and taking him to the basement. He then instructed one of his co-defendants to get a cushion from the couch, which he placed over the back of Bartkowiak’s head and shot him.
Not even two weeks later, Hough shot and killed roommates Martin “Gene” Rubrake and Ted Bosler in their West Central home. Hough’s half-brother provided a chilling narrative of the killings in which Hough stepped on one of the victim’s faces before leaving the room, and then kicked a dog at the top of the basement stairs. He also took a beer can and remote control that he believed had his fingerprints on it. It is for the double homicide that he received the death penalty.
Hough had maintained he is not guilty while sitting on death row for more than 15 years. Meanwhile his daughter has grown up, married and had two children, who have visited their grandfather in prison. His state and federal appeals have largely centered on allegations of inadequate defense counsel. He also has claimed that his abusive and dysfunctional childhood should mitigate his sentence. None of those arguments swayed Gov. Frank O’Bannon or the U.S. Supreme Court, who both declined to intervene. “He’s holding up, taking this in a very dignified way,” said Hough’s attorney, Joey Mogul. “I just think this is an obsolete punishment – a homicide of a poor, defenseless man.”
But family members of the men killed by Hough saw the execution as justice. Joseph Bartkowiak, the son of Antonio Bartkowiak, called Hough a coward and said he was getting off easy compared to how his father was killed when Joseph was 13 years old. “He robbed me of my life with my father,” Bartkowiak said. “I think he should be killed the same way he killed my father.”
Indiana’s last execution was of James Lowery in June 2001. Hough will be the fourth Allen County man killed by the state – including the 1961 electrocution of Richard Kiefer, who stabbed his wife and 5-year-old daughter.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/5769661.htm