A three-part series appear­ing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer exam­ines the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of John Spirko, who remains on Ohio’s death row for the 1982 mur­der of Elgin, Ohio post­mas­ter Betty Jane Mottinger. The paper’s inves­ti­ga­tion found that Spirko’s imag­i­na­tion and ​“not much else” had brought him to the brink of exe­cu­tion despite con­cerns of his inno­cence. Shortly after Mottinger’s body was found, Spirko vol­un­tar­i­ly con­tact­ed police to pro­vide infor­ma­tion about the mur­der. According to the paper’s inves­ti­ga­tion, Spirko’s ill-con­ceived plan was to use false infor­ma­tion about the crime as lever­age to secure a sen­tenc­ing deal for two unre­lat­ed felonies and an agree­ment that his girl­friend would be giv­en pro­ba­tion for assist­ing him in a prison escape attempt. Federal author­i­ties ini­tial­ly agreed to his terms and con­duct­ed a series of 15 inter­views with Spirko, most fea­tur­ing a shift­ing and con­tra­dic­to­ry series of accounts that Spirko said he learned about at sev­er­al Toledo-area par­ties.

Six weeks after the inter­views began, Spirko, a known liar with­in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty, ​“had talked him­self right onto Ohio’s death row.” More than two decades lat­er, the Plain Dealer’s news inves­ti­ga­tion of Spirko’s case details the role that over-zeal­ous inves­ti­ga­tors, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, and con­flict­ing eye-wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny have played in Spirko’s case. Judge Ronald Lee Gilman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit stat­ed in a dis­sent­ing opin­ion that the state’s case against Spirko was built ​“on a foun­da­tion of sand” and that the ​“com­plete absence” of phys­i­cal evi­dence against him raised con­sid­er­able doubt about his guilt. 

(The Plain Dealer, January 23 – 25, 2005). See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the series. See also Innocence.

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