CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) – An attorney for a condemned killer found hanged in his Chillicothe death row cell says the defense is shocked and saddened and had hoped to stop his Wednesday execution.
Attorney Vicki Werneke tells The Associated Press in an email that the defense had no warning that Billy Slagle might commit suicide.
The 44-year-old Slagle was found in his cell about 5:00 a.m. Sunday at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution and was declared dead within the hour.
“The Plain Dealer” reports Slagle was to go on suicide watch today, three days before he was scheduled to be executed for the 1987 murder of Mari Anne Pope.
Prison spokeswoman JoEllen Smith says he was alone and no other inmates are suspected of involvement.
The coroner plans an autopsy Monday.
Slagle was sentenced in 1988 to die for killing Pope killed while two young children she was watching were in the house. The mother of one of the children says the incident so scarred her son that he took his own life in 2002.