44-year-old Billy Slagle was pronounced dead around 6 a.m. Sunday, about an hour after he was found in his cell on Death Row. He was set to die Wednesday for the murder of his 40-year-old neighbor, Mari Ann Pope, while she was babysitting two young children in 1987.
Slagle’s case was unusual because the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor had appealed for clemency, saying that under current law Slagle likely would have been sentenced to life without parole instead.
Gov. John Kasich went along with the parole board’s recommendation against clemency, but there was a last minute court argument set for today.
Slagle is the second inmate facing execution to attempt suicide since Ohio restarted executions in 1999, but he’s the first one to kill himself.
