• Home
• News
• Sports
• AP
• Blogs
• Citizen News
• Regional News
• Links
• E-Edition
• Services
• Forms
• Classified
• Homes
• Jobs
• Autos
• MarketplaceOhio
• DiscountGuru

High court declines to stop execution Man who murdered Cuyahoga Falls woman set to die by lethal injection

Print Story    |    Comments    |   

By Marc Kovac

Record-Courier Capital Bureau

COLUMBUS — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to stop the execution of a death row inmate who strangled an elderly neighbor in 1994 and who last week tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills.

Lawrence Reynolds, sentenced to death for the murder of an elderly Cuyahoga Falls neighbor, had asked the high court for a delay while he challenged Ohio’s lethal injection procedure. The court refused without comment to intervene in Tuesday’s execution.

The 43-year-old arrived at the prison in Lucasville just after 10 a.m. Monday. He asked for and received a cup of coffee and spent the morning lying on his bed, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.

He spent much of the day in a holding cell 17 steps from the execution chamber where he is scheduled to take his last breaths. He has 10 people on an approved visitor list who can take part in contact visits with him later this afternoon, said Julie Walburn, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Reynolds requested a special meal of a steak, pork chops, jumbo fried shrimp, fried cheese sticks, french fries, onion rings, fried mushrooms, black cherries, black walnuts and Dr Pepper.

Three relatives of Reynolds’ murder victim plan to witness his execution: Denise Turchiano, a niece; Kelly Redfern, a great niece; and Patty Solomon, a granddaughter.

Reynolds’ two attorneys and a friend plan to witness the execution on his behalf.

In January 1994, Reynolds conned his way into the home of Loretta Mae Foster, a 67-year-old neighbor. He beat her with a tent pole, tied her up with a telephone cord and strangled her to death.

Reynolds took about $40 in cash and a blank check belonging to the victim; Foster’s nude body was later found on the floor of her house, after Reynolds bragged to friends about the killing. He was convicted for murder, kidnapping, burglary and attempted rape and sentenced to death.

Reynolds was supposed to be executed a week ago but was found unconscious in his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown just hours before he was to be transported to Lucasville.

He later admitted to prison staff that he was attempting suicide using prescription medicine.

Prison officials have not yet released information from their investigation on how Reynolds obtained enough pills to attempt an overdose — whether he hoarded his own prescription over time or received pills from other inmates.

Reynolds was returned to the prison and has been under an around-the-clock suicide watch since then. He will be under constant observation while in the Death House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ecute him.

Gov. Ted Strickland postponed his original execution date last fall while the state reviewed its execution method.

Then last week, just days before his next execution date, prison guards found Reynolds unconscious in his cell from a suicide attempt.

High court declines to stop Ohio execution Tuesday

Eds: UPDATES with details from prison news briefing, RESTORES background and photo.

AP Photo NY127

By MATT LEINGANG

Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — 

Lawrence

Reynolds was convicted of killing Loretta Foster, a 67-year-old widow who baby-sat kids in her neighborhood and lived three doors from him in Cuyahoga Falls near Akron.

Prosecutors said Reynolds was an alcoholic who was out of work and needed money to buy booze. He forced his way into Foster’s house, strangled her with rope and left with $40 in cash and a blank check from her purse.

Mental health staff who met with Reynolds on Monday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, which houses the state’s death chamber, recommended that he remain under constant observation.

Also, personal property in his cell is being limited to a white T-shirt, a pair of underwear, socks and blue prison pants, said prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn. Reynolds would need special approval for writing materials or headphones, she said.

Prison officials have released few details about Reynolds’ suicide attempt. It’s unclear whether he had visitors before the overdose or stockpiled medication prescribed for him. Authorities have not identified the drug he took.

Reynolds would be the fourth inmate to die by Ohio’s new lethal injection procedure, which uses a one-drug method instead of three. Death came in just a few minutes for the others.

His attorneys had been challenging the new method, saying the state still hasn’t corrected problems with accessing inmates’ veins before the single drug is used. Appealing to the Supreme Court was his last legal option.

A message seeking comment was left Monday for his attorneys.

He took a shower in the afternoon, twice called a friend and ordered a special meal that included a Porterhouse steak, pork chops and jumbo fried shrimp, Walburn said.

“He’s been calm and cooperative with the staff. He’s indicated that he’ll cooperate tomorrow,” she said.

Reynolds’ crime shattered the victim’s family and tore apart his own.

Foster was like a grandmother to kids in the neighborhood and even baby-sat for Reynolds’ three younger siblings.

About a month before her murder, Foster hired Reynolds to paint her basement. Reynolds claimed he was promised $300 but only got $100, prosecutors said.

Reynolds went to the widow’s house on Jan. 11, 1994, wearing camouflage clothing and carrying a wooden tent pole, which he used to beat Foster when she reached for a phone and tried to call for help, prosecutors said. Then he strangled her and removed her clothes.

At a bar later that night, Reynolds told a group of friends what happened. The friends went to the police.

Reynolds has had few family visits while in prison, and his parents wanted nothing to do with his request for clemency last summer.