COLUMBUS Man to die for death of couple, court says
All the condemned man's arguments were rejected.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of robbing and killing an elderly Portage County couple in April 1990.
The high court affirmed unanimously Friday a lower court's judgment that Tyrone Lee Noling's death sentence should be carried out.
Noling was sentenced in February 1996 in Portage County Common Pleas Court to die for the killing of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig in their Atwater Township home.
& quot;I think it's certainly appropriate, & quot; said Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci. & quot;That's one of the most heinous and vicious murder cases in our county's history. & quot;
Neither Noling, who is being held in Mansfield Correctional Institution, nor attorneys representing him could be reached.
The murders
According to court documents, the Hartigs were found on their kitchen floor by a neighbor's son, who thought it was strange the couple's lawnmower had been left out front for a couple of days.
Authorities said Bearnhardt Hartig was shot three times and his wife five times with a .25-caliber automatic handgun. The home was ransacked.
Investigators were led to four suspects accused in the robberies of elderly couples in Alliance, a few miles to the south. Noling was one of them.
During Noling's trial, his accomplices testified he was the trigger man.
Noling was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated robbery and one count of aggravated burglary.
He appealed to the high court a decision from the 11th District Appeals Court upholding the convictions and death sentence.
In sustaining the sentence, the high court rejected all of Noling's arguments.