Getsy, murder-for-hire triggerman, awaits execution at 10 a.m. today

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The triggerman in an Ohio murder-for-hire scheme that killed a 66-year-old woman and critically wounded her son was awaiting execution Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal.

Jason Getsy, 33, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville.

Getsy fatally shot Ann Serafino in her home in Hubbard, near Youngstown, on July 7, 1995. Her son, Charles Serafino, was the intended victim.

John Santine, who orchestrated the crime, was in a dispute over ownership of a landscaping business with Charles Serafino and offered Getsy $5,000 to kill him and any witnesses to the crime. Santine was convicted of aggravated murder.

Prosecutors said Charles Serafino was lying wounded on the floor when Getsy struck his mother in the head with a revolver, opening a 4-inch gash, and then shot her twice.

Charles Serafino, who was shot seven times, survived the attack and pressed for Getsy’s execution.

“It’s not going to change my life. But it’s justice for my mother, and that’s what she deserves,” said Serafino, who planned to witness Tuesday’s execution.

Getsy spent Monday night writing letters — he asked for 15 stamped envelopes — making phone calls and reading the Bible. He ate part of his last meal, including rib-eye steak, barbecued buffalo wings and onion rings.

He slept from 2:22 a.m. to 5:32 a.m., got up and took a shower, said prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn.

For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Vindicator.