Trucker who went on killing spree executed

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Nearly 19 years after he embarked on a bloody multistate killing spree that left five people dead, Oregon truck driver John Fautenberry had no final statement for the families of his victims who watched Tuesday as Ohio put him to death.

He had no words for Charlene Farmer, who clutched several photographs of her son, Gary, and held them to her lips while lethal drugs began flowing into Fautenberry’s veins. She had traveled all the way from Tennessee with the hope that, years later, she might finally hear an apology from the man who killed her son.

“He saw me. I know he did,” she said, recounting Fautenberry’s behavior during the execution. “He turned and looked at me.”

Fautenberry, 45, walked calmly and unassisted into the death chamber and lay down on a stretcher as the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility execution team prepared to put him to death for murdering a Cincinnati-area Ohio man who gave him a ride in February 1991.

Joseph Daron Jr., 46, had picked up the hitchhiking Fautenberry east of Cincinnati. Court records show Daron pleaded for his life before Fautenberry shot him and threw his body into a wooded area near the Ohio River.

Fautenberry also had confessed killing four people in three other states — Alaska, Oregon and New Jersey — during a five-month period in late 1990 and early 1991.

Fautenberry was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m., about two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to delay his execution on a claim that he had brain damage.

Fautenberry shook his head and said no when technicians asked him whether he wanted to make a final statement. He had no family members or friends present.

Fautenberry wore black-rimmed glasses and remained passive during the execution process.

Technicians had some difficulty inserting the shunts into Fautenberry’s right arm, and blood pooled on the bandages. His arms and chest convulsed slightly and his Adam’s apple jerked for about five minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow about 10:25 a.m.

His defense attorney, Dennis Sipe, said he was concerned about the lengthy shunt insertion process.

“It was obvious there was a heavy flow of blood,” Sipe said. “It seemed like it took a while to get those things installed.”

Fautenberry kept rubbing the fingers of his left hand together for about a minute after the process began, then his fingers grew still. At 10:28 a.m., the warden shook him on the shoulder and called his name. Fautenberry did not respond, and an available second dose of the injection was not used.

Fautenberry gave up his right to a trial by jury in Cincinnati and pleaded no contest July 23, 1992, to two counts each of aggravated murder and grand theft and one count of aggravated robbery in Daron’s death.