Man executed for fire deaths

Associated Press

LUCASVILLE, Ohio

An Ohio man said he was “heartily sorry” for his carelessness before he was executed Tuesday for the murders of five children in a 1992 Cincinnati apartment fire he set in an attempt to destroy evidence of a burglary.

William Garner, 37, died at 10:38 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, 18 minutes after the lethal injection began.

As he lay on the execution table, Garner held a dreadlock of hair from a female friend and read a mostly inaudible lengthy final statement from notebook paper held by the execution team leader. He thanked several people as well as the state of Ohio.

“I’m heartily sorry,” he said. “God bless everyone who has been robbed in this procedure. I thought I’d never be free, but I’m free now.”

Garner was sentenced to death for the Jan. 26, 1992, pre-dawn deaths of the children in the apartment of Addie Mack.

Mack was in the emergency room of a nearby hospital when Garner stole keys from her purse and took a cab to her apartment to steal a television, radio, VCR and telephone. Four girls and two boys, age 8 to 13, were at the apartment alone, and Garner knew they were there when he threw a lit match onto a couch.

Garner admitted setting the fire that led to his death sentences but said he thought the children would escape. Only one, 13-year-old Rod Mack, made it out alive.

Mack, wearing a shirt and tie, watched the execution quietly with several others, including Addie Mack, who lost three daughters in the fire; Marshandra Jackson, who lost a daughter; and Carl Freeman, the father of two of the girls. They did not comment after the execution.

As the drugs were administered Tuesday, Garner looked at his niece and legal team before closing his eyes. An execution team member used a stethoscope to check for a heartbeat before a curtain along a window separating Garner from witnesses was closed.

Prisons Director Ernie Moore said the execution marked a first due to the way in which the inmate’s time of death was determined.

Though the initial stethoscope check showed no sign of life, Garner received a full medical check again behind the curtain, and a coroner thought a faint heartbeat could be detected, Moore said. After waiting five minutes, Garner was re-evaluated and no heartbeat or other signs of life were detected, Moore said.

The time of death was determined to be 10:38 a.m., and the curtain was reopened, after having been closed for 10 minutes.

“We did experience something we hadn’t experienced before. ... During the medical check, we thought that we heard faint heart sounds. No other signs of life were present,” Moore said.

Moore said the process used went according to protocol.

Because so many people wanted to witness the execution on behalf of the young victims, the prison opened a second viewing room, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.

Six witnesses for the victims and Garner’s niece and legal team were accommodated in the witness room facing the execution chamber, and another three victims’ witnesses watched on closed-circuit TV in the spillover room, she said.