Death-row inmate returns to Youngstown after apparent suicide try

By MARC KOVAC

news@vindy.com

Photo

Lawrence Reynolds Sr.

COLUMBUS — Death-row inmate Lawrence Reynolds was back at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown on Tuesday afternoon and under round-the-clock observation to prevent a repeat of what appears to be a suicide attempt late Sunday.

Reynolds returned to the Youngstown prison just after noon after spending about two days in a hospital after attempting to overdose on prescription drugs.

Julie Walburn, state prisons spokeswoman, said he is being kept in a different cell, away from other inmates, with additional restrictions on his access to personal belongs and activities.

“He will no longer be able to have recreation,” she said. “We are making accommodations to ensure he has attorney access. ... He won’t be leaving that cell that he’s in right now except under special precautions.”

Prison officials also are continuing to investigate how Reynolds obtained enough prescription pills to attempt an overdose.

“Part of what we are looking into is anyone he would have had contact with and whether that contributed to the incident,” Walburn said.

Reynolds has admitted to prison staff that he took quantities of a prescription drug as part of an overdose that left him unconscious and postponed his scheduled execution by a week.

Walburn said it is still not known how Reynolds obtained quantities of the drug. She would not disclose the type of drug, nor how often Reynolds receives doses, citing the inmate’s medical confidentiality.

“The investigation is ongoing,” Walburn said, adding, “We’re looking at all factors surrounding [this incident] as part of the investigation.”

Reynolds was to be transported to the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville early Monday.

But he was found unconscious in his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown about 11:30 p.m. Sunday and was transported by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown.

Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency for Reynolds on Monday but issued a seven-day reprieve, postponing his scheduled execution for a week. He is now set to be executed next Tuesday.

Strickland, who worked as a prison psychologist at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, said it isn’t unusual for inmates to hoard and exchange medications.

“Having worked in the prison system, I am hugely aware that the inmate population can be very creative in trying to break the rules and overcome the rules,” he said. “It’s happened, but I think these kinds of occurrences, in terms of inmates’ passing medications and saving medications up and doing those kinds of things, is not a terribly rare thing to have happened.”

Strickland speculated that’s what happened in Reynolds’ case.

“Inmates on death row, obviously some of them are on medications of different kinds,” he said. “So I am speculating that they saved up their medications and gave it to this inmate so that he could have a sufficient amount to try to take an overdose. I’m not certain that’s how it happened. ... I’m speculating, but I’m speculating out of experience that that’s likely what happened.”

Strickland added, concerning prison officials’ efforts to restore Reynolds’ health before his scheduled lethal injection, “It is ironic, obviously, that you would work to keep someone alive when they are scheduled to be executed. But I think the law apparently is very clear that the state has the obligation to attend to an inmate’s medical needs, even a condemned person, until such time as the date of execution occurs and they are in fact executed.”

In January 1994, Reynolds conned his way into the Cuyahoga Falls 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.

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.