Man executed for ’94 murder wanted to die alone, adviser says

By MARC KOVAC

news@vindy.com

LUCASVILLE — Lawrence Reynolds was an introvert who was sorry for what he did and wanted to die alone, his spiritual adviser said Tuesday after Reynold’s execution.

“He was sorry for his crime. It was something that he had done under the influence, as he said, of ignorant oil,” said Ernie Sanders, addressing reporters after Tuesday’s execution. “He wished that he had never done it.”

But the 43-year-old Summit County man, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of an elderly Cuyahoga Falls neighbor, couldn’t find the words to express his remorse to the family of the woman he killed, using his final moments instead to urge the state to stop capital punishment.

“The law has been upheld, and justice has been served,” Patty Solomon, granddaughter of Reynolds’ murder victim, later told reporters.

Reynolds was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m., about 10 minutes after being strapped to the table in the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

He was the 36th inmate put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999 and the fourth executed under the state’s new single-drug protocol.

In January 1994, Reynolds conned his way into the home of 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.

Reynolds was supposed to be executed a week ago but was found unconscious in his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown just hours before he was to be transported to Lucasville.

He later admitted to prison staff that he was attempting suicide using prescription medicine. Reynolds was returned to the Youngstown prison two days after the overdose and placed under a suicide watch, meaning round-the-clock observation and limited privileges.

He was transferred to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility early Monday.