Man sentenced to death for killing 2 Ohio teens

CINCINNATI (AP) — An Ohio registered sex offender who described himself as “evil” was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing two teenage girls and burning their bodies.

Anthony Kirkland, 41, of Cincinnati was sentenced two weeks after a jury convicted him of aggravated murder, gross abuse of a corpse, attempted rape and aggravated robbery.

His attorneys offered no defense during his trial and Kirkland told jurors he was “evil” and “a monster.” As part of evidence in the case, prosecutors introduced details about his guilty pleas to the murders of two other females.

Today, Judge Charles Kubicki Jr. could have chosen to give Kirkland life in prison for the slayings of Esme Kenney, 13, and Casonya Crawford, 14, both of Cincinnati. Instead, the judge accepted the sentence recommended by the Hamilton County Common Pleas jury March 17.

Kirkland was to be tried for all four deaths but pleaded guilty before the trial to charges of murder and gross abuse of a corpse in the slayings of Mary Jo Newton, 45, and Kimya Rolison, 25, also of Cincinnati. Those cases did not carry the death penalty.

A halfway house released Kirkland weeks before Kenney’s slaying. Police said they found Kirkland near Kenney’s partially burned body in woods near her home in March 2009. She had left home to go jogging at a reservoir.

In investigating Kenney’s death, authorities later charged Kirkland in the other slayings, which all occurred in 2006. The teens and Newton were strangled; Rolison was stabbed. The women’s bodies also were burned.