Execution date set for couple’s killer

By Marc Kovac | March 2, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Charles Lorraine

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Supreme Court has set a January 2012 execution date for a man convicted in the killing of an elderly Warren couple 25 years ago.

Charles Lorraine will face lethal injection Jan. 18, according to a decision released by the state’s high court Tuesday.

Lorraine was sentenced to death in for killing Doris and Raymond Montgomery in November 1986.

According to documents, 77-year-old Raymond Montgomery and his 80-year-old wife, Doris, had hired Lorraine to complete jobs around their Haymaker Avenue Northwest home in Warren.

“Lorraine stabbed Mr. Montgomery five times with a butcher knife and stabbed Mrs. Montgomery, who was bed ridden, nine times. Lorraine stole their money and when he spent all of the money that day, he returned to the Montgomerys’ house to steal again,” according to court records.

The state parole board recommended against clemency in the case in 1994, but Lorraine filed additional legal action, alleging that he was mentally retarded and could not be executed.

Subsequent proceedings on that issue tied up the case for years, until a hearing early last year, when Lorraine abandoned the effort.

Trumbull County prosecutors asked the state’s high court last April to set an execution date in the case, noting that Lorraine had exhausted all his state and federal appeals. They re-filed the execution date request last month.

Lorraine’s execution was one of two announced by the court Tuesday. Michael Webb, convicted of killing his 3-year-old son in Clermont County in November 1990, will face lethal injection Feb. 22, 2012.

Justices earlier set executions dates for seven other death row inmates, with monthly lethal injections set through October.