Ohio prepares to execute first inmate in 6 months

COLUMBUS (AP) — A condemned inmate has been moved to the southern Ohio prison where he’s scheduled to be executed for fatally stabbing the 15-year-old son of his former employers during a burglary at the family’s northeastern Ohio farmhouse in 1985.

A prisons spokeswoman says 49-year-old Mark Wiles arrived at the Lucasville facility Monday morning.

His execution scheduled for Wednesday would end an unofficial six-month moratorium on the death penalty while the state and a federal judge wrangled over Ohio’s lethal injection procedures.

Wiles dropped his final appeal last week. He told the Ohio Parole Board he wasn’t sure he deserved mercy.

Gov. John Kasich denied Wiles’ clemency request.

Records show Wiles surprised Mark Klima during a burglary and stabbed him repeatedly with a kitchen knife until he stopped moving.