Ohio man executed in ’89 killings of 2

Associated Press

LUCASVILLE, Ohio

An Ohio death-row inmate used his last words Thursday to repeatedly apologize to the family members of his two victims and tell them that he hopes they can let their pain die with him.

Donald Palmer, 47, was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Lucasville in southern Ohio about 23 years after he shot and killed two men he didn’t know along a rural road.

“I want you to know I’ve carried you in my heart for years and years,” Palmer told six women in the room who are the widows, daughters and a niece of the men he killed. “I’m so sorry for what I took from you ... I hope your pain and hurt die with me today.”

Palmer also told the women that he knows the pain of losing a parent, a sibling and a child, and that he wished his execution could bring their loved ones back to them.

Shortly after that, intravenous lines in both Palmer’s arms began delivering a fatal dose of pentobarbital, causing his chest to heave as he breathed heavily and his eyes fluttered. Later his head twitched up and down, and nine minutes after that, the prison warden declared his time of death at 10:35 a.m.

Palmer was convicted of aggravated murder in the May 8, 1989, shooting deaths of Charles Sponhaltz and Steven Vargo along a Belmont County road in eastern Ohio.

Both of the married fathers were strangers to Palmer, and both were shot twice in the head.

Palmer and a friend had been staking out the home of a man who once dated his ex-wife when Sponhaltz rear-ended his truck and was shot, according to court records. Vargo was a passing driver who happened upon Sponhaltz’s killing and was also shot.

Their daughters and widows spoke to each other before and during the execution, with one saying that the small, brick execution chamber with a metal bed was too elaborate for Palmer.

“There should be no sheet on that damn bed,” said Charlene Farkas, one of Sponhaltz’s daughters. “It should be in the ground in the dirt.”

Some family members spoke to reporters after the execution, saying that they believed Palmer’s apology was sincere but that it was too little, too late.