Death for Wilks

YOUNGSTOWN

Judge Lou D'Apolito accepted a recommendation this morning that Willie Wilks be put to death for the murder last May of 20-year-old Ororo Wilkins.

Wilks, 42, was stoic as Judge D'Apolito announced in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that the mitigating factors defense attorneys said should spare Wilks' life were outweighed by the method in which Wilks escalated a domestic dispute over a bank card into a murder. She was killed on a Park Avenue porch.

Jurors found April 28 that Wilks should be put to death because he killed a person while trying to kill two or more people.

Another man was wounded in the same shooting and Wilks also shot at Wilkins' brother -- but missed.