Courts - Ohio Rapist who claimed drug allergy executed U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene

By Matt Leingang Associated Press Writer LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- A serial rapist executed for strangling a 16-year-old girl with a dog chain in 1988 was a monster who refused to admit his guilt, the teen's mother said. Darryl Durr, 46, died by lethal injection Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. His attorneys had argued that he could be violently allergic to the anesthetic the state uses to put inmates to death, but there were no apparent complications. Norma Jean Godsey, mother of victim Angel Vincent, witnessed the execution and was disappointed Durr maintained his innocence until the very end and did not ask God for forgiveness. Godsey said she drank and smoked heavily for years after the murder of her only child. It led to chronic bronchitis and other health problems that require her to carry an oxygen tank, she said. "He took everything from me," said Godsey, who now lives in Monticello, Ky. As the lethal injection began, Durr clenched his fists, grimaced and held his head up for about 10 seconds before gently putting it down. It wasn't clear if he was in pain or emotionally reacting to the moment. Dennis Sipe, one of two attorneys who witnessed the execution on behalf of Durr, said Durr's reaction more likely stemmed from physical pain rather than his feelings about being executed. "I think he had come to terms with the fact that the state was going to end his life," Sipe said. Durr had said he intended to die without fighting, telling his minister in a final statement: "I planned to go out in a struggle, but I want to make you proud. I'll go out in peace." Durr kidnapped 16-year-old Angel Vincent from her home in Elyria on Jan. 31, 1988, while her mother and stepfather were away at a Super Bowl party, prosecutors said. He raped and strangled her with a dog chain and hid her body inside two orange traffic barrels placed end-to-end in a Cleveland park, authorities said. In what appeared to be an unusual legal maneuver, Durr's lawyers said last week they uncovered evidence of Durr's anesthesia allergy in his 800-page prison medical record. Ohio uses a large dose of anesthesia to execute condemned inmates, and Durr argued that no one knew how his body would react to the drug. The state countered that there was no proof that an allergic reaction would occur before Durr was already deeply unconscious and the worst reaction would be death from low blood pressure and impaired breathing, effects that would be irrelevant in the context of an execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Monday, upholding a judge's ruling that Durr waited too long to raise the allergy issue, then relied mainly on speculation to ask for time to investigate. In his statement, Durr told Vincent's family he was sorry for their pain but maintained his innocence. He said he hoped the courts would have allowed further DNA testing on a necklace found on the victim. Experts testified there would be no DNA on the necklace, and authorities couldn't guarantee the necklace had been preserved properly as evidence. Durr, then 24, had fathered a child with a teenage girlfriend who lived down the street from Vincent. Durr named his newborn daughter Angel and made his girlfriend model the jeans he had removed from his victim the night she was abducted, prosecutors said. Three months later, several boys playing in the park noticed a foul odor and found Angel Vincent's decomposed body inside the traffic barrels. The case remained unsolved until Durr was arrested on two unrelated rapes in September 1988. His girlfriend, Deborah Mullins, came forward and told authorities that Durr had picked her up the night Vincent disappeared. Vincent was tied up in the back of the vehicle, Mullins said, and Durr said he was going to "waste" her. Durr dropped Mullins off at an apartment, she said, then returned about four hours later and placed Vincent's ring and bracelet on a coffee table. Durr boasted that he had strangled Vincent, Mullins said. He was convicted largely on the testimony of Mullins, who said she waited months to tell police about the murder out of fear that Durr would harm her. Prosecutors said Mullins knew facts about the case that she could not have known without Durr telling her, including the location of the body. Durr was the fourth inmate executed this year in Ohio, which is on pace to execute a state record 11 inmates in 2010. Published: Thu, Apr 22, 2010

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