LUCASVILLE, Ohio, April 26 (UPI) -- Serial killer Alton Coleman, the only person sentenced to die in three states, was put to death by lethal injection Friday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility for killing a suburban Cincinnati woman during a 54-day spree of murder, rape and kidnapping 18 years ago.
Coleman, 46, was charged with killing eight people, including four children, in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana in 1984. The Waukegan, Ill., man was executed at 10:13 a.m. EDT for the beating death of 44-year-old Marlene Walters in her Norwood, Ohio, home on July 13, 1984.
He received an injection of sodium thiopental, which sent him into deep sleep, pancuronium bromide to relax his muscles, followed by a final dose of potassium chloride to stop his heart.
Coleman and Debra Denise Brown, 39, his accomplice in the six-state rampage, also were found guilty of killing a 15-year-old Cincinnati girl two days before the Walters murder.
Brown, who was 21 at the time of the crimes, is serving a life sentence at the women's prison in Maryville. She remains under a death sentence in Indiana but that state has not sought her extradition.
The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday refused to delay the execution, which was shown to more than a dozen people, including relatives of the victims and reporters, on closed-circuit television. Coleman's attorneys lost a motion to prevent the private broadcast to another room at the prison.
State Corrections Director Reginald Wilkinson said he allowed the families of Coleman's victims to watch the execution on television because the death penalty can be imposed only once.
Coleman spent his last hours watching religious tapes of Dallas-based evangelist T.D. Jakes and listening to music after a special meal of filet mignon and fried chicken breasts. He skipped breakfast Friday morning and prayed with his spiritual advisers before the execution, but his brother and two sisters failed to arrive in time for a final visit.
Coleman was the third of five children of a Waukegan prostitute and was raised by his maternal grandmother. He was nicknamed "Pissy" by playmates because he was a bedwetter.
