Kentucky teen killer Todd Ice dead at 47

MUNCIE, Ind., Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Todd Ice, who had been the youngest person in the United States to be sentenced to death, died of a heart attack in Missouri, his father announced.

Ice, who had been convicted of murder in Kentucky at the age of 15, succumbed in a hospital Thursday on his 47th birthday, Dean Ice of Muncie, Ind., told The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal.

Ice's conviction for the 1978 slaying of Donna Knox, a 7-year-old neighbor girl, led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling calling the execution of defendants younger than 18 a cruel and unusual punishment, The Courier-Journal said Monday.

The Kentucky Supreme Court reversed Ice's sentence and conviction in 1983 due to witness testimony that was deemed unreliable. The move stirred up a furor in Powell County that included a recall campaign against two justices.

Ice, who suffered from mental problems, was eventually released in the early 1990s amid even more controversy over the state's failure to provide psychiatric treatment. Ice said on "60 Minutes" on CBS in 1996 that he was finally on the right medications and no longer considered himself to be violent, The Courier-Journal said.