“For me freedom’s not going to happen.”
The Associated Press
By Mark Duncan
TOLEDO — A man whose death sentence for killing a postmistress was commuted to life in prison said he will keep pressing Ohio’s governor for a full pardon.
John Spirko, who was moved off death row last week after 23 years, said today that he’ll fight for release “till my last breath.”
Spirko said the reason he’s still behind bars has more to do with his lengthy criminal past than the slaying of the northwest Ohio postmistress that landed him on death row.
“I understand my past turns a lot of people against me,” Spirko said during his first interview since Gov. Ted Strickland commuted the sentence Wednesday.
Strickland, citing the lack of physical evidence linking Spirko to the 1982 killing of Betty Jane Mottinger and the slim doubt about his involvement, ordered that Spirko serve a life term without parole.
The governor rejected a pardon or allowing Spirko to be released for his time served.
Spirko said he was relieved but extremely disappointed by the decision.
“I thought the governor would give me the full pardon,” he said. “When my sentence was commuted, I got another death sentence.”
Spirko’s attorneys said they will continue to take their case to the courts, and they want to meet further with Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann.
“The claims of actual innocence are still the same,” said his Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Tom Hill. “We’re not giving up.”
Spirko said he feels no different now than when he was first sentenced to die.
“For me freedom’s not going to happen,” he said “I got life without parole. That’s the way I look at it. That’s the way I have to live my life.”
That means he can’t have any close relationships with his family, including his daughter who plans to visit him this weekend. “That hurts a lot,” he said.
Spirko said an investigator who provided key evidence against him lied and hid evidence that would have helped Spirko’s case.
“Now I know what it’s like to be a victim,” he said. “I understand why victims are so angry.”
Former Postal Inspector Paul Hartman, who interviewed Spirko 16 times during the investigation, said last week he remains convinced Spirko killed Mottinger.
Hartman said Spirko confessed to the crime and provided details only the killer would know, including what kind of jewelry Mottinger was wearing when she was abducted.
“I never told him any of those details,” Spirko said Tuesday.
He also denied he confessed. He said nowhere in Hartman’s notes is there any mention of a confession.
Spirko said he only talked with investigators and offered to trade information about the killing so police would go easy on his girlfriend, who was facing charges in an unrelated case.
Mottinger was abducted from the post office she ran in Elgin and repeatedly stabbed. She was wrapped in a tarp and dumped in a field where her body was found three weeks after her death.
While the Ohio Parole board reconsidered Spirko’s case and DNA testing was conducted on material found near Mottinger’s body, Spirko received seven reprieves, a record under the state’s current death penalty law, which went into effect in 1981.
Spirko’s long list of crimes dates back to when he was 10 years old. He was involved in a number of thefts, according to court records, and was in and out of jail until 1969, when he was charged with killing a 72-year-old woman during a robbery in Covington, Ky.
He was spared the death penalty then by the vote of one juror and served 12 years in prison. He was paroled two weeks before Mottinger’s disappearance.