AP Newsbreak: Ohio murder claim to be investigated

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A prosecutor said Thursday she will investigate a death row inmate's claim that he committed an unsolved murder more than two decades ago.

Richard Cooey is scheduled to be executed Oct. 14 for killing two college students in 1986. He says he killed a man who beat up his sister but was never prosecuted for it. He says the body of the man, whom he described as a hockey player, was never found.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh told The Associated Press she has no choice but to ask police to investigate the claim, regardless of its merits.

"Any time somebody says that they committed a murder, we are going to take that seriously," Walsh said. "We have no way of knowing whether or not Richard Cooey is just blowing smoke and making things up or whether he did in fact did kill somebody else more than 20 years ago."

Documents obtained by the AP indicate Cooey made the claim to prison employees while awaiting execution five years ago. The allegation was not investigated at the time.

Cooey's attorney Eric Allen says he needs to study the claim before commenting.

In a federal lawsuit filed this month, Cooey argued that he is too fat to be put to death. He said executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.

Cooey stands 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 267 pounds. If executed, he would be the first inmate put to death in Ohio since Christopher Newton was executed last year for killing a prison cellmate over their chess games.

It would also be the first execution in the state since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began last year while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Kentucky's lethal injection procedure.

The Ohio Parole Board will announce Tuesday whether it will grant Cooey's request for clemency. The board denied a similar request in 2003.

Walsh's announcement has no effect on Cooey's federal lawsuit, said Jim Gravelle, spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Nancy Hardin Rogers.

Should Walsh's investigation turn something up and she files new charges, "we would be happy to sit down and talk to her," Gravelle said.

Cooey made the comments about the alleged killing July 23, 2003, while in a cell in the state death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. He was awaiting his execution scheduled for the following day.

The claim was recorded by prison officials, who maintain a running log of inmates' last 24 hours. A federal judge granted Cooey a last-minute reprieve from execution.

Cooey was sentenced to die for killing University of Akron students Dawn McCreery and Wendy Offredo in 1986.