Kill The Killer?
An Akron man on death row is making a plea before the Ohio Parole Board.
Brett Hartman official prison photo. (Ohio DRC)This story was updated at 3:50 to include information presented on behalf of the state and the victim.
Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Brad Gessner is sticking to the facts - all pointing to Brett Hartman as the murderer of Winda Snipes.
Gessner spent time, especially during a Q&A session with board members, explaining that the non-DNA tested materials found at the murder scene would make no difference in the final outcome. Gessner says it's perfectly possible that hairs found on and near the woman's body could be long to someone other than her or Hartman. He also agreed that the used condom discovered a month after the murder could belong to anyone, but Gessner says there's nothing to prove that person or people linked to those materials killed Snipes.
More importantly, any new DNA would not vacate any of the evidence against Hartman.
Snipes was described as a vibrant woman who, admittedly, had dated a number of mostly younger men. She was also painted as a woman who was very close with her family, despite the fact that they lived in South Carolina.
Gessner told a family story stretching back to Snipes' childhood. Whenever they would leave her grandma's, Snipes and her sister would receive a piece of gum. Snipes wrote a letter to her grandma - and enclosed a stick of gum - just hours before she was murdered.
Snipes' friend, Jacqueline Brown, also spoke before the board. Brown told board members that she believes in the justice system, but urged them to follow the orders of the trial court, which include the execution of Brett Hartman.
Brown also says she talked with Snipes' elderly mother yesterday and Ella Snipes had a message for the board: We have not forgotten. Brown says the family wants the execution to be carried out.
The Ohio Parole Board doesn't get to decide if the exeuction is carried out, but it does make a recommendation to Governor Kasich. That recommendation is expected to be released July 20.
Filed 12:19 p.m.:
Attorneys are making their cases before the Ohio Parole Board, which will recommend to Governor John Kasich whether Brett Hartman, 37, should face the death penalty ordered in 1998.
Hartman faces lethal injection for the 1997 stabbing death of Winda Snipes, 46. Her body was found inside her Highland Square apartment stabbed 138 times. Her severed hands have never been found.
Federal Public Defender David Stebbins is hinging his case on two main points: mitigation and innocence.
Stebbins presented videotaped interviews with Hartman's sisters, nephews and others, including the aunt who could be considered the strongest parental figure in his childhood. There is a common theme among the interviews: Hartman had a very rough childhood. While there is no evidence of physical abuse, Hartman grew up in a family that was full of violence - specifically, against his mother and any of ther five husbands. Alcoholism seems to infiltrate the entire family.
Hartman was sent away to live with his aunt in an extremely isolated section of a Native American reservation in New Mexico - mom's solution when Hartman didn't get along well with one of his stepfathers. Hartman eventually started to get into trouble and lived on the streets for awhile when he was just 14 and the sad biography continues.
"These are all factors that the jury did not hear about at all," said Stebbins.
Stebbins and others also told board members about Hartman's artwork, the education he has earned in prison (becoming a paralegal and an ordained minister) and the positive influence he has become to other prisoners.
Stebbins told the board he wants there to be an understanding of who Hartman was before Snipes was murdered and who he has become since then.
Stebbins also announced that he filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Summit County Prosecutor's Office, in an effort to compel the office to release some evidence that has never been DNA tested: four hairs (two found on the body, the others in blood surrounding it) and a used condom are among them.
It's not the first time the issue has some up - Hartman has been asking for additional testing for a decade or more. His request was partially granted one time and the DNA pinpointed him.
Hartman is not present at today's hearing. The full board (with the exception of Board Chair Cynthia Mausser) interviewed Hartman last month. Information presented on his behalf lasted about three hours.
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