Murderer set to be executed refuses to ask for clemency

A US man sentenced to die for raping and murdering two women 20 years ago has stayed silent publicly about the crimes, refusing even to ask the Ohio governor to spare him.

But Glenn Benner has promised to address his Ohio victims' families in the moments before his execution by injection today.

He was calm in the hours before his sentence was to be carried out, visiting with two sisters and a female pen pal he met while in prison, prisons department spokeswoman Andrea Dean said.

Governor Bob Taft's decision yesterday to deny clemency to Benner left nothing in the way of the US state's 20th execution since Ohio resumed enforcing the death penalty in 1999. He has no pending court requests to stop it, his lawyer, Kate McGarry, said yesterday.

Benner, who declined recent interview requests out of respect for the victims and their families, refused to seek clemency from the governor, saying the process didn't factor in whether an inmate has changed in prison. Taft said he found no reason to disagree with the unanimous recommendation against clemency by the Ohio Parole Board.

Benner, 43, was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Cynthia Sedgwick, 26, in 1985 after she had attended a concert near Akron, Ohio. He also was convicted of raping and murdering, 21-year-old Trina Bowser, a childhood friend of his.

Bowser's family found her body stuffed in the boot of her car in the Akron suburb of Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1986.

Benner was convicted of raping and trying to murder two other women in the months between the killings, but he was not sentenced to death in those crimes.

He killed to avoid getting caught so he could continue assaulting women, said Phil Bogdanoff, an assistant Summit County prosecutor, who called Benner a serial rapist and killer at Benner's clemency hearing last month.

Benner has admitted committing horrific crimes while under the influence of drugs.

His defence attorney attacked the credibility of a co-worker who said Benner confessed the killing to him and questioned the recollection of the witnesses who saw him carrying Sedgwick into the woods near the concert amphitheatre where her body was later found.

Benner appealed numerous aspects of his trial, claiming ineffective counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. He agreed to DNA testing in one of his legal challenges and the 2003 results clearly established that he raped and killed Bowser.

Benner wrote letters to relatives and friends and was on the phone for a couple hours Tuesday morning, Dean said. He slept a couple hours overnight and refused breakfast after a last dinner yesterday.