MANSFIELD, Ohio - Convicted killer Lewis Williams, scheduled to die next month for killing a 76-year-old woman in a 1983 robbery, says he's innocent of the crime. If put to death, he would be the first Ohio inmate to die whose mental retardation claim was rejected.

"I wasn't there. I didn't do it," Williams said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press on death row at Mansfield Correctional Institution.

"I did not commit these crimes. I would not commit those crimes against a person like that. I have sympathy and sincere condolences for the family."

Williams, 44, was convicted of killing Leoma Chmielewski, who was severely beaten and shot in the face in her Cleveland home on Jan. 21, 1983. He said he was in her house the night she died but said he left before she was killed.

Prosecutors dismiss Williams' claim of innocence, saying courts have upheld his conviction several times.

Williams' claims "are the same claims he's rehashing again at the 12th hour of his execution," said Jon Oebker, an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

Williams said he was helping Chmielewski resolve a dispute over loud music with his cousin, who lived across the street. But he maintains he left to go to downtown Cleveland for the evening and didn't learn of her death until he was arrested at his mother's house.

He said Monday he does not know who killed Chmielewski.

Williams, a small balding man with a mustache, wore leg irons and his hands were shackled to chains around his waist during a 40-minute interview in a windowless room just off death row. He rattled off details about his cousin and the case without seeming emotional.

He disputed evidence presented against him, including a footprint on the victim's nightgown that matched his shoe and evidence of gun residue on a jacket found at his mother's house the day he was arrested.

Williams also said prosecutors trumped up trial testimony from two jailhouse snitches.

Prosecutors also told the parole board in March that Williams had given different versions of his story over the years.

In one statement, Williams said he was in the house when the gun went off but couldn't remember what happened, Oebker said. In another, he said the gun went off while he was wrestling with the victim's dog, Oebker said.

Williams was scheduled to be executed in June, but it was delayed after Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside allowed him to present his claim that he was mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that executing the mentally retarded was unconstitutional.

Burnside later rejected Williams' mental retardation claim after an expert hired by his attorneys determined he is not mentally retarded, Oebker said.

On Dec. 15, Burnside denied Williams' request for a new trial. Williams has asked the federal courts once again to review his case.

Williams should not be executed even if he were guilty, said Stephen Farrell, an assistant state public defender who represented Williams in the past. The state's death penalty law is meant for Ohio's worst crimes, Farrell said, whereas this case was an isolated shooting with no sign of premeditation.

Gov. Bob Taft and the Ohio Parole Board have both rejected Williams' request for clemency.

Chmielewski's stepdaughter, Dorothy Beverly, testified against Williams before the parole board in March. Beverly declined comment Monday. She said in a June court hearing that she was "totally outraged" the state had let the case go on for 20 years.