Man who killed parents with hammer and knives executed in Ohio
LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- A man who had dropped his appeals was executed Tuesday for beating and stabbing his sleeping parents to death with a hammer and kitchen knives after they hid his car keys so he couldn't go buy drugs.
Scott Mink, 40, was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correction Facility. His execution by injection came just three years after his conviction, the quickest an Ohio inmate's death sentence has been carried out since the state re-enacted the death penalty in 1981.
Mink, 40, pleaded guilty to killing his parents during a night of drinking and doing drugs on September 19, 2000. He beat William and Sheila Mink until his hammer broke and then beat them with cutting boards and stabbed them with kitchen knives.
Mink, who lived with his parents, was enraged because they had hidden the keys to his SUV to keep him from buying drugs.
After the killings, Mink bought crack cocaine by selling his parents' possessions, even the pictures off the walls of their home in Union, just northwest of Dayton. Four days later, Mink turned himself in to police and confessed.
After pleading guilty in 2001, Mink asked a three-judge panel in Montgomery County to sentence him to death.
However, he later appealed, arguing that two psychologists who examined him at trial were not qualified to determine he was competent to reject help from lawyers and plead guilty.
In April, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld Mink's conviction and death sentence, ruling unanimously that he was competent.
Last week, defense attorney Gary Crim told the Ohio Parole Board that Mink wished for no further actions to stop his execution. "I think that his life since he woke up after he sobered up and was arrested is full of remorse," Crim said.
In was the second execution nationwide in less than 24 hours. On Monday, Georgia executed a man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 2-year-old niece. Defense attorneys had argued DNA testing of two newly discovered hairs could prove Eddie Albert Crawford, 57, was not the killer, but the Supreme Court rejected his request for a stay.
The state parole board had cited overwhelming evidence against Crawford, including his own comments after he was taken into custody and her blood found in his car.
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