Ohio Executes John Fautenberry, a Former Trucker Who Confessed to Killing Five People in Four States
Fautenberry died for the 1991 murder of Joseph Daron, who gave him a ride near Cincinnati. Courts refused his last request for a new brain-damage evaluation.
Published
John Fautenberry, a former cross-country truck driver, confessed to killing five people in four states in 1990 and 1991. On July 14, 2009, Ohio executed him for one of them.
Fautenberry, 45, was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. He was condemned for the murder of Joseph Daron, a father of two young children, who offered him a ride on February 17, 1991, as he hitchhiked on Interstate 275 near Cincinnati. He pleaded no contest on July 23, 1992, and after a hearing that September a three-judge panel sentenced him to death. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 1995. In his final weeks, his lawyer sought a state-paid neuropsychologist to examine him, arguing that he had brain damage from a childhood accident and a Navy injury. Federal courts denied the request, the Ohio Parole Board unanimously recommended against clemency, and Gov. Ted Strickland denied it.
According to the Ohio Supreme Court's summary of his confessions, Fautenberry also killed Donald Nutley near Mount Hood, Oregon, in November 1990; Gary Farmer at a truck plaza in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, in early February 1991; Christine Guthrie in Oregon later that month; and Jefferson Diffee in Juneau, Alaska, on March 13, 1991. He was arrested in Alaska shortly afterward, pleaded guilty there to Diffee's murder and was sentenced to 99 years without parole.
The Associated Press named the Ohio victim as Joseph Daron Jr., while the Ohio Supreme Court called him Joseph William Daron.
Sources
- State v. Fautenberry, 1995-Ohio-209, 72 Ohio St.3d 435, Supreme Court of Ohio
- Ohio executes trucker who went on killing spree, NBC News (AP)