William Sapp was condemned in Ohio for three killings in Springfield, in Clark County: the deaths of two girls, Phree Morrow, 12, and Martha Leach, 11, on August 22, 1992, and the death of an adult woman, Belinda Anderson, in 1993. A Clark County jury convicted him of aggravated murder, with other charges, and he was sentenced on October 21, 1999. The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the convictions and death sentences on December 29, 2004.
The case turned on a legal question as well as on the killings themselves. Sapp was not the first person convicted for the 1992 deaths, and the death specifications in his case rested on tying the 1992 and 1993 killings together as a single course of conduct. The Supreme Court of Ohio addressed that question directly.
Sapp's date of birth and his early life are not on record. The crimes took place in Springfield, in Clark County.
Phree Morrow was 12 and Martha Leach was 11. They died in Springfield on August 22, 1992. Both girls left families in Springfield, and twenty years later relatives said the loss still shaped their daily lives.
In the years after the deaths, other people were convicted in connection with the 1992 killings. Six people in all were convicted. Sapp's own part in the case surfaced only years later.
Belinda Anderson was an adult woman who died in Springfield in 1993, about a year after the two girls. The court found that Sapp killed her. Further biographical detail about her is not on record.
In December 1993, about three months after Anderson's death, a woman in Springfield survived an attempt on her life. Sapp was charged with attempted aggravated murder in connection with that offense.
By 1996 Sapp was in the Clark County Jail. By then he had been sentenced to a prison term in a separate Clark County case involving another woman, in which he was found not guilty of attempted murder. On September 26, 1996, sheriff's detectives from Florida questioned him in the jail about an unrelated matter. During that interview he made admissions about the December 1993 offense.
Springfield detectives then interviewed him over parts of April 2 and 3, 1997. He confessed to the killings of Phree Morrow, Martha Leach and Belinda Anderson and to the December 1993 offense. DNA evidence led investigators to connect him to the 1992 killings.
A Clark County grand jury returned a 27-count indictment in 1997. It charged aggravated murder in nine counts, three for each of the three victims, on different legal theories; two counts of attempted aggravated murder; and other charges. Each aggravated murder count carried a specification that the murder was part of a course of conduct involving the purposeful killing of, or attempt to kill, two or more persons. A specification alleging that the murders were committed to avoid apprehension was dismissed before trial.
The prosecution was led by Stephen Schumaker, the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, with Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Andrew P. Pickering. Sapp was represented on appeal by Spiros P. Cocoves and Jeffrey M. Gamso.
The jury convicted Sapp on all counts and specifications that were tried. After a separate mitigation hearing, the jury recommended death on each aggravated murder count. The court merged the counts into one for each victim and imposed a sentence of death for the murders of Phree Morrow, Martha Leach and Belinda Anderson on October 21, 1999. For the other counts it imposed prison terms, including life terms, to be served consecutively.
The Court of Appeals for Clark County affirmed the convictions and sentences in all respects on December 13, 2002. Sapp appealed as of right to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which took the case on submission on September 28, 2004, and decided it on December 29, 2004.
Justice Francis E. Sweeney Sr. wrote the court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice Moyer and Justices Resnick, Lundberg Stratton, O'Connor and O'Donnell. The court rejected all 16 propositions of law. Its central ruling concerned the course-of-conduct specification: the State must show a factual link between the killings, such as time, location, motive or a similar pattern, before they can be treated as a single course of conduct. The court held that the evidence was enough to connect the Anderson murder, and the attempted murder in December 1993, with the 1992 killings.
Justice Pfeifer concurred in part and dissented in part. He agreed with the death sentences for the murders of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach, but disagreed that the Anderson murder was part of the same course of conduct as the 1992 killings. The majority's view prevailed, and the death sentence for that count stood.
In 2025 Sapp was still under sentence of death, his case listed among Ohio's active death-penalty cases. An execution date for him is not on record, and later postconviction or federal review of his sentence is not on record.
No killings beyond the three charged in Clark County are on record as charged or confessed in connection with Sapp. The 1992 case involved other people who were also convicted. The only point of legal disagreement in the Ohio appeal concerned whether the Anderson killing fell under the course-of-conduct specification, which the majority resolved against Sapp.
August 22, 1992: Phree Morrow, 12, and Martha Leach, 11, die in Springfield.
1993: Belinda Anderson dies in Springfield.
December 1993: attempt on a woman's life in Springfield; she survives.
September 26, 1996: Florida sheriff's detectives question him in the Clark County Jail; he makes admissions about the December 1993 offense.
April 2 to 3, 1997: he confesses to Springfield detectives.
1997: Clark County grand jury returns a 27-count indictment.
October 21, 1999: sentenced to death on the aggravated murder counts.
December 13, 2002: Court of Appeals for Clark County affirms.
December 29, 2004: Supreme Court of Ohio affirms the convictions and death sentences.
2025: listed among Ohio's active death-penalty cases.