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The Daily Decatur DEMOCRAT Decatur, Indiana
Former Investigator Agreeing With Spirko?
Did he or didn’t he? That question continues to be asked about John Spirko, the drifter convicted in Van Wert County, Ohio, in 1983 of kidnapping and killing of Elgin, Ohio, postmaster Betty J. Mottinger, 48, in 1982. Spirko has been on Ohio’s Death Row for many years and his lawyers have filed numerous appeals to stave off his execution, which is currently set for July 19. Spirko, 59, has always said he did not commit the crime and, now, a key police investigator in the case almost a quarter of a century ago appears to agree with him. In a recent news media interview in Ohio, former Hancock County deputy sheriff Brad Bell said, “I’m not aware of any tangible physical evidence” of Spirko’s guilt. Furthermore, said Bell, “Something doesn’t smell right to me as far as what went on there,” referring to the investigation and the subsequent trial. Hancock County (Findlay is the county seat) is where Mottinger’s body was found. Elgin, where the kidnapping took place, is some 20 miles east of Adams County. Spirko told the media, “All I want is justice. I’ve spent 24 years in a cage for something I didn’t do.” However, Mottinger’s relatives still say Spirko did the crime. Her brother, John Schroeder, said, “I just want to see this thing over with — what they call closure. She was my baby sister and I loved her dearly.” U.S. Postal Service Inspector Paul Hartman, who has spoken with Spirko 16 times about the crime, said his notes from a January 11, 1983, meeting show that Spirko told him, “Lay it all on me. I killed her.” Spirko, however, denies saying that. The condemned man, released from prison in Kentucky only a few months before Mottinger’s murder after compleing a sentence for manslaughter, said, “There’s a much bigger picture here and that’s justice — not just for me, but for everybody.” Spirko’s latest attorney, Steven Drizin, legal director of the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s law school in Illinois, told the Ohio news media, “This is the weakest death [penalty] case I have ever seen.”
Copyright © 2006, The Decatur Daily Democrat.
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