A man whose drug-fueled rage led him to kill his sleeping parents with a hammer and kitchen knives was put to death Tuesday morning after declining to pursue appeals that would have postponed his execution.
Scott Mink, 40 , died by lethal injection Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. It was the quickest an Ohio inmate's death sentence was carried out since the state restored the death penalty in 1981.
It also would come a week after the execution of another man who dropped his appeals, Stephen Vrabel of Youngstown.
On Tuesday morning, Mink smoked cigarettes and drank coffee but didn't eat. The prison served him waffles, cereal, milk, coffee and apple juice.
"We took the breakfast to him but he said he wasn't hungry," prison spokesman Larry Green said.
Green said Mink remained calm and cooperative.
Mink spent Monday smoking cigarettes, switching channels on a television in his cell and taking short naps, said prison spokesman Larry Green. In the afternoon, he met with his sister, Cheryl Williams, and his niece, Kristen Williams.
Mink pleaded guilty to killing his parents during a night of drinking and doing drugs on Sept. 19, 2000. He beat William and Sheila Mink until the hammer broke and also struck them with cutting boards and stabbed them with kitchen knives.
Scott Mink, who lived with his parents, was enraged that they had hidden the keys to his truck to keep him from buying drugs.
After the killings, Mink bought crack cocaine by selling his parents' possessions, including pictures off the walls of the upstairs duplex where the three lived in the community of 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. "I do ask for the death penalty, to be handed a sentence of death," he told the panel just before the sentence.
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. The justices ruled unanimously that Mink was competent when he rejected attorney help, entered his plea and declined to present any evidence to argue instead for a lesser sentence of life in prison.
Last week, defense attorney Gary Crim told the Ohio Parole Board that Mink wishes there to be 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. "That's his way of remorse, seeking execution."
Gov. Bob Taft declined Monday to stop Mink's scheduled execution. The parole board recommended 7-0 against clemency last week.
On Monday, Mink had for his special meal of a T-bone steak; baked potato with sour cream and butter; steamed broccoli and cauliflower; a hamburger with cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mustard; french fries with extra salt and Pepsi.
Green said Mink finished everything but the broccoli.
Expected witnesses to the execution were Mink's siblings Cheryl Williams, Christine Martinson and William Mink; niece Kristen Williams, and Monty Stevens, a clergyman requested by the family, said prison spokeswoman JoEllen Culp.
Watch NewsChannel 4 and refresh nbc4columbus.com for additional information.
More News From nbc4columbus.com:
Ohio Executes Man For Killing Parents
City Agrees To Develop Apartments, Condos, Homes
