CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence imposed upon Michael Madison, who killed three women over nine months at his East Cleveland apartment.
The court’s seven justices unanimously affirmed Madison’s 2016 conviction and three separate sentences of death in what is likely the first of several appeals for the 39-year-old who is currently on death row at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution.
Justice R. Patrick DeWine authored the court’s 64-page opinion, which vacated Madison’s conviction on two charges of kidnapping and two charges of murder, but rejected Madison’s challenges to the fairness of his trial and the constitutionality of the death penalty and upheld the remaining convictions.
A jury convicted Madison of strangling 18-year-old Shirrellda Terry, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley, and 38-year-old Angela Deskins between October 2012 and July 2013.
Madison met the three women in separate incidents and lured them back to his apartment at the corner of Hayden and Shaw avenues, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Madison was inspired by East Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell to keep his victim’s bodies stashed nearby. He placed their bodies in garbage bags. He stored one in his garage, another in bushes outside and a third in the basement a vacant home nearby.
Madison said during a videotaped police interrogation after his arrest that he severely abused drugs and alcohol at the time to cope with repressed anger toward his mother and the mother of his two children. His defense attorneys presented evidence that his mother, Diane Madison, and some of her boyfriends severely abused Madison as a child in an attempt to sway the jury away from a death sentence.
Jurors found Madison guilty of aggravated murder in each woman’s death and recommended the death penalty. Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy R. McDonnell imposed the death sentence on each count during a hearing in which a father of one of the woman lunged across the defense table at Madison.
Diane Madison was stabbed to death during an attack in her home in June, according to police. Jaylen Plummer, 19, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in her death and is awaiting trial.
Source: cleveland.com, Cory Shaffer, July 21, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
