Richard Cooey

Richard Wade Cooey II (June 9, 1967 – October 14, 2008) was an American murderer. With Clinton Dickens, he was responsible for the murders of 21-year-old Wendy Offredo and 20-year-old Dawn McCreery in Akron, Ohio, on September 1, 1986. He became notable for his argument that, with his weight of over , he was too obese to be executed an argument ultimately rejected by the courts.

Youth

Cooey was born in Akron, Ohio. He lived in Stow with his parents until they divorced when he was 11. He spent his junior high years and high school years between Stow, with his father, and Akron, with his paternal grandmother. Cooey graduated from Stow High School in 1985 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. The following summer, he returned on leave.

Case

Early on the morning of September 1, 1986, Cooey, Dickens and Kenneth Horonetz Jr. were throwing chunks of concrete off the Stoner Street Bridge onto U.S. Interstate 77 in Akron. One of the chunks thrown by Dickens struck the vehicle of a University of Akron student, 21-year-old Wendy Offredo. Also in the vehicle was another student, 20-year-old Dawn McCreery.

Pretending to rescue both students, the three men actually ended up kidnapping them. Cooey, then age 19, and Dickens, age 17, took the women to a field behind the Rolling Acres Mall where they raped, stabbed, and tortured them for three and a half hours, eventually choking and bludgeoning them to death and abandoning the bodies. They also carved X's into the victims' abdomens. Cooey and Dickens each blamed the other for the actual murders, Horonetz having left the car before the violence began. Cooey bragged about the murders to close friends and was eventually turned in to authorities. He was convicted on November 14, 1986, and sentenced to death. Dickens, who was a minor at the time of the murders, could not be sentenced to death under Ohio laws, and is serving a life sentence in prison. Horonetz, then age 18, and another suspect, Terry Grant, age 19, were charged with obstruction of justice in the case for participating in the destruction of evidence. Grant was sentenced to two years' probation. Horonetz was released on parole after serving one year of a three-to-fifteen year prison sentence for felonious assault. Cooey later claimed that he did not kill or beat anyone. He admitted to raping the women, claiming he did "rape under duress". He also stated that he was under the influence of alcohol and illegal drugs, such as cocaine and opium, at the time.

Execution

Cooey was confined at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He was originally scheduled to be executed on July 24, 2003, but the execution was stayed to allow further investigation of his case. In February 2005 he attempted to escape.

Cooey argued that his obesity rendered lethal injection an inhumane form of execution because (he claimed) his clogged veins would prevent the first drug administered during the executionmeant to render the prisoner insensiblefrom having full effect. He also claimed that prison food was responsible for his obesity. The argument was rejected and he was executed on October 14, 2008.

See also

*Capital punishment in Ohio
*Capital punishment in the United States
* List of people executed in Ohio
*List of people executed in the United States in 2008

References

General references

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External links

United States 6th Circuit Court of Appeals opinions
regarding Cooey
State of Ohio Adult Parole Authority report recommending against death sentence clemency

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooey, Richard
1967 births
2008 deaths
20th-century American criminals
21st-century executions by Ohio
21st-century executions of American people
American people executed for murder
American people convicted of rape
American people convicted of robbery
American people convicted of kidnapping
American people convicted of assault
People convicted of murder by Ohio
People executed by Ohio by lethal injection
People from Akron, Ohio
Executed people from Ohio
People from Stow, Ohio
United States Army soldiers