Ohio Death Row Inmate Overdosed on Pills Hours Before Scheduled Execution

On Monday, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland postponed the execution of a convicted killer who somehow was able to overdose on pills in his jail cell, and was found unconscious only a few hours before he was scheduled to be driven to his execution.

Lawrence Reynolds Jr., 43, had been sentenced to death for killing his neighbor in 1994. he was found unconscious in his cell around 11:30pm at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. He was alone in his death row cell, and was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday.

According to a prison spokesperson, Reynolds was showing signs of consciousness on Monday at a Youngstown hospital, however medical staff were not yet prepared to release him. He was upgraded from serious to stable condition.

Despite being under a 72-hour watch, which is routine for inmates approaching an execution date, Reynolds managed to down the pills. The spokesperson did not say what kind of pills he had taken, how he got them or how many he took. An investigation is underway, but the spokesperson declined to call it a suicide attempt.

Gov. Strickland issued a seven-day reprieve and rescheduled Reynolds' execution for March 16. Reynolds had been scheduled to leave at 3am for the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, where the state performs its executions.

Reynolds has been challenging the state's new lethal injection procedure that uses a one-drug system instead of three drugs. His attorney's filed an appeal on Monday with the US Supreme Court seeking to postpone the execution.

Tuesday would have been the second time that Ohio has attempted to execute Reynolds. He had been scheduled to die in October 2009, but that was also delayed by the Governor so that the state could review its lethal injection procedure.

Reynolds was sentenced to death for strangling his 67-year-old neighbor in her Cuyahoga Falls home to get money for alcohol.