An innocent man lost everything on death row



'It was pitiful,' said Dale Johnston of his 5-year death row experience

By Laura A. Bischoff and Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writers
Sunday, February 22, 2009

GROVE CITY — Nineteen years after he walked off of Ohio's death row 
and out of prison, Dale Johnston may finally be in a position to 
clear his name.

With his double murder conviction overturned, Johnston, formerly of 
Xenia, was freed in 1990 but never exonerated by the state.

Then in December 2008, Chester McKnight pleaded guilty to the crimes 
and was sentenced to 20 years to life. Another man, Kenneth Linscott, 
is scheduled to stand trial later this year for his alleged role.

His 1984 conviction and death sentence delivered catastrophic losses 
to Johnston: He lost his marriage, his freedom, his 53-acre farm and 
dream house, and any faith he had in the justice system.

Johnston was sentenced to death after prosecutors claimed he had an 
intimate relationship with his 18-year-old stepdaughter, Annette 
Cooper, and killed Cooper and her fiance, Todd Schultz, 19, in a 
jealous rage. The couple were last seen walking together on Oct. 4, 
1982. Ten days later, their torsos were found floating in the Hocking 
River and their heads and limbs were found buried in a cornfield.

Johnston is one of 130 death row inmates in 26 states — including 
five from Ohio — to be released from prison since 1973 because of 
innocence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center of 
Washington, D.C. Another Ohio inmate who has always proclaimed 
innocence, Joe D'Ambrosio, is to be retried starting March 2. A 
federal judge ordered the new trial, saying prosecutors withheld 
evidence that probably would have led to an acquittal for D'Ambrosio 
in 1989 for the murder of a Cleveland Heights teenager.

Johnston will never forget walking onto death row at the state prison 
in Lucasville, the inmates standing at their cell doors to see the 
new guy.

"If you remember some of the old zombie-type movies, that's what they 
looked like. No expression, pale, fixed eyes. Just dead people 
standing. It was pitiful," said Johnston, now 75. "I made up my mind 
immediately I wasn't going to let that happen to me."

At Lucasville, inmates would spend 23 hours and 37 minutes a day in 
their cells, he said. Sometimes the air was so cold he'd see frost on 
the bars in the morning. Mentally ill inmates in the cells above him 
would scream, curse and even set themselves afire, he said.

"Many a night we'd wake up in the middle of the night with tear gas 
choking us to death, where they had to use tear gas to get some 
amount of silence," Johnston said. He added, "If I had treated any of 
my farm animals the way I was treated and other inmates on death row 
are treated, we would have been arrested for animal abuse."

State prison officials say that's just not accurate. While rules were 
more stringent back then, it was rare to have problems with death 
row, a spokeswoman said.

After his release on May 10, 1990, Johnston settled in Grove City, a 
suburb just south of Columbus.

In July 2000, he married a woman he met at church, and they now live 
in a cozy three-bedroom ranch sitting on two acres along a two-lane 
state route. Johnston's wife divorced him while he was in prison.

He once counted himself as a death penalty supporter. Not anymore.

"If you execute an innocent man, how do you correct that?" he said. 
"You say, oops you're sorry. Doesn't quite cut it."

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