STARKE - (AP) -- An engraver who
hanged a woman he met at a bar from his kitchen door after sex and
drank beer while she died was executed Tuesday, three years after
firing his attorneys and dropping the legal appeals to his death
sentence.
Glen Ocha's execution by lethal injection came hours after Gov.
Jeb Bush said he thought about postponing the death sentence out of
respect for Pope John Paul II but decided against it because of
sympathy for the victim's family. Bush is a Roman Catholic and the
pope, who died Saturday, opposed capital punishment.
Ocha, 47, apologized to the victim, Carol Skjerva, and her family
before an anonymous executioner injected a lethal cocktail of three
chemicals to stop his heart and his breathing.
''This is the punishment that I deserve,'' Ocha said in his final
statement from the death gurney.
After the statement he closed his eyes, he breathed heavily for
about a minute and then there was no further movement. He was
pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m., Bush's office said.
JURY TRIAL
Ocha had waived a jury trial and pleaded guilty to the Oct. 5,
1999 killing. Skjerva, 28, a convenience store employee had given
Ocha a ride home from the Kissimmee bar where he engraved beer mugs.
He was drunk and high on Ecstasy and they had sex.
Skjerva told him she was going to tell her boyfriend and made
disparaging remarks about his anatomy. Ocha became enraged, choked
her three times until his arms got tired and then hanged her from a
kitchen door.
HIDING BODY
After hiding her body inside a home entertainment system in his
garage, Ocha took Skjerva's car and drove to Daytona Beach. He
confessed to the killing when he was arrested for disorderly
intoxication.
Ocha, who changed his name in prison to Raven Raven, received a
final meal Tuesday morning of a fried chicken breast, potato salad,
kernel corn, two biscuits and a large glass of Pepsi.
He received final visits from two Catholic priests, the Rev. Dale
Recinella of Macclenny and retired Bishop John Snyder from
Jacksonville, plus a visit with his brother, Martin Ocha, said
Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the state Department of
Corrections.
PREPARED TO DELAY
Bush, a convert to Roman Catholicism, told reporters earlier
Tuesday in Tallahassee that ''I actually was prepared to delay the
execution out of courtesy for and respect for the pope's passing.''
But he also said he has a duty to state law and has sympathy for the
victims.
Bush's decision drew criticism from Abe Bonowitz, director of
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. He had said Ocha's
execution would be ``suicide by governor.''
Greg L. Hill, who was appointed as a backup attorney for Ocha,
met with his client Monday evening at the prison and said it was
Ocha's desire ``to accept responsibility for his actions.''
PUBLIC DEFENDER
Ocha would not let a public defender present evidence to avoid
execution. After the state Supreme Court affirmed his conviction in
2002, Ocha filed a motion with the trial court to drop his appeals
and dismiss his attorneys.
In May, the Supreme Court ordered the trial court to hold a
hearing on his mental competency.
Ocha fired his state lawyer, Mark Gruber, when he was ruled
competent June 11.
Ocha had warned that he will kill again if he did not receive the
death penalty.
Of the 16 inmates executed under death warrants signed by Bush,
seven did not fight their execution.
Ocha was the 60th person executed in Florida since the 1976
reinstatement of the death penalty and the first since May 26, when
John Blackwelder who was so intent on being executed that he killed
a fellow inmate and pleaded
guilty.
