By Susan Jacobson | Sentinel
Staff Writer Posted April 6, 2005
STARKE -- Convicted killer Glenn Ocha on Tuesday got
the death he had been longing for since he began trying to commit
suicide at the age of 13.
Ocha, 47, was executed by lethal
injection at Florida State Prison for the October 1999 murder of
Carol Skjerva, who gave him a ride to his Buenaventura Lakes home
from a nearby bar where he sometimes etched beer mugs.
In a
final statement, Ocha apologized and dismissed the notion that he
was committing suicide by failing to allow lawyers to defend him or
try to spare him from the death penalty.
"I'm taking
responsibility for my actions," Ocha said at 6:01 p.m. as he lay on
his back, strapped to a gurney and under a white sheet.
"I
would like to say I apologize to Carol Skjerva, the girl that I
murdered, and to her family and her friends. This is the punishment
I deserve."
Ocha took one Valium before an injection of
lethal drugs began flowing through his right arm, Florida Department
of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said.
He closed his
eyes and lay motionless until a doctor pronounced him dead at 6:10
p.m.
Across the street from the prison, about two dozen
protesters carried signs denouncing the execution. Abe Bonowitz,
director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said
Gov. Jeb Bush was hypocritical to intervene to save the life of
Terri Schiavo, the Pinellas Park woman who died last week after 15
years in a vegetative state, and yet sign a death warrant for
Ocha.
"If Jeb Bush is going to govern by religion, then he
ought to be consistent," Bonowitz said. "This is suicide by
governor."
Ocha awoke in a good mood at 5 a.m. Tuesday and
visited with his brother Martin and a priest, Ivey said. He had his
last meal of a fried chicken breast, corn, potato salad, two
biscuits and a large Pepsi at 10:30 a.m., then spent the afternoon
with the priest.
Ocha told detectives he was drunk and high
on Ecstasy when he killed Skjerva.
He said she made a
disparaging remark about his anatomy after they had sex. He first
tried to strangle her and break her neck, then hanged her from a
door. He drank a beer and changed his clothes while she
died.
Skjerva's family was not among the witnesses at the
execution, corrections officials said.
Ocha was calm and
remorseful and told corrections officers he was looking forward to
the execution, Ivey said.
A Tampa lawyer serving as backup
counsel for Ocha, who represented himself, met with him Monday
night.
" 'I have made my peace with God and go now to face
his judgment,' " attorney Gregory Hill quoted Ocha.
Although
several mental-health professionals said they thought Ocha was
mentally ill, Circuit Judge Frank Kaney, now a senior judge, ruled
there is a difference between mental illness and legal insanity.
Ocha pleaded guilty knowing the state was seeking the death penalty.
He claimed on the plea form that he was acting in his best interest.
Kaney sentenced him in November 2000.
Ocha, who legally
changed his name in 1993 to Raven Raven, although the Corrections
Department lists him as "Ocha," told a psychologist he tried to
commit suicide eight or nine times starting when he was
13.
Court records show he had longstanding alcohol and drug
problems and was abused as a child. In 1984, he shot Kentucky motel
manager Kiran Patel, now 43, in the head when the man tried to
collect overdue room charges, a relative of Patel said. Ocha was
released from prison for that crime less than a year before he met
Skjerva.
The execution was carried out despite a plea Monday
by the Catholic bishops of Florida to spare Ocha's life. Bush was
considering delaying the execution out of respect for Pope John Paul
II, an opponent of the death penalty, who died Saturday, but he held
fast out of sympathy for Skjerva's family, he told
reporters.
Ocha was the 60th person executed in Florida since
the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty.
