DESPERATION BOULEVARD: LIFE ON DEATH ROW
Scotsman Kenny Richey has spent almost seventeen years on Ohio’s death row for the arson death of a toddler, a crime he swears he did not commit.
Sue Russell reports. 

Kenny Richey, 38, was sentenced to death for the murder of 2-year old Cynthia Collins who died in an Ohio apartment fire on June 30, 1986. The 4 a.m. blaze was initially ruled accidental. It followed a long night of partying by residents of Columbus Grove's Old Farm Apartment complex, which spilled across the breezeway and into some of the flats.

The toddler's mother, Hope Collins, then 21, who'd left for the night with two male friends, claimed Kenny agreed to babysit Cynthia; something he vehemently denies. Kenny, who lived with his father, was riproaring drunk and was even seen sprawled in a bush fifteen minutes before the fire started.

Everyone is innocent on death row, the saying goes, yet even many sceptics believe Kenny was convicted on scant, if not tainted, evidence. World-class experts believe that what was used to implicate Kenny in arson—supposed 'pour pattern' stains on the burned carpet, indicating the presence of accelerants like petrol and paint thinner—was based on flawed science and not evidence at all.

Edinburgh law students who studied the case for a year became convinced of Kenny Richey's innocence. His supporters include the Pope, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, actresses Glenda Jackson and Susan Sarandon, several M.P.'s and Amnesty International. All believe that at minimum the case should be re-examined or Richey should be retried. For ten years, Kenny has had Kenneth Parsigian, a former independent counsel in the Iran Contra Investigation, as his pro bono appeals lawyer.

Despite all this, it's extraordinarily difficult to get an appeals court to overturn a death sentence. Kenny's case now awaits a last-ditch review by the Federal Court, Sixth Circuit.

"That only leaves the US Supreme Court which never takes these cases," Kenny explains, "so it's an automatic refusal anyway and straight to the death chamber. So this is my last shot."

His last shot but also his best shot, notes Kenneth Parsigian, "Because by far and away, this is the court most concerned with the death penalty." The case could be heard in February.

The Case Against Kenny

Hope and Cynthia Collins' apartment was swiftly gutted once the fire was put out. Its contents, including the crucial carpet, were on the town dump when the fire marshall declared the fire had been deliberately set rather than accidental. Kenny was arrested on July 10th.

His was the first capital case in Putnam County since the 1800s and went before a three-judge panel, not a jury. This was Kenny's public defender, William Kluge's first mistake, given that a single juror's "reasonable doubt" would have saved Kenny from the death penalty.

Prosecutor Daniel Gerschutz successfully argued that Kenny stole cans of accelerants from a commercial greenhouse then clambered on to a 5ft. tall storage shed, then carried the cans up onto Hope's second-floor balcony and set the blaze. All this activity with his fractured hand in a splint and while Hope's apartment door was open.

His motive? Jealous rage, prosecutors theorized, aimed at ex-girlfriend Candy Barchet, who was asleep by an open window in the flat below with a new boyfriend.

In Kenny's favour, the greenhouse owner couldn't even confirm that any accelerant was missing, and no empty cans were ever found. His clothes and boots all tested negative for splashes of accelerant. Firefighters confirmed that Kenny twice had to be forcibly restrained from rushing into the inferno to try to save the child. Normally, that alone would have saved him from execution.

He was most hurt by witnesses who testified that he'd bragged he'd burn down a building that night. Later, one was declared questionable and yet another, Peggy Villearreal, has since recanted. Had Kenny's lawyer asked her, Peggy could have testified that Hope disconnected her over-sensitive smoke alarm herself that night when they cooked dinner. Instead, without hearing any testimony about the smoke alarm, one judge simply concluded that Kenny had deliberately disabled it. This alleged purposeful act was a deciding factor in giving him the death penalty.

Two weeks before trial, Kenny rejected a 10-year plea bargain offer (an oddly light alternative to the death penalty, suggesting the prosecution wasn't entirely sure of its case.) Had he taken it, Kenny could have been a free man by now but it meant confessing and he refused. He continued to profess his innocence.

Kenny's trial lawyer, William Kluge, is apparently still haunted by his dismal defense. Its worst flaw? Kenny's 'arson expert' was a metallurgical engineer with just four days' arson training and admitted he didn't even read the lab reports or investigate the carpet stain evidence himself—the only physical evidence presented against Kenny.

Kenny's new, top-notch experts, a fire reconstruction expert and forensic fire scientist, dispute all the arson conclusions completely. They claim such stains would have required nine litres of accelerants and contend that the fire was accidental, perhaps triggered by a smouldering cigarette butt falling into the couch. (Hope Collins had also left earlier and many neighbours were in and out that night, checking on Cynthia.)

Kenny Richey was sentenced to death for a case that his lawyer Kenneth Parsigian says, "Doesn't even come close to being a death penalty case, even if Kenny did exactly what the prosecution said he did." Hope Collins spent 45 days in jail and got a 2-year suspended prison sentence and three years' probation.

Kenny, who was born in Holland but lived in Scotland with his Scottish mother, Eileen Richey, from age three months, left for the States at eighteen. A troubled, angry, rebellious youth, Kenny burgled a shop and had run-ins with the law. He didn't claim to be a saint, and wasn't. During his trial, he did himself no favours with angry outbursts at prosecutors that were later cited as evidence of a lifelong behavioural problem. But not being a model citizen isn't the same as proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Kenny Richey was guilty of capital murder.

Kenny’s Report from the Row

When his death row cell door first clanged shut, "It was," Kenny Richey recalls, "pure hell. I was climbing the bloody walls." The shock of being convicted alone was "indescribable," he says and he railed against his sentence. "Inside your mind is screaming out, 'I'm innocent you bastards!' You just want to explode and you can't. You've got to keep so much in. It's frustrating."

The electric chair has since been abolished by Ohio in favour of the lethal injection but first it featured heavily in Kenny's nightmares.

"I used to wake up screaming because they were still electrocuting," he recalls. "I woke up dreaming I was in the chair and stuff but I've got over that now. Now I wake up thinking, 'Oh God, it's not a dream, it's a nightmare and I'm still here!'"

Laughter comes stunningly easily to Kenny who punctuates phone conversations with bursts of James Bondian or Australian accents. "If ya didna laugh you'd cry," he says. "Humour is one way I get through it all." Reality inevitably intrudes, however. He is one of 200 condemned men in Ohio's Mansfield Correctional Institution where he was moved in 1995. Three Ohio inmates have been executed this year thus far.

Even separated from the general population in DR3, one of five death row sections, the near-constant shouts of prisoners are deafening. Death row inmates are locked down for 23 hours each day. Home is a spartan, concrete-floored cell around 8x10ft, furnished with a steel bunk topped with a hard, "really uncomfortable," mattress covered in fireproof plastic. A schoolroom-sized table and bench are bolted to the wall. Kenny's isn't allowed to put up any photos of his loved ones.

Time passes interminably slowly. Several hours daily are devoted to the 13" colour television his supporters helped provide. He watches as many British comedies as possible.

"I love 'Coupling' and the one with Judi Dench, 'As Time Goes By'. I've seen each episode of 'Are You Being Served' like fifty times. I just wish I could get 'Dad's Army'." He's fairly current with films and has seen 'Spider-Man'. Three non-sexual videos are piped through inmates' televisions twice a day for a week.

Sheer luxury compared to 'the hole', the punishment zone where he's spent time after letting his frustration win and getting in a fight or cursing at a guard. "Some days it gets the best of me but for the most part I keep the anger in check," he says.

In his previous prison a serious infraction landed him in the worst 'hole', stripped naked with a hole in the floor for a toilet, and no bed. But that's years ago. His own cell offers a cold-water-only sink, a shower with warm water and a loo.

Death row prisoners eat lukewarm fare prepared elsewhere by general population inmates then brought in in tubs and heated by death row inmates. Kenny declines to keep himself busy with one of several jobs available on the row.

"I could be the porter passing out trays to other death row inmates, cleaning up the range and stuff," he says. "I've done all those jobs but it's slave labour. $16 a month for eight hours a day."

The cuisine is passable: "It's mostly ground-up pork, full of fat, nasty stuff. I can't stand it. We get carrots. I can't stand carrots. I don't eat vegetables. Sometimes we get pudding. Butterscotch is my favourite."

An hour daily is spent in the 'rec. cage', generally with the same four other death row inmates. Guards arrive at his cell. He holds out his hands behind his back through a slot in the door to be handcuffed, then is led to one of two recreation areas. The outdoor room sounds preferable but towering 12ft. concrete walls eliminate any view save for a patch of sometimes-blue sky marred by a chain-link roof.

On balance, Kenny picks the indoor rec. room, a 12ft x 20ft triangle with a telephone. But inmates cannot receive calls and can only make them reverse charges. Kenny doesn't use the simple exercise equipment provided; a sit-up bench and pull-up bar. Motivation is hard to come by. Dumb-bells and weights aren't allowed in prison any longer, he explains with a chuckle:

"They finally caught on that you don't piss off inmates, then give them weights to train with and then find that when they get out they're built like Hulk Hogan!"

He considers his rec. mates acquaintances, not friends. He did have two friends on the row but was moved away from them after a fight. Unwritten prison law dictates that condemned men don't discuss their cases or crimes. They play dominoes or cards, "mostly spades," and have a laugh. They talk about the climate and have the odd little flutter on American football. Kenny, who rolls his own, spends his limited pocket money (courtesy of his common law wife, Karen Torley, and family members) on goodies like tobacco and beef stew he orders from the inmates' commissary.

Monthly, he stocks up on multi-vitamins plus vitamins E and C and two packets of aspirin which, "The doctor recommended but didn't prescribe. Got to take that with my Lipitor (prescription); I've got bad cholesterol." He can also order, "Christmas cards, birthday cards, poker cards, stamps, crayons, coloured pens and pencils, a ruler, a rubber, and scented oil. I draw roses and put scented oil on the roses."

This flirty practice is now reserved for letters to Karen. He used to decorate other letters until she "got on my arse about it," he says, laughing. She doesn't mind him writing to men but isn't fond of him penning letters to other women.

"She keeps telling me that I've had umpteen dozen marriage proposals and other proposals through the www.kennyrichey.org website she set up. I say, 'How come I hav'na heard about it?' She says, 'That's because I haven't told you.' She won't send them on!"

Richey's relationship with the Scottish mother of four began as a penpal friendship seven years ago. Initially, Torley thought he was guilty and arrogant but after much reading about the case, changed her mind. Their relationship, a lifeline for Kenny, turned romantic. They have never felt the joy of touch—death row prisoners aren't allowed contact visits—but Karen uses his name.

"We're just like husband and wife, we exchanged vows," says Kenny. "Karen's a godsend. She's helped me get through a lot."

The library offers lean pickings but he can buy girlie magazines, strictly R-rated. He used to get a couple of hundred letters a week, many from women, now it's just a few, likely because he can't afford stamps and doesn't reply. On death row, the barter system thrives amongst inmates with varying going rates.

"Depends what you want, depends how desperately you need it," he explains. "If you have something someone wants, you can charge them two for one. If I go to the store I'll buy two or three cans of tobacco if I know somebody wants one. Then you say, 'Give me two cans of tobacco next week for the one I'm giving you now.' You've got to make a profit! If it's a mate, you don't charge them anything."

Do people honour their deals? "Aye for the most part. You don't really have much choice. You're gonna be beat if you don't."

This isn't the boy scouts and nobody dreamed up those tough and gritty prison movies. Occasionally, tension boils over. Recently a fight left Kenny hyperventilating and en route to the hospital to be checked out, his heart stopped. The heart attack scared him. No details are forthcoming from Kenny about what triggered the fight, though. He hates grasses.

"Actually, believe it or not, we've got a lot of tolerance for each other in here," he says. "It takes a great deal really to anger you. You can usually sense when somebody's not willing to be messed with and you don't play games. You give them a little bit of space."

He fights the temptation to dwell on his possible fate. "It can get to you," he admits. "I don't want to die but we've all got to go sometime, so I'll deal with it when that day comes."

Periodically, there is a rude reminder. A pall falls on the row whenever an execution is imminent. To keep inmates' emotions in check, they're only told a day ahead after the condemned man is moved into isolation.

"I've lost a couple of friends," Kenny sighs. "It's gruesome, it's a dark day. People that you've known for the last sixteen years, murdered by the state. You're not with them when they go but you can drop them a line. There's not much you can say except, 'be strong.'"

The appeals process is a backdrop to the daily grind and it makes for an emotional roller-coaster. When he first got in, his hopes were very high for an overturned conviction.

"I thought the judges would look at it and say, 'This is a joke!' and that I'd be in maybe a year. After like two and a half years I finally got the decision and they said no."

He is grateful for Parsigian—"They can keep Johnnie Cochran, I've got my own Dream Team!"—and although he is far less optimistic now, the resilient human spirit can't help entertaining a slim ray of hope.

"Every appeal, my hopes get built up," he sighs. "I think, 'I'm going to win this one!' Then they deny it and it's soul-destroying. After that you lay down and don't want to get back up."

Depression is both inevitable and constant. Hopelessness sometimes lasts for "days, weeks, months," and on occasion escalates to thoughts of suicide. What eventually lifts him is less his Prozac prescription than the love of his supporters.

"I have people out there who care about me, people who love me, my family and my wife, Karen," he explains.

This year, Karen made the trip from Scotland and his father visited on his birthday. He always feels better after his weekly phone calls with his mother too, "Because my mum and I always have a laugh."

It is three years since he’s seen her and being deprived of all human contact, especially the warm touch of a loved one, is dreadful.

It is three years since he's seen her and being deprived of all human contact, especially the warm touch of a loved one, is dreadful.

"You'd kill to be able to get a hug from family," he admits. "The saddest part is not being with my loved ones and family."

There is much to miss about the outside, mostly simple things we all take for granted.

"I'd love just to be able to sit out in a grassy field," he sighs, "feel the wind on your face, smell fresh air, feel the warmth of the sun, hear the birds tweeting." He also misses the inky night sky. "I used to love to lie on the grass and stare up and watch the stars. It's a bloody shame. Terrible.

"It's just not being able to do what I want when I want. Not being able to walk down to the shops and buy a newspaper or candy bar, or go to the local pub for a pint with the lads. Or just take your dog for a walk."

Some general population inmates at Mansfield C. I. care for pooches under the prison's Tender Loving Dog Care programme. Naturally, Kenny would love a dog, "But on death row? I wouldn't put a dog through that. There's no way in hell I'd want a bloody dog locked in a cell 23 hours a day. Dogs need fresh air and need to run around and play."

He is, of course, "angry and bitter about having lost all these years for nothing," but still has strong faith in God.

"There's a purpose to everything and God moves in mysterious ways. Obviously I don't know what the hell it is. I'd like to know, but he doesn't want me to know right know, so I guess that's it. There's nothing to do but sit in your cell and wait and wait."

Sunday Express Review, 2003
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