Inmate on Death row for years to finally be executed

COLUMBUS - Condemned inmate John W. Byrd Jr. has been to Ohio's death house before, coming within 45 minutes of being executed in 1994 when his appeals lapsed and the state moved to carry out his death sentence.

Today, barring action on a request to postpone it, Byrd was scheduled to arrive at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville to prepare for his execution. It is scheduled for Tuesday morning - exactly two years after Ohio put to death its first inmate since 1963.

Byrd, 38, is allowed to choose a "special" meal, which he would eat at 4 p.m. today. It's not called his last meal because he would be allowed to eat something later that day if he were hungry, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Byrd, who has spent half his life on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, is to die by injection for the 1983 murder of Monte Tewksbury, 40, who was stabbed during a robbery of the suburban Cincinnati convenience store where he worked. Tewksbury, a Procter & Gamble Co. employee, was moonlighting to pay for his daughter's education.