Pesho killer takes 2nd life: his own (OHIO)

[Twislok]

Some quotes from the article....MAX
,

,,,,,,,,,There were seven suicides among the 47,777 inmates in Ohio prisons
last year. Pesho killer takes 2nd life: his own
........He never stopped proclaiming his innocence and left a suicide note in
which he denied any role in the crime, according to police and prosecutors.
,,,,,,,, kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The one hour outside
the cell is spent in handcuffs with an armed guard, Bobby said.
,,,,,,,,,, was transferred there from the Lucasville prison after he was caught
in what police suspected was an escape plan.
,,,,,,,, in a letter to Stacy Zubal of Brooklyn dated Jan. 23, he was
optimistic about chances for a new trial.
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Friday, February 05, 1999

By JAMES F. McCARTY and JAMES EWINGER
PLAIN DEALER REPORTERS

The short and violent life of convicted killer Mark DiMarco ended in a
Youngstown prison cell early yesterday with his neck in a knotted bedsheet.

DiMarco, 20, of Parma, was sentenced to 94 years to life for the murder,
kidnapping and rape of North Royalton nurse Mary Jo Pesho in 1996. He never
stopped proclaiming his innocence and left a suicide note in which he denied
any role in the crime, according to police and prosecutors.

A guard discovered DiMarco at 2:24 a.m. with a sheet tied around his neck,
dangling from a vent near the top of the wall, said assistant warden Dave
Bobby. Efforts were made to resuscitate DiMarco before he was rushed to St.
Elizabeth Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3 a.m.

The State Highway Patrol is investigating. An autopsy will be performed at the
Mahoning County coroner's office.

Since Jan. 20, DiMarco had been at the super-maximum security Ohio State
Penitentiary in Youngstown, where 382 inmates are kept in solitary confinement
for 23 hours a day. The one hour outside the cell is spent in handcuffs with an
armed guard, Bobby said.

DiMarco was transferred there from the Lucasville prison after he was caught in
what police suspected was an escape plan. A woman who worked for a private firm
at the prison commissary had smuggled him a disposable camera, a screwdriver,
electrical tape, a cellular phone, a uniform and an identification badge from
the temporary agency where she worked.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Steve Dever confirmed yesterday that
DiMarco and the woman had been engaged in sexual relations at Lucasville. The
woman was fired, but no criminal charges were filed against her.

There had been no incidents during the two weeks since his arrival in
Youngstown, and there was no reason to put him on a suicide watch, Bobby said.
A guard had seen him alive less than a half hour before.

In recent letters to friends, DiMarco had lamented that few of his old friends
had anything to do with him anymore. But in a letter to Stacy Zubal of Brooklyn
dated Jan. 23, he was optimistic about chances for a new trial.

He said two witnesses at his trial had recently signed statements contending
that police coerced their testimony against DiMarco. If the court of appeals
threw out his conviction, he said, he planned to plead guilty to a carjacking
charge and go to trial for the Pesho slaying.

"It's looking like I'll be getting a new trial in the end of this year or
beginning of next," DiMarco wrote. "So if I win the murder trial this time,
I'll be coming out."

DiMarco, who would have turned 21 next month, was an only child, born in
McKeesport, Pa. His father was a drug addict who died when the boy was 7.

After his mother remarried and moved to Parma, DiMarco joined the Boy Scouts
and mowed neighbors' lawns for money. But at age 11 he was caught throwing
rocks at cars, and a year later he stole a friend's bicycle. At 13, he was
arrested for stealing $140 and jewelry from a friend's parents, and he set
their carpeting on fire, which got him kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

DiMarco told a psychologist he started drinking at 10 and gradually began using
marijuana and LSD. He joined the Crips gang and tattooed his lanky upper body.
On his bicep was a tombstone.

Public reaction to DiMarco's death yesterday ran the gamut of emotions, from
tears of sorrow to barely restrained celebration. The contrasts reflected the
magnetic power DiMarco had among a group of close-knit supporters, and the
widespread public sympathy for Pesho, 46, and the husband and three children
she left behind.

"I don't know why I feel sad, but I just do," said Brandy Prehauser, a former
friend of DiMarco's who testified against him at trial. "It stays on your
conscience when you've had a lot to do with someone being in jail. I know he
did wrong, but I knew him for almost my whole life and it makes me sad. He's
burning now."

DiMarco's mother, Joyce Stewart, was in the Cuyahoga County Jail yesterday,
serving a 90-day sentence for perjury in her son's trial.

County Prosecutor Bill Mason said he takes no joy in anyone's death.

"What happened to Mark DiMarco is between the man and his God," said Sheriff's
Department Chief Deputy Dan Pukach, who supervised some of the detectives on
the Pesho case. One was Inspector Dan Calvey.

"Everybody's feeling sorry for him now, but there was a woman who was killed
and I have no doubt he was the one who did it," Calvey said. "He was locked up
in isolation for 23 hours a day, so he had a lot of time to think about it. I'm
not surprised."

Neither was Sheriff's Deputy Neal Ebenger, who as recently as two weeks ago
predicted DiMarco's suicide.

Ebenger, who guarded DiMarco during the 1998 murder trial, said DiMarco did not
deal well with his restricted confinement in the county jail, imposed to keep
him from manipulating witnesses in the case.

Pesho's husband, Ray, and her children declined to comment other than to
express their surprise and a desire to preserve their privacy, said family
lawyer Joe Madachick. Police officers from Parma and Cleveland also declined to
talk.

"I'm sure DiMarco was lonely. Once inside those four walls, he had no one left
to manipulate anymore," said Gregory Troyan, lawyer for co-defendant Shannon
Kidd. "The jurors should feel relieved. He's made death threats against so many
people, myself included."

DiMarco's lawyers continued to defend their client's innocence even after his
death, and questioned whether he actually took his own life. An appeal of the
conviction was pending when he died.

"I'm sure he was innocent," said Stanley Tolliver. "It would be a tragedy if he
felt compelled to do this to try to prove his innocence. But desperate people
do desperate things, and it's obvious he was desperate."

Another of his attorneys, Rufus Sims, said DiMarco was Public Enemy No. 1 in
most people's minds. "Foul play is a possibility," he said. "Those of us who
knew Mark know he wouldn't do something like this. He would have tried to have
reached someone like us if he was in that much distress."

DiMarco became a suspect after Kidd, 20, of Cleveland, was overheard in prison
talking about the rape and shooting death of Pesho after they abducted her from
the Parmatown Mall parking lot on Jan. 2, 1996. Kidd later pleaded guilty to
his role in the crime, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison and
testified for the prosecution at DiMarco's trial.

There were seven suicides among the 47,777 inmates in Ohio prisons last year.
The last Cuyahoga County inmate of notoriety to commit suicide in prison was
convicted killer Steven Kidwell in 1996. Kidwell, 25, of Cleveland, was on
death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution for the strangulation of
12-year-old Francine Lance in 1994. Kidwell hanged himself with a laundry cord.

Plain Dealer reporter Karin Scholz contributed to this story.

©1999 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission.

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Prison Adm. really don't like escape attempts. Esp. in Ohio after the Private
Prison escapade
MAX

When I die, I want to go in my sleep, in peace, like Dad
NOT in a screaming panic (like his passengers!).
Wings of an Angel
http://www.narsh.com