- Ohio has three months to set a new record.
At 10:34 A.M, when the state stuck the execution needle into the arm of Michael Benge, it hit a milestone, of sorts: the record for most executions in one year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1999.
Benge’s crime was a typical lowlife horrorshow: in 1993 he beat to death his live-in girlfriend, Judith Gabbard, when she started complaining about his penchant for crack cocaine. He killed her with a tire iron, dumped the body in the Miami River, and then trotted off with her ATM card, the passkey to a $400 crack cocaine binge, according to Channel 5.
Benge is the 8th person executed in 2010. The previous record of seven was set in 2004. The all-time record holder was 1949, when the state sent 15 people to the electric chair.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2010.