Ohio: Killer who met victim in gay bar to be executed in 2015

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The Ohio Supreme Court has set a 2015 execution date for a condemned inmate who killed a man in Cincinnati whom he met in a gay bar in 1985.

Robert Van Hook claimed temporary insanity, but never denied strangling and then stabbing David Self to death at his Cincinnati apartment.

The Associated Press reports the court on Friday set a date of 12 March 2015 for Van Hook, whose death sentence was reinstated four years ago after the US Supreme Court rejected his claims of ineffective legal aid during his trial.

The court’s announcement comes one day after the Ohio prisons department said it might seek additional legislation to help acquire new supplies of its capital punishment drug – without the drug – future executions might not be possible.

Ohio’s current execution drug supply expires in September.