Richard Cooey’s argument that he was too obese to safely execute has been proven wrong. Cooey’s life was terminated today at 10 o’clock in Ohio, USA.
41-year-old Cooey was 5-foot-7 and weighed 267 pounds at the time of his execution, having gained 70 pounds since his incarceration at the age of 19. He and his attorneys had insisted that that made him “morbidly obese” and that his weight and bulk would interfere with the normal lethal injection procedure, making it cruel and unusual punishment.
Speaking of cruel and unusual, Cooey and a friend, Clinton Dickens, threw chunks of concrete off a bridge onto Interstate 77, striking a car carrying Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery. Pretending to rescue the women, Cooey and Dickens instead took them to a secluded field where they spent three-and-a-half hours raping and torturing them, including Cooey carving an “X” into the stomachs of both women. They then beat the women to death.