Gary Otte
Gary Wayne Otte was an Ohio death row inmate who was sentenced to death and executed for the 1992 murders of Robert Wasikowski and Sharon Kostura, whom he killed in back-to-back robberies in February 1992 in Parma, Ohio.
Background
Gary Otte was born on December 21, 1971, in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was described as a 'very sad little boy' who began using drugs and drinking alcohol at 10 and first attempted suicide at 14. The killings took place six years later, when Otte was 20. At his October 1992 trial, Gary Otte was sentenced to death for murder.Otte's IQ was purportedly only 85, although this would not bar him from execution. Otte was involved in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's execution procedures, alongside fellow death row inmates Ronald Phillips and Raymond Tibbetts, which would ultimately be dismissed in late June 2017. Phillips' execution followed less than a month later on July 26. Otte made several last minute pleas for clemency, all of which would be rejected. These included claims that Ohio's lethal injection protocol violated the Eighth Amendment, and that his age at the time of the killings would make his execution unconstitutional. All of these claims were eventually denied.