Serial killer Anthony Kirkland sentenced to death by Hamilton County judge

Sharon Coolidge | Cincinnati Enquirer

Anthony Kirkland, in his 49 years on earth, killed three women and two teenage girls.

On Tuesday, when sentencing Kirkland for the deaths of 13-year-old Esme Kenney and 14-year-old Casonya Crawford, Hamilton County Judge Patrick Dinkelacker told Kirkland he had no regard for human life and imposed the death penalty.

So, in determining whether a life prison term or the death penalty was an appropriate sentence, Dinkelacker imposed the death penalty.

"If not you, Mr. Kirkland, then who?" thje judge said.

Dinkelacker gave Kirkland an opportunity to speak on his behalf, prompting Kirkland to offer a diatribe on his prison money woes, which was not what the judge had in mind.

"It makes me sick to my stomach that you will talk about money in prison when you killed two teenage girls," Dinkelacker told him.

More than a half dozen deputies flanked Kirkland during the sentencing. Members of Esme's family, though not her parents who no longer live in Cincinnati, quietly watched the sentencing. Casonya's grandmother and mother attended as well.

"He is a monster," Patricia Crawford, Casonya's grandmother, said of Kirkland after the sentencing.

Kirkland, 49, was sentenced for murdering Casonya in 2006 and Esme in 2009. He's already serving life prison terms for the deaths of Mary Jo Newton, 45 and Kimya Rolison, 25, both in 2006. Kirkland served a 16-year prison term for killing Leona Douglas, 28, in 1989.

Kirkland gets death penalty Judge Dinkelacker agreed with the jury and issued the death penalty in the retrial of Anthony Kirkland for the deaths of Esme Kenney, 13, and Casonya 'Sharee' Crawford, 14.

Kirkland was released for from prison in the 1989 killing in 2003. He killed the four women and girls before police caught up to him in 2009 after he kidnapped and killed Esme near her Winton Hills home.

Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier praised everyone involved in capturing Kirkland. He singled out Cincinnati Police K-9 Officer Jenny Ernst, who took it upon herself to look for Esme shortly after she went missing, and even though police were skeptical at first that something bad had happened. He also mentioned detectives Keith Witherall and Bill Hilvert, who spent hours coaxing a confession out of Kirkland.

Kirkland was previously sentenced to death for killing the teenagers, but the Ohio Supreme Court overturned the sentence saying Deters' statements during closing arguments "were improper and substantially prejudicial" when he said Kirkland was already serving life prison terms and that Esme and Casonya's deaths should not be "freebies."

Deters sought the death penalty again, resulting in a two-week hearing last month with a new jury.

Kirkland's lawyers argued their client was physically, sexually and mentally abused as a child, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder that left him at times unaware of what he was doing. Their plea for Kirkland was life in prison.

Jurors disagreed, returning the death recommendation in 2½ hours.

Deters on Kirkland: He is a homicidal piece of garbage Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said the state of Ohio cannot kill convicted serial killer Anthony Kirkland soon enough. Kirkland was sentenced to die by Judge Dinkelacker.

Deters said after sentencing the death sentence "can't be imposed fast enough." Dinkelacker set the execution for March 7, 2019, exactly 10 years after Esme's death. But appeals will likely delay it.

As Kirkland left the courtroom he made one last comment to the judge.

Kirkland: "Have a nice life."

Dinkelacker: "You too."

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