If Ohio executes Harry Mitts Jr. on Wednesday as scheduled, the condemned man will leave behind a tattered, worn Bible he received in 1994 from an unlikely source.Mitts said his eyes filled with tears and he nearly collapsed when he learned that the Bible, inscribed with his name, was a gift from the mother and sister of Sgt. Dennis Glivar, the 44-year-old Garfield Heights police officer he had killed about three months earlier.Though Mitts had not thought about religion for most of his life, the gift helped point him toward Christianity, said Jeff Kelleher, his attorney. “It affected him deeply.”Mitts received the Bible through a jail chaplain on the day his death sentence was handed down in Cuyahoga County in 1994. He also received a letter from Glivar’s sister, Cheryl Janoviak, telling him that she and her mother had forgiven him.“What my mom and I did was only a portion of what God desired to draw Mr. Mitts to the cross and the saving, redeeming, wonderful, cleansing grace that is available to all,” Janoviak, of Newbury in Geauga County, said last week.“God works through people, but ultimately it is the Holy Spirit and his love that satisfies. Unfortunately, in this case, it took a tragedy to get (Mitts’) attention and hear God calling him."Mitts wrote The Dispatch last year from Death Row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He told of his reaction to receiving the Glivar family’s gift and said “their loving forgiveness is a living testimony.” He said faith has made him ready for his execution.“I look forward to that date, should it happen,” he wrote. “I know it probably sounds strange, as most folks like to hang on to this life as long as possible, but my reason for desiring to be executed is simple. I’ll be in the presence of Jesus, and I will never sin against God again!”Mitts, now 61, shot Sgt. Glivar at least seven times on Aug. 14, 1994, when the officer and others responded to a report of a shooting at an apartment complex. John Bryant — the man who was shot — was an acquaintance of Mitts’, the boyfriend of a fellow tenant. Bryant was black, and witnesses said that Mitts, who is white, threatened another man before using a racial slur and firing a fatal gunshot into Bryant’s chest.Mitts was convicted of both slayings and received two death sentences.“As Jesus forgave and still forgives, my mother and I also forgive you,” Janoviak wrote to Mitts in 1994. “Had you died on August 14, 1994, your eternal home would have been in hell. In God’s mercy, your life was spared, and He spared your life to allow you this time to choose where you want to spend eternity.”Mitts read the letter last month to the Ohio Parole Board in advance of a clemency hearing. Calling Mitts’ case “clearly among the worst-of-the-worst capital cases,” the board unanimously recommended that Gov. John Kasich deny mercy.Janoviak said she and her mother plan to attend the execution. When asked whether they support clemency for Mitts, she referred to a Bible verse from the book of Romans: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”A report on the clemency hearing indicates that Mitts told parole-board members that he has tried to spread God’s word to others while behind bars and that he is prepared to go home to Jesus.According to the report, Kelleher also spoke to the board, saying that Mitts honored the wishes of his victims by following Glivar’s family’s admonition to embrace God.In that way, Kelleher told the board, Mitts and his victims are forever connected.jviviano@dispatch
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:23:19 +0000
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