\n<\/p>\n
COLUMBUS, Ohio — <\/span>COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Tyrone Noling<\/a> has spent 30 years on death row for the double murder of an elderly Ohio couple that he insists he didn\u2019t commit. He had a rare chance Tuesday to make his case for a full pardon to the Ohio Parole Board.<\/p>\n Noling, 54, of Alliance, assembled a growing body of evidence \u2014 with the support of the Ohio Innocence Project \u2014 to present at his clemency hearing. That includes recanted witness testimony, changed stances by the sheriff and one of the jurors at his trial, and clues pointing to an already executed killer as the possible perpetrator.<\/p>\n His case has been the subject of documentaries and true-crime podcasts and garnered celebrity attention from Kim Kardashian and actors Hilarie Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who all support his exoneration. <\/p>\n Following Tuesday\u2019s hearing, the first for an Ohio death row inmate since 2020, the parole board will issue its recommendation to Gov. Mike DeWine, who has the final say. DeWine, a Republican, called in June for abolishment<\/a> of the death penalty \u2014 saying his stance has changed<\/a> because he no longer views capital punishment as a deterrent to violent crime.<\/p>\n Death row inmates don\u2019t typically land clemency hearings until they have an execution date, which Noling does not, so winning Tuesday\u2019s hearing was a victory. He seeks release from prison and has said he would not accept a commutation to life without parole for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. <\/p>\n Noling was convicted in the April 5, 1990, killings of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81, at their Portage County home. The couple\u2019s bodies were discovered on the kitchen floor of their Atwater Township home by a neighbor who noticed their lawn mower had been in front of their home for several days. Bearnhardt Hartig had been shot three times and his wife five times with a .25-caliber automatic handgun. The house had been ransacked.<\/p>\n Authorities said Noling, who had just turned 18 at the time, was part of a group involved in home robberies of elderly couples. Three others in the group \u2014 14, 15 and 16 at the time \u2014 implicated Noling in the slayings of the Hartigs during a burglary but later retracted their statements, saying that police pressured them to name Noling as the shooter.<\/p>\n Initial aggravated burglary charges brought against Noling were dropped in 1992, but a grand jury reindicted him in 1995 for the Hartig murders. He was sentenced to death in 1996.<\/p>\n No physical evidence tied him to the crime, and no murder weapon was ever found. Noling’s advocates say evidence, including law enforcement notes and a cigarette butt found in the Hartigs’ driveway, points to two other potential suspects. One is Dan Wilson, who was executed by lethal injection in Ohio in 2009 for a different crime. Noling’s lawyers wrote in court documents that a man told authorities that his foster brother, Wilson, bragged about committing the crime.<\/p>\n Former Portage County Sheriff Ken Howe, now 83, will be among a long line of witnesses testifying on Noling\u2019s behalf at Tuesday\u2019s hearing. In an Associated Press interview, he said that there were red flags at the time, and evidence that\u2019s piled up since then has persuaded him to take Noling\u2019s side.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that these boys were, and are, innocent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Portage County Prosecutor Connie Lewandowski did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment. <\/p>\n Following the hearing, the board will deliberate in executive session and send a recommendation to the governor within six business days. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n