COLUMBUS The Ohio Supreme Court this morning unanimously rejected arguments that a Toledo man should not be executed for killing a disabled woman during a 2004 robbery designed to refuel a crack cocaine party.

"We find nothing in the nature and circumstances of the offense to be mitigating," wrote Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton. "Frazier entered [Mary] Stevenson s apartment and murdered her by strangling her and slitting her throat. Afterwards, Frazier stole two of her purses and fled the scene. These facts establish a horrific crime without any mitigating features."

The court said it considered Frazier s background, noting that he had an unstable family life with little parental control, was borderline mentally retarded and a high school dropout, and was a drug and alcohol user.

He and others were smoking crack cocaine and drinking alcohol in his apartment when they ran out of crack late on the night of March 1 or early March 2, 2004. Frazier left the party for a time and apparently selected Ms. Stevenson, another Northgate Apartments tenant, as a robbery victim. Ms. Stevenson suffered from cerebral palsy.

When he returned, he was no longer wearing the T-shirt he left in. Police later found that bloody T-shirt as well as a bloody knife matching those in Ms. Stevenson s apartment in trash at the apartment complex.

The court took aim at Frazier s claim that he is elderly and was 63 at the time the crime was committed.

"Frazier s age had no effect on his ability to brutally murder Stevenson," wrote Justice Stratton. "Thus, we give little weight to his age as a mitigating factor."

In addition to aggravated murder, Frazier had been convicted of aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in the case.

Read more in later editions of The Blade and toledoblade.com.

First Published October 10, 2007, 5:00 p.m.