COLUMBUS — Two former Toledo men convicted of murdering a man in 1993 by burying him alive now face death themselves two months apart in 2019.
The Ohio Supreme Court today set March 20 and May 29 of that year for Archie J. Dixon, 42, and Timothy Hoffner, 43. They were convicted of taking Christopher Hammer, 22, to a wooded area in Sylvania Township and, after letting him smoke a cigarette and say a prayer, buried him alive in a shallow grave.
Hoffner later led police to Mr. Hammer’s body. They were also convicted of kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and forgery. Both have exhausted their federal and state appeals and are on death row at Chillicothe Correctional Institution.
Kristen Wilkerson, Dixon’s girlfriend, was convicted of kidnapping but was released from prison after she cooperated with police.
The high court today added five more inmates to the growing line to the lethal injection chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The executions, most of them scheduled about two months apart, are now set through May 29, 2019, Hoffner’s date.
Gov. John Kasich set a one-year moratorium through 2015 on the carrying out of executions in Ohio amid legal questions raised about the death penalty process and the state’s struggles to obtain its preferred execution drugs as foreign manufacturers object to their use to kill people.
First Published June 8, 2015, 1:36 p.m.