Killer in trouble again

8-6-2012 Ohio:

Five years after a jury spared him from the death penalty for murdering his cellmate (Jason Wagner, a sex offender), Timothy L. Hancock is again accused of attacking a fellow prisoner.

Hancock, whose name is familiar to Warren County authorities because he was involved in a landmark court case, was indicted for felonious assault and possession of a deadly weapon, records released Monday show.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol, which investigates crime reports at state prisons, says Hancock is accused of entering another man’s cell and attacking him with a shank, a makeshift knife. The victim was able to escape with minor cuts to his back after the May 14 incident at Lebanon Correctional Institution.

That Ohio prison is next door to Warren Correctional Institution. That’s where Hancock, who was already serving a life term for killing an elderly Allen County woman, strangled his cellmate in 2000.

On appeal, Hancock’s murder conviction in the cellmate’s slaying was upheld – but a jury’s death-sentence recommendation was overturned. As a result, for the first time in Ohio, a second jury was asked to decide solely the issue of punishment in a death-penalty case, based on a earlier jury’s guilty verdict.

Hancock, who had a history of mental illnesses, violence and hatred of sex offenders, was housed with child rapist Jason Wagner. No wonder Wagner ended up dead, corrections experts testified at the time.

Hancock’s 2007 jury recommended life with no possibility of parole. But in 2009, Hancock was in trouble again, the Highway Patrol said.

Hancock is one of three prisoners listed as suspects in a conspiracy to commit murder at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, the patrol said.

The alleged conspiracy involved strangulation and poisoning. Two inmates required medical treatment, but prosecutors declined to go forward with criminal charges. A summary of the case doesn’t explain why, the state patrol said, noting that state prisoners typically are subject to extra in-prison punishments if prosecutions are declined.

Hancock’s latest case has been assigned to Judge James Flannery, the same Warren County Common Pleas judge who formalized the 2007 jury’s sentencing recommendation in the Wagner slaying. No court date has been set. ..Source.. by Janice Morse