Timothy Hancock does not deny that he strangled his cellmate while the two were in protective custody last November at Warren Correctional Institution. But his lawyers say he was insane when he killed Jason Wagner, a child molester serving a sentence of 44 years to life in the 1999 kidnapping and attempted murder of a 3-year-old girl in Lancaster, Ohio.

        That will be the focus today as the death penalty case against Mr. Hancock opens in a Lebanon courtroom. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

        Mr. Hancock, 31, — who earlier avoided a capital case in a plea bargain involving the 1989 killing of a female family friend — could be spared the death penalty again if the jury agrees with argument.

        “This trial is going to be about whether or not Tim Hancock knew the wrongfulness of his actions,” said Donald Oda II, one of two attorneys appointed to represent Mr. Hancock.

        “The issue of the trial is not going to be who did it. If you put two people in cell and a few hours later one of them is dead, that's not the issue.”

        In statements to investigators and in letters to the Enquirer and others shared by a relative, Mr. Hancock said he “snapped” when he strangled Mr. Wagner, 25, with a piece of bedsheet on Nov. 13, 2000.

        Mr. Hancock detailed the killing in a letter to his niece.

        Mr. Hancock said he became enraged when he and Mr. Wagner were playing cards because Mr. Wagner bragged about the abduction and molestation of 3-year-old Ashley Taggart of Lancaster, and the abuse of other children.

        Ashley was found bound and gagged in Mr. Wagner's attic four days after she disappeared from her nearby back yard. Mr. Wagner had served time in prison in 1994 and 1996 for sex crimes involving a 4-year-old and a 12-year-old.

        Mr. Hancock wrote that he tricked Mr. Wagner into faking a hostage incident in a plot to have Mr. Wagner removed from the cell.

        “I tied him with 4 way (sic) restraints (both hands and feet) with a noose on his neck — I was so (expletive) over all the (expletive) that I snapped. I told him I tricked him like he did that little girl and then I killed him,” Mr. Hancock wrote to his niece.

        A guard found Mr. Wagner dead in the cell shortly before midnight. Cause of death was ruled homicide by ligature strangulation.

        Mr. Hancock said he warned guards against placing Mr. Wagner in his segregated cell in protective cus tody, and even threatened to hurt Mr. Wagner.

        Mr. Hancock, who is serving a sentence of 24 years to life in the 1989 homicide, said he was not supposed to have a cellmate because he had received threats from members of the Aryan Brotherhood in another prison.

        He said he gave in and allowed Mr. Wagner in the cell after guards threatened to douse him with pepper spray.

        Prison officials have declined to talk about what led to the killing or the cell arrangement because of the criminal investigation.

        Harry Russell, warden of Lebanon Correctional Institution where Mr. Hancock now is incarcerated, denied the Enquirer permission to interview Mr. Hancock.

        Warren County Prosecutor Tim Oliver declined to comment on the case, saying it was too close to trial. The indictment alleges that Mr. Hancock planned the killing.

        If convicted, Mr. Hancock could be the second Warren County de fendant to receive the death penalty since 1907. Jurors last recommended death in 1998 for James Hanna, who killed his cellmate at Lebanon Correctional Institution.

        The county has sought the death penalty unsuccessfully seven other times since 1985. The most recent case was that of Jeffrey Bornhoeft, a 31-year-old Mason father of three found not guilty by reason of insanity a year ago in the killing of his ex-wife's new husband.

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