LUCASVILLE — After 19 years of defiance and denial, John W. Byrd Jr. remained “calm and compliant” in the hours before his execution this morning.

        The convicted killer spent Monday night meeting with relatives, smoking cigarettes and eating a last dinner of T-bone steak, chef salad and grape soda.

        Mr. Byrd, a 38-year-old former Northside resident, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. today.

        His attorneys continued to wage a battle to postpone his execution, but Monday night, less than 12 hours before his scheduled lethal injection, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected a request for a delay filed earlier Monday by Ohio Public Defender David Bodiker.

DEATH PENALTY IN OHIO

Highlights of the history of capital punishment in Ohio: • 1803-1885: Executions were carried out by public hanging in the county where the crime was committed. • 1885: Legislature required executions to be carried out at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. • 1897: The electric chair replaced the gallows. The first to be executed by electrocution was William Haas, a 17-year-old from Hamilton County. • 1897-1963: 312 men and three women were executed in the electric chair. • 1963: The last to be executed in the electric chair was Donald Reinbolt, 29, from Franklin County. • 1972: U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. The decision reduced the death sentences of 65 Ohio inmates to life in prison. • 1974: Ohio General Assembly revised Ohio's death penalty, but the new law was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1978. • 1981: Current capital punishment statute took effect. Leonard Jenkins of Cuyahoga County was the first to be sentenced under the current law. • 1991: The sentence of Mr. Jenkins and the sentences of three other men and four women were commuted to life by Gov. Richard Celeste during the last days of his tenure as governor. • 1993: Gov. George Voinovich signed a bill granting prisoners the option to choose death by lethal injection. • 1995: Death row relocated to the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield. The Death House and Execution Chamber remain at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville. Women who are sentenced to death are to be held at the Ohio Reformatory in Marysville until a few days prior to their execution date. There are no women on death row. • Feb. 19, 1999: Wilford Berry, 38, was the first person executed in Ohio since March 1963. He chose lethal injection and was known as “The Volunteer” because he did not appeal his sentence. • June 14, 2001: After two previous last-minute stays, inmate J. D. Scott was the first nonvolunteer inmate to be executed since 1963. Mr. Scott was executed by lethal injection. • Today: John W. Byrd, formerly of Northside, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection for the murder of Monte Tewksbury in 1983. Source: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction

        Prison officials said Mr. Byrd waited calmly in the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

        He met for several hours with his “spiritual adviser”; his lawyers; and several relatives, including his mother and sister.

        If his execution goes forward as scheduled this morning, Mr. Byrd will become the first Hamilton County man to be executed since capital punishment resumed in Ohio more than 20 years ago.

        Mr. Byrd was sent to death row in 1983 after he was convicted of robbing and stabbing to death Monte Tewksbury, a Procter & Gamble Co. employee who was moonlighting as a clerk at a King Kwik convenience store in Colerain Township to pay for his daughter's education.

        Mr. Byrd has repeatedly denied that he is the one who stabbed Mr. Tewksbury, 40. Outside the prison Monday evening, friends of Mr. Byrd's family continued to proclaim his innocence.

        In a written statement, his sister urged Gov. Bob Taft to spare her brother's life with a stay of execution.

        “We are still praying,” said Kim Hamer of Cincinnati. “There is overwhelming evidence to support my brother's claim of innocence.”

        As Ms. Hamer met with her brother, Mr. Tewksbury's widow, Sharon, his daughter and a son waited at her Mason home for news.

        Mr. Byrd's execution has been delayed several times in the past, and Mrs. Tewksbury said her family is weary of waiting.

        “The anxiety isn't over,” said Ms. Tewksbury.

        If the execution does take place as scheduled, she said, “We are fully expecting to have a lot of grief to deal with.”

        The most recent delays stem from a controversial legal debate over claims of Mr. Byrd's innocence. One of his co-defendants, John Brewer, has made sworn statements claiming that he — not Mr. Byrd — was the killer.

        Appeals courts have dismissed the claim as unbelievable. Prosecutors say Mr. Brewer, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the crime, knows he cannot be further punished and is lying to help his friend.

        “It's time that justice is carried out,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen.

        Prison officials said Mr. Byrd was to be awake by 6 a.m. today, four hours before his execution.

        He will be served the same breakfast as the rest of the inmate population at Lucasville: pancakes, syrup, coffee, apple juice and milk.

        Mr. Byrd will have the option of taking a sedative before he steps into the death chamber. He will then be allowed to make a final statement, which Warden James Haviland can cut off at any time if it goes on too long.

        Mr. Byrd will wear a white T-shirt and blue pants with a red stripe down the side. The execution will be witnessed by several members of the media; one of Mr. Byrd's lawyers; Mr. Tewksbury's son Matt; and a former neighbor, David Decker, who looked after Mr. Tewksbury's two young sons the night he died.

        Prison spokeswoman Andrea Dean said Mr. Byrd arrived at the Death House before noon Monday.

        “His mood has been calm and compliant,” she said.

        In Cincinnati, about 25 students and faculty gathered Monday night outside Bellarmine Chapel on the Xavier University campus for a silent prayer vigil.

        Most of the students — who carried signs that read “Don't kill for me,” and “Thou shalt not kill” — were members of the student chapter of Amnesty International.

        “There are so many problems with the death penalty,” said Bethany Domzal, a Xavier sophomore. “This case is one of those cases that highlights many of those problems.”

        Marie McCain, Lew Moores and Randy Tucker of the Enquirer contributed to this report.

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