By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press

Campbell

LEBANON, Ohio - Prison officials moved convicted killer Jerome Campbell away from other inmates in his new prison home Tuesday after learning two relatives of his victim were also housed there.

Campbell, who declared his innocence in an interview Tuesday, will be moved to another prison later this week, said Jo Ellen Culp, spokeswoman for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Neither of the two relatives listed any connection to Campbell or his victim in their files, she said.

Campbell arrived Monday at Lebanon Correctional Institution, about 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati. The close-security prison is one level below maximum security.

Campbell, 42, was convicted of stabbing John Henry Turner, 78, at Turner's apartment in Cincinnati in 1988.

One of Turner's grandsons, Kelvin Houze, is serving a 10-month sentence for drug trafficking at a minimum-security camp at Lebanon and would not have come in contact with Campbell, Culp said.

Another grandson, Darryl Turner, is serving a 25-year sentence on assault and robbery charges and could have met up with Campbell, she said.

Tuesday morning, before news of the conflict emerged, Campbell said he was looking forward to winning a new trial and leaving prison permanently.

Campbell said he was prepared to die and had written a final statement a week earlier when word came Thursday of Gov. Bob Taft's decision to change his sentence to live in prison without chance of parole.

Campbell, on death row for 14 years, had been scheduled to be executed by injection the next day. He is the first death row inmate to receive clemency in 12 years.

"I kind of yelled a couple of times," Campbell said Tuesday in an interview. He said his shouts were so loud they startled a prison caseworker and a guard standing near his death row cell at Mansfield Correctional Institution. He said he was surprised by Taft's ruling but grateful. "He hadn't commuted anyone else's sentence and even though I knew the parole board had recommended in my favor, I was still surprised."

Taft had turned down nine requests for clemency since he took office in 1999. Eight of the inmates have been executed.

Campbell said he felt nothing but sympathy for Turner's family, "but for them to say I should die for a murder I didn't commit I feel is wrong. But I forgive them for that."

David Houze, of Cincinnati, who alerted officials to his brothers' presence Tuesday, said Campbell was lying about his involvement in his grandfather's death.

"He's doing whatever he can to try to get out," Houze said. "It's a ploy, just a ploy."

Campbell is asking for a new trial based on DNA evidence the parole board and Taft cited in their clemency decisions. He was the first death row inmate to take advantage of a state program begun in 2000 to offer convicted killers DNA testing.

Taft said jurors may have recommended a different sentence if certain blood evidence had been available at Campbell's trial. Three Ohio courts have already rejected Campbell's request for a new trial based on that evidence.