The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - The Ohio Parole Board recommended Friday that Gov. Bob Taft not spare the life of a man convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend and their 3-year-old daughter in the head.

The board voted 8-0 against recommending clemency for Stephen Vrabel, 47, who has dropped his appeals and asked to be put to death. He is scheduled to die by injection on July 14.

"The inmate does not want clemency and no mercy appears warranted," the board's report said.

Vrabel killed his girlfriend, Susan Clemente, and their daughter, Lisa Clemente, on March 3, 1989, at their eastern Ohio apartment in Struthers with a handgun he bought that day. Prosecutors never established a motive.

Vrabel told police he didn't know why he shot Clemente. He said he shot their daughter because she was "freaking out" at the sight and he figured killing her was best because her mother was dead and he was going to jail.

He would be the second Ohio death row inmate to voluntarily abandon court appeals to speed his execution since the state resumed executions in 1999 with Wilford Berry, who was called "The Volunteer." Ohio has executed 11 other men since then, including four this year.

Taft will take a few days to review the case before deciding whether to let the death sentence stand or reduce it to life in prison, spokesman Orest Holubec said. One death row inmate, Jerome Campbell, has been granted clemency in the last five years.

A message seeking comment was left at the Youngstown office of attorney John B. Juhasz, who represented Vrabel at the clemency hearing last month.