Man faces execution Tuesday for 1991 murder
John Fautenberry was on killing spree
CINCINNATI — A Bible taken from an Ohio victim who was shot and robbed during a multistate killing spree helped tie an Oregon trucker to the crime.
Joseph Daron Jr. had the Bible with him when he picked up John Fautenberry, who was hitchhiking east of Cincinnati.
Prosecutors said that fit a pattern in which Fautenberry took advantage of people’s kindness to him, killing four men and a woman in four states within five months.
The 45-year-old Fautenberry has said he killed repeatedly because he had a rotten childhood, drank heavily for several years and suffered a brain injury in the Navy. He faces execution Tuesday for murdering Daron on Feb. 17, 1991.
Investigators said Fautenberry shot Daron twice with the same handgun he used to kill a man a few days earlier at a New Jersey truck stop.