WARREN — Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins on Wednesday asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Stanley Adams.

Watkins’ request came on the heels of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine last week informing him that Adams had exhausted all appeals in both state and federal courts.

On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court denied Adams’ petition for relief, and last spring a U.S. Circuit Appellate Court in Cincinnati refused to declare his 2001 trial unfair because Adams was forced to wear a stun belt during the proceedings.

Adams was sentenced to death in October 2001 by Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Peter J. Kontos after a jury convicted him in the robbery and aggravated murder of Esther Cook, 43, and the rape and aggravated murder of her 12-year-old daughter, Ashley Cook. Adams lived with the Cooks for several months earlier in 1999 with his girlfriend, Ashley Cook’s half-sister.

The two were killed in October 1999 at their Warren home.

In a press release Wednesday, Watkins called Adams a “serial killer.” Watkins noted Adams is also serving a 15-years-to-life sentence for the August 1999 rape and murder of Roslyn Taylor of Hubbard.

Adams, now 50, is incarcerated at Chillicothe Correctional Institution.

Watkins recalled the circumstances surrounding Adams’ trial held in Kontos’ courtroom, in which opening statements were scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001. Because of the terrorist attacks that day, Kontos allowed the proceedings to be delayed by one day.

“Though the United States of America was under attack, the citizens involved with this case in Warren — especially our jurors — took their jobs seriously and met daily for almost a month hearing evidence at the guilt and penalty stages,” Watkins wrote.

According to trial testimony, Adams left a crack cocaine “party” with friends around 11 p.m. on the night of the murders to get more money. He returned to the party around 1 a.m. with a blood-stained roll of money and a large amount of blood on his shirt and pants. He said the blood came from a paper cut. Around 2 a.m., Adams was stopped by Warren police while driving a borrowed Chevy Cavalier with a headlight out. Officers frisked a shirtless Adams and questioned him about the blood, but police did not detain him.

When Esther and Ashley Cook’s bodies were found the next day, neighbors placed a car like the one that Adams was driving at the murder scene. Police recalled the traffic stop and blood-covered driver, then traced the Cavalier to Adams’ next-door neighbor.

On Oct. 10, 2001, Kontos followed the jury’s recommendation for a sentence of death. In 2004, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously upheld Adams’ conviction and death sentence.

“Every court in both the state and federal systems that heard his claims of error denied Adams relief and found that a Trumbull County jury and Trumbull County judge gave the defendant a fair trial and just sentence under the law,” Watkins wrote. “And after more than 17 years since these victims were viciously murdered, it is time to see the law enforced.”

gvogrin@tribtoday.com