Officials: Inmate killed cellmate to get transfer
Jack Welninski could face death in the killing of prisoner from Piqua.
An inmate at the LEBANON —
Lebanon Correctional Institution could face the death penalty for the death of a cellmate in an alleged plot to get transferred to another prison, according to authorities.
Jack Welninski, 33, expected to be transferred after killing cellmate Kevin Nill “because it worked for” Casey Pigge, an inmate transferred after murdering a Springfield man in a cell at the prison, according to Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell.
Welninski is accused of strangling Nill to death at Lebanon Correctional Institution.
Welninski was indicted for aggravated murder, along with two capital specifications, and a repeat violent offender specification by a Warren County grand jury, according to a news release Monday from Fornshell’s office.
Welninski is now incarcerated, along with Pigge, at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.
Welninski is accused of killing
continued from B1 Nill, 40, of Piqua on April 23 at the prison west of Lebanon in Turtlecreek Twp.
Nill was found in his cell, a rope around his neck, and pronounced dead at 9:43 a.m. Monday at the Atrium Medical Center, according to Doyle Burke, chief investigator for the Warren County Coroner’s Office.
“Investigators believe that Welninski murdered Nill to obtain a transfer to a different prison. The two had been cellmates for less than an hour before Nill was discovered deceased in the cell,” according to the release.
Pigge, now 30, is one of Ohio’s most notorious inmates. In January 2017, he pleaded guilty to murdering cellmate Luther Wade of Springfield at Lebanon Correctional on Feb. 23, 2016.
He has since pleaded to strangling another inmate, David Johnson, on Feb. 1, 2017, as they rode on a prison bus.
Pigge was moved to the state’s super max facility in Youngstown after he and another inmate were suspected in a brutal attack on Corrections Officer Matthew Mathias.
Welninski was serving a 69-year prison sentence after being convicted in Wood County for the 2015 attempted murder of an Oregon, Ohio, police officer.
Nill was serving an 18-month sentence for attempted domestic violence.
The first capital specification against Welninski is based upon a finding by the grand jury that he committed the offense of aggravated murder while he was under detention.
The second capital specification is based upon a finding by the grand jury that, at the time of the aggravated murder, Welninski had previously been convicted of an offense, “an essential element of which was an attempt to kill another,” according to the release.
Judge Donald Oda II was assigned the case.
Oda is also the presiding judge in the county’s other pending death penalty case.
Christopher Kirby, 38, faces execution if convicted on capital murder counts in a case stemming from the death of his adoptive sister and severe beating of her husband, allegedly to get money to feed Kirby’s drug habit.