Wendy Offredo, 21, and Dawn McCreery, 20


Richard Cooey (L) and Clinton Dickens (R) in their original mugshots in 1986




Facts of the Crime:
On September 1, 1986, Cooey and an accomplice, Clint Dickens, murdered 21-year-old Wendy Offredo and 20-year-old Dawn McCreery in a wooded area in Norton. Ms. Offredo and Ms. McCreery were forced to stop their car on I-77 after Cooey dropped a chunk of concrete onto the car from an overpass. Cooey and Dickens took Ms. Offredo and Ms. McCreery into the woods, raped them, robbed them, beat them with a nightstick, and strangled them with shoelaces. Cooey later bragged to friends about the murders.

Dawn McCreery, 20, and Wendy Offredo, 21, were University of Akron sorority sisters who were leaving their jobs as waitresses when 17-year-old Clint Dickens threw a chunk of concrete off an I-77 overpass, striking the windshield of the car that Ms. Offredo was driving. Cooey, who was 19 and on leave from the U.S. Army, was hanging out with a longtime friend, Kenny Horonetz, and Dickens. The three got into a car and offered the two women help. The five drove to a shopping mall and Ms. Offredo used a pay phone to call her mother. "I'm game if you're game," Cooey said as Dickens suggested they rob the two women.

Cooey pulled a knife on the women when they realized they were not being driven back to their car. Horonetz demanded to be let out of the car after Cooey told him to tie Ms. McCreery's hands. Driving to a wooded area in nearby Norton, Dickens and Cooey both raped the two girls. Dickens then suggested the women should be killed because they knew his name, records show. Dickens grabbed Ms. Offredo in a chokehold, and Cooey used a shoelace to strangle her as Dickens strangled Ms. McCreery with his other shoelace. Cooey beat both women with a club. Dickens was sentenced to life in prison for the crimes, in which both girls suffered through more than three hours of torture.

Victims: Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery

Time of Death: 10:28 am

Manner of Execution: Lethal Injection

Last Meal: a T-bone steak with A1 sauce, french fries and onion rings, four eggs over easy, hash browns, buttered toast, bear claw pastries, a pint of Rocky Road ice cream and Mountain Dew

Final Words: ''You [expletive] have not paid attention to anything I've had to say for the past 22 years. Why would you pay attention to anything I have to say now?''