CHEVIOT, Ohio — In her basement, there’s a guitar. It’s covered in dust because it’s not hers.
Sue Prieshoff is keeping it for someone 107 miles away.
“When he gets out, he’s going to need that,” Prieshoff said.
She laughs, but doesn’t appear to be joking. The guitar is in a case next to a record player and dozens of other boxes. The lifelong Cheviot resident scribbled the words “pots and pans” on another box. She's been storing these things for decades.
“I just want them to know that someone cares,” Prieshoff said.
It's the same reason why the 68-year-old won't change her phone number. Because she wants anyone who needs someone to call. A few minutes after she tells me that, someone does.
And when Prieshoff answers, a robotic voice tells her the call is coming from the Madison Correctional Institution. But she already knows that.
Inmate no. A475596 calls every Tuesday morning.
WATCH: After governor's remarks, a renewed focus on the death penalty
Sixteen miles away in Harrison, Amy Evers flips through a scrapbook she made in high school. It has a lot of happy memories — like the one where the photo caption says she would not eat "yucky cereal."
“I haven’t looked at this in forever," Evers said.
She soon starts to cry. Because the other memories aren't as happy. Especially the ones with her brother.
“Wherever I went, he went,” Evers said. "He was my little sidekick."
She takes a deep breath and flips to his obituary.
JASON R. EVERS
Born – January 6, 1979
Died – June 28, 1982
“I was with him the day that he was taken,” Evers said.
She was 6 years old, but remembers a lot. More than any child should have to.
"It took them 43 days to find my brother," Evers said. "And when my dad saw him, it was pretty much just bones."
She remembers testifying in court. And she remembers the person convicted of killing her brother did not receive the death penalty. While Evers tells me she doesn’t believe capital punishment would help her heal, she fights for families who do.
It's why she's here.
Waiting for justice
Robert Garrett tries to escape the sun under a tree. This particular tree, facing Harrison Elementary School on Broadway Street, is his favorite.
It was planted to honor his daughter.
A few weeks before I meet with Garrett, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters he believes lawmakers should abolish the death penalty. Several people immediately sent Garrett video of the remarks.
"That's not justice," Garrett said. "That's politics."
The man convicted of killing Garrett's daughter, Amber, has been on death row since 1993. He maintains his innocence, and a judge has been weighing whether to give him a new trial for more than a year.
"Why do we have to be tortured?” Garrett said. “My mom died. My dad died. My baby sister died. They aren’t going to get any closure."
Garrett is 68, and his health isn’t the best now either. He delays our interview because of the summer heat, something he says often makes it difficult to breathe. His partner worries he won’t live much longer.
I ask if he believes the man who killed his daughter should be executed. He answers in one word.
“Yeah,” Garrett said.
DeWine: Death penalty no longer a deterrent
In 1981, Gov. DeWine was instrumental in bringing the death penalty back to Ohio. And since then, officials have executed 56 people — but none since DeWine became governor in 2018.
As the 79-year-old prepares to exit politics, he wants it to stay that way.
"I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder,” DeWine said. “The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists."
That’s what the former prosecutor said in a June press conference. It was the first time he has spoken out against the death penalty this explicitly.
In Cheviot, Prieshoff shouts and throws her hands up in the air when I ask for her reaction. She is smiling.
“When there’s an execution, I get a lot of phone calls," Prieshoff said.
For decades, if there was an execution in the state, she would go stand outside the prison fence. Sometimes, she’d cry.
She’d always pray.
"Everybody wants someone with them when they pass," Prieshoff said.
She's sitting at her dining room table now. In a few minutes, she's going to visit a friend.
A friend from death row.
Death row pen pals
Preishoff drives 30 minutes to bring this friend a microwave. She also baked cookies and has a Tupperware full of condiments.
Derrick Jamison gives her a hug as soon as he sees her, and then the two sit in lawn chairs and look through pictures together.
“Sue became my pen pal in 1985,” Jamison said. “The year I was sent to die.”
Jamison spent 20 years on death row. At one point, he was 90 minutes away from being executed.
"All my friends got executed. Think about it. For 20 years, everybody you know — all your friends — get taken out the cell and executed," Jamison said, fighting back tears. "That ain’t jail. That’s hell."
Jamison tells me he was scheduled to be executed six different times. In 2005, he was exonerated after officials discovered favorable evidence that was withheld from his defense team.
He credits Prieshoff with getting him through all those years behind bars.
"Sue means the world to me," Jamison said. "And Sue means the world to America."
After our interview, Prieshoff takes Jamison to pay his phone bill.
A cross on the side of the road
In Indiana, near the Ohio border, there is a cross with a 10-year-old's picture on it. Robert Garrett tells me the makeshift memorial was made by a detective involved in his daughter's case.
While we're talking, a funeral procession drives by.
“She’s so beautiful,” Evers said. “Is this where she was found?”
Garrett doesn’t answer with words. He just points past the guardrail into the woods.
….
There are currently 106 people currently incarcerated on Ohio's death row. Since 1981,12 people have been exonerated from death row. The next execution in the state is scheduled for Jan. 13, 2027.
DeWine will no longer be governor.
