Richey freed after 21 years on death row

OTTAWA — While Kenneth Richey and his 21-year fight for freedom was the big story Monday, family members of a young girl he was accused of killing finally broke their silence.The family of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins sat upset in the Putnam County courtroom where Richey was given his freedom. None of them believed Richey was innocent.“I want you to know you fooled nobody. Not me, not any of these people. You will burn in hell,” said Valerie Binkley, Cynthia’s aunt.Richey listened as she spoke. He also heard a statement from Cynthia’s father, Robert Collins, read by Michelle Price, a crime victims advocate. He chose to honor her memory in private, Price said.“I will never have closure now that the outcome has changed. It will continue to haunt me the rest of my life. I just wish Cynthia could appeal her death and come back to life,” Price read.The statement went on to say Cynthia didn’t deserve to die and spoke of how her death has affected her father.“I try not to think about how she died but it consumes my thoughts. The unthinkable reality of her choking, crawling, crying and her little lungs filling with smoke has been etched in my mind since her death,” she read. “Cynthia was my baby girl who I love and still do with all my heart. The pain will always be with me.”The father said he missed his daughter’s first day of school, teaching her to drive and graduation.“But most of all her loving me as much as I love her,” Price read.Richey had little to say in the courtroom other than answer legal questions from the judge. Richey pleaded no contest to attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering, and breaking and entering. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison and given credit for time served.The charges were not an admission to killing Cynthia or setting the 1986 fire at a Columbus Grove apartment complex that led to her death. The charges imply that Richey was asked by the child’s mother to baby-sit and the child died during the time he was to be watching her.Richey had remained on Ohio’s death row until September after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled he didn’t receive adequate legal representation at his 1987 trial. Putnam County Prosecutor Gary Lammers was to retry Richey on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated arson, child endangering, and breaking and entering. The charges carried a possible death sentence.Lammers said he had to offer Richey a plea deal after the Ohio Fire Marshal’s Office told him in late November they wouldn’t be able to explain why the fire was arson without actually being at the scene, which is impossible more than 21 years after the fact.“They could only give their best guesstimate without any degree of scientific certainty,” he said.With no one to explain why the fire was arson, his chance to prove the charges of aggravated murder and aggravated arson was destroyed. Despite that, Lammers said he could have proved the remaining charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangering, and breaking and entering, which were the charges Richey pleaded to.Additionally, many people with little knowledge about the evidence against Richey twisted the facts to create scenarios that were false, he said.Lammers said he hopes people will never forget the victim in this case was Cynthia Collins, not Richey. He said so many people have made Richey out to be the victim.“That’s the thing that troubles me the most about the entire spin that was put on the case. The bottom line was a 2-year-old child died,” he said.Lammers said he will have to live with the fact he couldn’t do more for the victim’s family.“I wish I could have gotten a more definitive answer to the cause of this fire,” he said. “Nothing I do or could do will ever give the victim’s family the closure they desire or deserve. That’s what bothers me the most. I can’t change that.”As part of the deal, Richey agreed to not return to Putnam County for at least five years. He is to leave today for Scotland after spending the night at his brother’s home in Cloverdale. The deal also said he was banned from going to a bar or nightclub in Ottawa or Columbus Grove.He also must stay away from Cynthia’s family, witnesses from his first trial, as well as other players such as prosecutors and those who put him behind bars the first time. Included in the deal was to stay out of three states, Tennessee, Missouri and Idaho, where witnesses live.Richey’s family, including his ex-wife, Wendy Richey, who he wants to wed again, sat in the courtroom alongside his brother, Steven Richey, his father, Jim Richey, and other family members.Not far away was another man who will never believe Richey is innocent. Retired Putnam County Sheriff’s Investigator Steve Stechschulte Sr. was the lead detective on the case and the first inside the apartment where Cynthia died in 1986.Stechschulte also broke his silence for the first time in 21 years after appeals kept him from speaking.“The whole time this appeal process has gone on everyone has overlooked the victim,” he said. “The media, itself, has made Kenny Richey the victim here when, really, that didn’t happen.”Stechschulte said the evidence in the case remains fresh in his mind and he has no doubt Richey killed Cynthia.“Knowing the facts that I knew, that man committed the crime,” he said. “There is no doubt in my mind.”