PARMA, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court has decided to uphold the death penalty for a Parma Heights man who stabbed two housemates to death in May 2017.
Thomas Knuff was sentenced to death on Aug. 14, 2019, after he was found guilty of aggravated murder for the stabbing deaths of 50-year-old Regina Capobianco and 65-year-old John Mann.
The Ohio Supreme Court rejected Knuff's appeal, which included 24 propositions of law, in a unanimous decision
In the decision, the justices refused Knuff's appeal claims that stated he walked in on Capobianco stabbing Mann and stabbed her as a result of self-defense.
"Here, the jury did not lose its way and create a manifest miscarriage of justice. To the contrary, the evidence (other than Knuff’s self-serving account) strongly supports the jury’s rejection of Knuff’s self-defense claim and its finding that he killed both Mann and Capobianco," Justice Joseph Deters wrote in the decision.
Knuff had been serving a sentence of more than 15 years in the Lorain Correctional Institution for aggravated robbery and was apparently staying at the home of the victims. Authorities said Capobianco had been his prison pen pal.
According to investigators, Knuff stabbed both victims multiple times and hid their bodies inside the home on Nelwood Road. Their bodies were not found until a month later when officials performed a welfare check.
The full decision can be read below:
