Whitley, Knox native gets life in prison for killing ‘Angel of Death’ serial murderer

James Elliott

A Knox and Whitley County native who fatally beat the so-called “Angel of Death” Donald Harvey more than two years ago while serving time in Toledo, Ohio pleaded guilty Tuesday and was immediately sentenced to life in prison.

James Elliott, 45, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in Toledo to aggravated murder, an unspecified felony, for beating Harvey in March, 2017 in his cell.

Harvey was convicted of 37 murders in 1987 while working as a nursing assistant at southwest Ohio and Kentucky hospitals.

Elliott was serving time in the Toledo Correctional Institute for burglary and assault, and he still has 24 years left on his sentence, he told Judge Myron Duhart on Tuesday.

Judge Duhart immediately sentenced Elliott to a consecutive term of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years served — making Elliott 94-years-old at the time he could potentially be released. He faced a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

“No matter how bad a person is, that does not give you the right to be the judge, jury, and executioner,” Judge Duhart told Elliott. “No one has that right except the Lord above.”

Elliott contacted the News Journal, via letter, in 2018 admitting to the murder. While he declined to comment in court, Elliott did write about the killing in his letter. “Hopefully, everyone from our area will take some solace in the fact that one of their own gave Harvey the punishment that he should’ve gotten from the courts.”

“This is a segment of his life that he wishes to get behind him,” said Elliott’s attorney, Ronnie Wingate.

During an inquiry about the incident, assistant county prosecutor Drew Wood asked Elliott about the 2017 assault.

Elliott admitted to plotting the assault on Harvey for at least a week because he received kosher meals fitting Jewish dietary law. He waited to see what officers were on shift because Elliott believed some kept better watch than others.

Elliott brought a shank to Harvey’s cell, with plans to stab him, but had to “change plans” because the “Angel of Death” screamed.

Elliott included a conduct report with his letter detailing the incident.

Harvey was severely beaten, while in his cell, at the Toledo Correctional Institution on March 28, 2017. He died two days later from his injuries. He was 64-years-old.

The conduct report says Elliott entered Harvey’s cell, pulled the door closed behind him, and attacked Harvey. It is short on details of the assault.

Staff were alerted to the situation when they heard screaming coming from the area of Harvey’s cell. They investigated and found him unresponsive and bleeding. They found Elliott later with blood on his shoes and clothing.

Elliott did not initially admit to assaulting Harvey. Later he did admit, according to the report, that he “had kicked Harvey in the head multiple times after punching him and knocking him to the ground.”

Two things principally motivated the prison attack on Harvey, Elliott wrote. First, it was a way to get the attention of prison officials because he was “unhappy with the food being served by the institution,” and that “complaints and grievances were not getting their attention.”

“I picked Harvey because I knew it would give them a better understanding of just how unhappy we (myself and the other inmates in the institution) were about our food.”
Elliott also said killing one of America’s most well known serial killers would enable him to “do something constructive” for the friends and neighbors he robbed and stole from and “never gave anything in return.”

“I was born and raised in the Knox/Whitley Co. area, and more than likely knew of some distant relative of one of his victims in the Laurel Co. area,” Elliott wrote.

“I guess a part of me saw this as an opportunity to finally do something constructive for my neighbors by way of ‘closure/peice [sic] of mind. And in turn, balance the karmic scales in my favor.”

However, Elliott’s mother claims her son killed Harvey because he was bragging about how he mistreated elderly individuals.

“We [were] always raised not to mistreat the elderly. He was not mean to not one old person or no one else,” Ms. Elliott said. “They’re wanting to give my son life. It’s not right.
“I can’t take it back that he done it. A man that kill that many old people — and did what he did to old people — deserved it. He shouldn’t be up there bragging what he done to them old people,” Ms. Elliott added.

It hit close to home for her son because Harvey targeted individuals one town away from theirs, she said. Her son did not know any of the victims, she said.

When Ms. Elliott saw news of Harvey’s death, she said she had ‘a mother’s feeling’ that her son was somehow involved. She said she knows her son is accepting for what he did and is prepared to “get it over with.”

Ms. Elliott said she will always be supportive of her son.

“I’ll be here till I die for him,” she said. “What he did ain’t got nothing to do for my love for my son. He’s still a good person to me. Just because he got rid of a piece of sh** — that’s what he is to me — he’s still a good kid. He’s a man now, but he’s still a good person.”

A coroner’s report said Harvey’s official cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, skull fractures and brain injury.

Elliott was indicted by a Lucas County grand jury in May with aggravated murder, felonious assault — each with a repeat violent offender specification — tampering with evidence, and possession of a deadly weapon while under detention, in the March, 2017 fatal assault on Harvey while they were both serving time at the Toledo Correctional Institute.

The additional charges and specifications were dismissed.

Ms. Elliott could not attend her son’s hearing as she raises Elliott’s 13-year-old daughter in Kentucky. There were no representatives on behalf of Harvey.

Harvey was serving multiple life sentences at the facility for killing mostly patients at hospitals in Cincinnati and London, Kentucky.

Thirteen of Harvey’s victims were patients at Marymount Hospital in London in 1970 and 1971. The hospital was demolished in 2012. Twenty-one were from the former Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati. Three of Harvey’s victims weren’t patients in hospitals at all. One was a neighbor. Another was the father of his roommate. He also killed an acquaintance.

His killing spree was ultimately uncovered when a medical examiner noticed the smell of arsenic coming from one of Harvey’s victims during an autopsy. He employed numerous viciously effective ways to murder his victims, but he generally favored poisoning with either arsenic or cyanide.

To avoid the death penalty, Harvey agreed to plea deals in Cincinnati and Laurel County in 1987.

During his legal proceedings, and ensuing incarceration, Harvey claimed that his killings were done out of mercy because his victims were terminally ill or suffering. Though he was only ever prosecuted for 37 deaths, he claimed to have killed up to 87 people.