Ohio death row inmate Tyrone Noling, 30 years in, gets rare parole board hearing for pardon
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — When Tyrone Noling walked into the Ohio Parole Board hearing Tuesday, he carried with him three decades of insistence that he never killed anyone. The 54-year-old, who has spent 30 years on death row for the double murder of an elderly Portage County couple, finally had a chance to make his case for a full pardon — a rarity for an inmate who has not yet been given an execution date.
Noling, supported by the Ohio Innocence Project, presented a growing body of evidence that includes recanted witness testimony, a sheriff and a juror who have changed their positions, and clues pointing to an executed killer as the possible perpetrator. His case has drawn national attention through documentaries, true-crime podcasts, and celebrity advocates including Kim Kardashian and actors Hilarie Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Tuesday's hearing marks the first clemency hearing for an Ohio death row inmate since 2020. The board will now issue a recommendation to Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who has the final say. DeWine called in June for abolishing the death penalty, saying he no longer believes capital punishment serves as a deterrent to violent crime — a shift that could weigh heavily in Noling's favor.
Typically, death row inmates do not receive clemency hearings unless they have an execution date. Noling does not. So even securing Tuesday's hearing was considered a major procedural victory. Noling has said he seeks release from prison and would not accept a commutation to life without parole for a crime he insists he did not commit.
Noling was convicted in the April 5, 1990, killings of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81, at their home in Atwater Township. A neighbor discovered the couple's bodies on the kitchen floor after noticing their lawn mower had sat in the front yard for days. Bearnhardt had been shot three times; his wife, five times, with a .25-caliber automatic handgun. The house had been ransacked.
Authorities at the time said Noling, who had just turned 18, was part of a group involved in home robberies targeting elderly couples. Three others — then ages 14, 15, and 16 — implicated Noling in the slayings during a burglary, but later retracted their statements, saying police pressured them to name Noling as the shooter.
Initial aggravated burglary charges against Noling were dropped in 1992, but a grand jury reindicted him in 1995 for the Hartig murders. He was sentenced to death in 1996. No physical evidence ever tied him to the crime, and the murder weapon was never found.
Noling's advocates point to law enforcement notes and a cigarette butt found in the Hartigs' driveway as evidence pointing to two other potential suspects. One is Dan Wilson, who was executed by lethal injection in Ohio in 2009 for a different crime. According to court documents filed by Noling's lawyers, a man told authorities that his foster brother, Wilson, had bragged about committing the Hartig murders.
Among those testifying on Noling's behalf is former Portage County Sheriff Ken Howe, now 83. In an Associated Press interview, Howe said red flags existed at the time, and the evidence that has piled up since then persuaded him to take Noling's side.
"I believe that these boys were, and are, innocent," he said.
Portage County Prosecutor Connie Lewandowski did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment.
The parole board will deliberate in executive session and send its recommendation to the governor within six business days. While the board's recommendation is not binding, advocates see Noling's case as a test of how Ohio's shifting views on capital punishment may play out in real cases.