DaytonDailyNews.com

Leslie Cunningham peered into her neighbors' window that day in 1970. "I just remember seeing blood on the walls."

Earlier that day, she had seen Von Clark Davis leaving his Hamilton home. They made eye contact, and "it seemed like he and I were the only ones on the street. It was an eerie feeling." At that point, the 13-year-old Cunningham, who was a baby sitter for Davis' children, didn't know that he had just murdered his wife.

Davis spent 10 years in prison for the murder of Ernestine Davis. Then he returned to the old neighborhood — and started dating Cunningham's sister.

The evening of Dec. 12, 1983, Cunningham and her mother were sitting in their home when they heard distant gunfire. "About 20 minutes later, somebody came to the door and said, 'You'd better come to the (American) Legion,' " Cunningham said. "My sister lay there dead on the ground."

Suzette Butler, a 24-year-old single mother, had been shot four times at close range to the left side of her head. Von Clark Davis had killed again.

At his 1984 trial, Davis claimed a drug dealer from Kentucky called "Silky Carr" had killed Butler. But the evidence showed that Davis carefully plotted to kill Butler, who had broken off their relationship. Ohio Supreme Court records show that Davis convinced friends to buy a gun and ammunition for him. Then he lured Butler to the doorstep of the American Legion post in Hamilton, shot her in the head and kept blasting when she was on the ground.

More than 25 years later, Davis is still appealing his death sentence in Butler's murder. He is scheduled for a third sentencing hearing beginning May 11. The hearing will determine whether Davis' death sentence will stand.

"He keeps getting these appeals on these little technical things," said Cunningham, a Dayton schoolteacher who now lives in Trotwood. "The criminal is entitled to all these appeals, but your loved one is gone, never to be seen again."

A federal appeals court in January 2007 ordered the latest resentencing. It ruled that the trial judges mistakenly assumed that Davis' prior murder conviction and his diagnosis of "explosive personality disorder" outweighed any factors that could weight in favor of sparing his life, such as his "exemplary" behavior on death row.

The appeals court said Davis is an "A" prisoner with no disciplinary record, a clerk on death row who has been praised by staff for his "positive attitude and pleasant personality." On a Web site for prison pen pals, Davis said, "My interests are reading good books, learning about history, drawing and painting, learning about gardening.

"Puppies are my passion."

Davis' crime left Butler's 8-year-old daughter — now in her 30s — without a mother and is an ongoing source of pain for the entire family. Cunningham said the family is "victimized over and over again" with every new appeal.

"I'd like for somebody to investigate why these people are given court case after court case. There's no question that they're guilty."

She said Davis should never have been released from prison after his first murder.

"Why a (justice) system would let somebody out who stabbed somebody 27 times is beyond me. If you have that much anger in your heart, why should you ever see the light of day again?"

Cunningham said she's afraid the courts will commute Davis' sentence. "I can't harbor hate. All I can do is pray and try to move on," she said. But "I think his death sentence should be upheld, and I don't understand why this man is still here."