[3] She is one of eleven children, is borderline intellectually disabled, suffered head trauma as a child, and was diagnosed with dependent personality disorder by a psychiatrist.
[5] Vernita's badly decomposed body was discovered on June 19 in an abandoned building four blocks from the apartment of Coleman's grandmother.
[7] On June 28, Coleman and Brown entered the home of Palmer Jones and his wife, Marjorie[8] of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, whom they beat severely.
[9] On the same morning as the Temple murders, Coleman and Brown entered the home of Frank and Dorothy Duvendack, in Toledo, who were bound with electrical cords.
On July 12, Tonnie Storey, a 15-year-old girl who lived in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, disappeared; her body was discovered eight days later.
Coleman and Brown bicycled into Norwood on July 13 about 9:30 a.m. Less than three hours later, they drove away in a car belonging to Harry Walters, whom they left unconscious, and his wife, Marlene, who was beaten to death.
[13] A week after their arrest, more than 50 law enforcement officials from six jurisdictions met to plan their strategy for prosecuting Coleman and Brown.
Seeking the death penalty for Coleman and Brown, Michigan was quickly ruled out because it did not employ capital punishment.
Coleman's case was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court several times between 1985 and 2002, but his numerous arguments that his conviction and death sentence were unconstitutional failed to sway the justices.
[15] On April 25, 2002, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a claim by Coleman's attorneys that the state's plan to accommodate the large number of victims and survivors who wanted to view the execution would turn it into a "spectator sport".
So many victims and survivors of Coleman's crimes were allowed to witness the execution that prison officials had to set up a closed-circuit viewing venue outside of the building.
For his last meal, Coleman ordered a well-done filet mignon smothered with mushrooms, fried chicken breasts, a salad with French dressing, sweet potato pie topped with whipped cream, French fries, collard greens, onion rings, cornbread, broccoli with melted cheese, biscuits and gravy, and Cherry Coke.
On April 26, reciting Psalm 23, Alton Coleman was executed by lethal injection in the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.
Reginald Wilkinson, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Coleman had not directly expressed remorse for the killings, but that he had "admitted what he's done in his own convoluted way.
In commuting Brown's sentence, Celeste cited her low IQ scores, ranging from 59 to 74, and her "master-slave" relationship with Coleman influencing her actions.
During the sentencing phase of her first Ohio trial, she sent a note to the judge which read in part: "I killed the bitch and I don't give a damn.
"[18] Coleman and Brown left a racist slogan – all information is alleged – written in lipstick at the scene of the rape and murder of Tonnie Storey, one of their victims who was not Afro-American.