The Ohio Supreme Court has set a date to carry out the sentence for an Ohio Death Row inmate convicted of beating, raping, and fatally stabbing his 68-year-old adoptive grandmother who took him in and cared for him.

At the request of Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, the justices on Wednesday set an execution date of January 22, 2025, for 41-year-old Sean Carter. He was 18 years old when investigators say he violently murdered Veader Prince at her Farmington Township home in September 1997. 

"The defendant repeatedly beat the victim with his fists, stabbed her multiple times with a knife, and he forcibly engaged in sexual conduct with the victim (specifically the defendant had anal intercourse with Mrs. Prince)," according to a bill of particulars filed in the case.

Carter has been on death row now for 22 years.

Background

Defense attorneys argued that Carter's biological father was never present in his life, and his mother was psychotic. At one point as a child, Carter was found with his ankle tied to the leg of a couch while in his mother's care, according to a Children Services caseworker. However, a court document said there were no signs of Carter being physically abused while growing up, and the state Supreme Court found no circumstances that would preclude Carter from being executed for his crimes.

After passing through several foster homes, Carter was eventually adopted by Evely Prince Carter when he was ten years old.

However, in February 1997, just shy of Carter's eighteenth birthday, Carter threw him out of her home, leading Carter to live with her mother, Veader Prince.

Carter was jailed for theft, but on September 13, 1997, Prince came home to find Carter had been released from jail and had let himself inside.

Prince told her son, who was with her at the time, to give Carter the keys and title to his car. She then told Carter not to come back.

According to Carter's confession made to police, after taking the car keys from Prince's son, he left Prince's house and drove around for a while before returning to Prince's house.

Since the door was locked, Carter said he climbed through the bedroom window and called out to Prince, hoping to convince her to allow him to stay there for a week.

They got into an argument, and Prince told him to leave. He kept telling her that he had nowhere to go.

She tried to push him out the door, and he started to beat her. At some point, he got a knife from the kitchen and started stabbing her.

Carter described it as just "going off" and could not provide exact details of what happened during the assault, although he did remember hitting her in the face and stabbing her in the neck.

The next thing Carter said he remembered was being in the kitchen and washing his hands and the knife.

He walked downstairs and saw Prince on the basement floor and then started to cover things up. He covered her with some clothes, moved the couch in her bedroom to cover up blood on the carpet, turned the water on in her bathroom and closed the door, and put a chicken in a pot on the stove, and turned the stove on. He left a note on the kitchen table saying, "Took Sean to the hospital" in case someone saw blood in the house.

He changed his clothes since they were bloody. He then took about $150 from Prince's purse and left.

He initially took her keys, thinking he would take one of Prince's vans, and put his bag of clothes in the van, but could not get the van started.

He got into the victim's son's car and drove off. Since he did not have a license plate, he stopped to steal a plate from a car in Garrettsville.

To remove and transfer the plates to his car, he used the knife he had stabbed his grandmother with.

Late in the evening of September 14, Prince's body was discovered by her children.

An autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed 18 times, had suffered blunt-force trauma to the head, and had been anally raped.

The next day, Carter was detained by police in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and, after being given his Miranda warnings, he confessed to Prince's murder.

Carter was sentenced to death after being convicted of aggravated murder, rape, aggravated robbery, and criminal trespass.

Noting that Carter has been in prison for 22 years since his death sentence was imposed, Prosecutor Watkins notes that all state and federal appeals have been exhausted, and an execution date should be set.

"Justice delayed has been justice denied to the survivors of Veader Prince," wrote Watkins in his motion filed with the Supreme Court in July.

Carter has been on Death Row since 1998.