While he studied at Ohio University in the early 1990s, James Filiaggi was known as a local boxing champion ' Fooge
as his friends call him.
Now they have to file forms to visit him, and he has a different identification: Inmate No. 311180 on Ohio's Death Row.
As a Bobcat, Filiaggi studied business and accounting after spending four years of military duty, graduating with honors in 1992. He married Lisa Huff in 1990, while he was still in school, and they had two daughters before divorcing shortly after his graduation.
Filiaggi, now 41, talks fondly about his days at OU from a small conference room at the Mansfield Correctional Institution.
His cuffed hands jingle as he gestures. His voice becomes clinical when the subject is the conviction he received for fatally shooting Huff in 1994. His lawyers argued a defense based on doctors' findings of a chemical imbalance in his body that indicated bipolar disorder, a condition marked by mood swings.
The appeals are over, and ultimately the courts upheld his conviction.I'm done he said. I'm just waiting for a date. His execution date, usually given about 90 days in advance, likely will be set this month, he added.
'Crazy thinking'
The divorce from his wife began a downward spiral of events that led Filiaggi to plan to shoot himself in front of his ex-wife, a plan he now calls crazy thinking; the result of a failure to see other options. On Jan. 24, 1994, Filiaggi visited Huff in northern Ohio where she stayed with her fianc+ it was just like a dream
he said.
He describes the ensuing chase into a neighbor's house with the tone of a distant outsider.
It was so surreal. I can see it now
but it's like it wasn't me
but I'm watching from out of my body
Filiaggi said. Filiaggi found Huff hiding in a closet, and the gun he carried went off in a struggle, hitting Huff in the shoulder, he said.
Next thing I know
she's sitting on the bedroom floor with her head down
and I walked up behind her and pulled the trigger
he said. She just sat there. And I turned around and walked out of the house
and that was that.
He left the area for a week and eventually peacefully surrendered to police.
The same Fooge
College friends and acquaintances of Filiaggi, a Lorain County native, say they still have trouble comprehending how the studious boxer and rugby player they knew is a man now convicted of murder.
Athens resident Cindy Hayes attended OU with Filiaggi and was shocked by news of the shooting. She tried to keep contact with her friend but stopped as she struggled to make sense of the situation. When she decided to visit again two years ago, Hayes said she hoped she would find a man who fit some criminal image, an image that made sense. Instead, he seemed like the same Fooge she knew, she said.
Herman Carson, the Athens attorney who represented Filiaggi after a one-punch, college bar fight that resulted in a misdemeanor assault conviction, said he remembers his client as a very polite guy and bright student.
You wonder what went wrong
