CLINIC GUNMAN ENDS OWN LIFE BEHIND BARS.

Byline: Carolyn Thompson Associated Press 

John C. Salvi III told the world he wanted to be executed for shooting two abortion clinic workers to death. But Massachusetts has no death penalty, so he was sentenced to prison for life.

Early Friday, Salvi carried out his own death sentence.

Guards found Salvi, 24, under his bed at the state's maximum-security prison with a plastic trash bag from a wastebasket tied around his head. He was alone in his cell and left no note.

In a preliminary report, the state medical examiner said the death was a suicide apparently caused by asphyxiation.

Salvi's death was the final chapter of the violent story that began Dec. 30, 1994, when he walked into two abortion clinics in the Boston area and began shooting with a rifle, killing two receptionists and wounding five others. It was the worst anti-abortion violence in U.S. history.

``He was a bad boy who grew up to be a bad man. God have mercy on his soul,'' said Ruth Nichols. Her daughter, Lee Ann Nichols, was shot 10 times as she begged Salvi for mercy.

``I've always wondered what my daughter's last thoughts were when he killed her. And I wonder what John Salvi's last thoughts were after bringing so much grief, pain and sorrow to so many people,'' Nichols said from her home in North area, Ohio.

Salvi was sentenced to two consecutive life terms March 18 after jurors rejected claims that he was insane and convicted him of killing Nichols and Shannon Lowney. The daytime shootings happened about 15 minutes apart at clinics on the same street in suburban Brookline.

Salvi was last seen alive during a routine cell check at about 5 a.m., said Ronald Duval, superintendent of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction in Walpole. He was pronounced dead at 6:55 a.m. after prison personnel could not revive him. The trash bags line wastebaskets in the prison cells, Duval said.

Salvi's mother, Ann Marie Salvi, said her son suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and belonged in a psychiatric hospital, not a prison.

``My young John is gone, but there are others who will suffer in prison instead of a mental hospital where they belong,'' Salvi said from her Naples, Fla., home.

Duval acknowledged that Salvi's mother had expressed concern within the last two weeks about her son's behavior. But Salvi was not under a suicide watch, nor was he receiving any mental health treatment.

``There was no indication that Mr. Salvi was mentally ill or in need of intervention,'' said Anthony Carnevale, a Department of Correction spokesman.

Salvi began his shooting spree at the Planned Parenthood clinic, pulling out a .22-caliber rifle and opening fire. Lowney, 25, was killed and three other people in the waiting room were wounded.

Salvi then drove his blue Toyota pickup about two miles to the Preterm Health Services clinic and opened fire again, killing Nichols, 38, and injuring two others.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: John C. Salvi III

Killed self in prison