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her to
be retarded with "childlike emotional development" and low IQ
scores, as well as possessing a dependent personality, which made
her vulnerable to Alton Coleman's influence. 16 Brown is
serving her time in the Ohio Reformatory for Women in
Marysville.
    In August 1991, the Indiana Court of Appeals
upheld a ruling during Brown's trial that her confession while in
the custody of federal authorities was legally obtained. As a
result, her death sentence in the state of Indiana remains
active.
    * * *
    As Alton Coleman awaited his date with death,
he went through the appeals process, as do all death row inmates,
with the case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court a number of
times between the years of 1985 and 2002. His lawyers contended
that Coleman's conviction and sentence of death were
unconstitutional. The justices thought otherwise and refused to
block the serial killer's execution.
    The appeals ran their course on April 25,
2002, when Coleman's last chance to escape death by lethal
injection was shot down by the Ohio Supreme Court, rejecting the
argument 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.'" 17 As it was, the sheer
number of victims, family members, and other interested parties who
wanted to view the execution of the convicted serial killer made it
necessary for prison officials to have closed-circuit screening to
accommodate them.
    Coleman's final meal consisted of filet
mignon, salad, collard greens, cornbread, sweet potato pie, and
cherry Coke.
    On April 26, 2002, while reciting Psalm 23,
Alton Coleman, at forty-six years of age, was put to death by
lethal injection in the state prison in Lucasville's death chamber.
He was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m.
    According to the director of the Ohio
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Reginald Wilkinson,
Coleman showed no remorse for the many senseless, violent crimes he
committed in partnership with Debra Brown.
    * * *
    Over the years, experts have debated whether
the serial murders and other crimes perpetrated by Coleman and
Brown were racially motivated, given that the victims were
predominantly African American. Some contend that the killers
targeted those in communities where they themselves would not stand
out, thereby prolonging their crimes of violence. Others, however,
have spoken of Coleman's "intense hatred of blacks," as a reason
behind the attacks. In the book, The Anatomy of Motive ,
former FBI profiler John Douglas refers to Coleman during a brutal
attack in which he allegedly claimed "blacks were forcing him to
murder other blacks." 18 The true motivation behind the
crimes may never be known.
    The shocking and murderous crime spree of
Alton Coleman and Debra Denise Brown was dramatized on the
Investigation Discovery channel's Wicked Attraction series
in November 2008 in the episode, "Driven by Desire" and the May
2009 Investigation Discovery webisode, "Driven by
Drive." 19 In the latter, Coleman was described as "a
pure con man [and] sexual predator [who] had no conscience;" while
Brown was characterized as being "under his spell" and someone who
"would do anything he asked her to do." 20 Together the
serial killer couple is believed to have embarked on their killing
spree largely for pleasure, making them that much more dangerous
and deadly during their homicidal rage.
     
    * * *
     

NOTES
    1. R. Barri Flowers and H. Loraine Flowers, Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers and Victims of the
Twentieth Century (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), p. 163.
    2. Mark Gribben, "Alton Coleman & Debra
Brown: Odyssey of Mayhem," TruTv Crime Library,
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/coleman/2.html.
    3. Ibid .
    4. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, "Alton
Coleman," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Coleman.
    5. Mark Gribben, "Alton Coleman & Debra
Brown."
    6. Ibid .
    7. Ibid .
    8. Ibid .
    9. "Alton Coleman."
    10. Ibid