TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — An Ohio woman has stepped forward with an appeal on behalf of Florida death row inmate Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday.

        Mr. Sanchez-Velasco is condemned for the murder of an 11-year-old Hialeah girl in 1986. He's also convicted of killing two other death row inmates in 1995.

        He has won court approval to fire his state lawyer and drop his appeals. He has said in court that he hates people and wants to kill them.

        Dianne Abshire of Ottawa, Ohio, is a member of the Florida Support Group, which supplies emotional support to Florida death row inmates.

        She filed a motion in the state Supreme Court Friday arguing that he wasn't mentally competent to drop his appeals and asking that she be allowed to act on his behalf in court.

        Mr. Sanchez-Velasco, 43, came to Miami from Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. He was sentenced to death for the strangulation murder of Kathy Encenarro, the 11-year-old daughter of his live-in girlfriend, Marta Molina.

        The girl's body was found naked and bleeding at Ms. Molina's apartment. A medical examination showed she had been raped. He confessed to the killing.

        He wrote letters to the late Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1994 and 1995, seeking to stop his appeals.

        In 1995, Mr. Sanchez-Velasco was convicted in the 1995 stabbing deaths of two other death row inmates, Edward B. “Mike” Kaprat III and Charles Street. He was given 15-year sentences for each of the slayings.

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