At 10 this morning, needles will slide beneath the skin of Alton Coleman’s forearm and lethal doses of Pavulon, sodium pentathol and potassium chloride will wind through his veins.

Within 10 minutes the man convicted of a 1984 spree that terrorized six Midwestern states will die. Coleman was charged with eight murders, seven kidnappings, four rapes, as well as multiple assaults, home invasions and car thefts.

The nightmare ended in Evanston.

And now, 18 years later, Coleman will be put to death in an Ohio correctional facility.

On July 20, 1984, Evanston police apprehended Coleman and his accomplice, Debra Denise Brown, in Mason Park on Church Street and Florence Avenue. A phone call from a high school acquaintance led them to the couple. Coleman was seen wearing a gold T-shirt with a tropical design printed on the front.

It was his last day as a free man.

Sgt. Susan Trigourea of Evanston Police Department was one of the first officers on the scene the day Coleman and Brown were arrested.

Trigourea, then a detective, was cruising Church Street in an unmarked car when she heard over radio dispatch that Coleman had been spotted near Church and Ridge avenues.

While travelling west on Church and Florence, Trigourea said she glanced over and saw a man and a woman sitting on a park bench who resembled Coleman and Brown.

She called for backup.

‘REIGN OF TERROR’

According to accounts compiled by the FBI and EPD, authorities believe Coleman’s 54-day “reign of terror” began with the May 29, 1984, abduction of 9-year-old Vernita Wheat in Kenosha, Wis. A court hearing the next day brought him to Lake County.

Eleven days later, Coleman hitched a ride to Chicago where he obtained fake identification, Evanston police said, then persuaded the driver to continue to Gary, Ind. Authorities attributed the June 17 abduction of Gary resident Donna Williams to Coleman. Her body was found one month later in an empty building in Detroit.

Indiana Supreme Court documents indicate that on June 18, 7-year-old Tamika Turks and her 9-year-old relative were lured into a wooded area by Coleman and Brown, where Turks was stomped in the face, chest and stomach until she died. The 9-year-old girl was beaten and raped, but survived.

The next day Turks’ body was discovered in Gary, Ind., and Wheat was found dead in a vacant Waukegan building.

On July 7 the bodies of a Toledo, Ohio, woman and her 10-year-old daughter were discovered in a crawl space in their home, and an elderly couple reported their car stolen by people thought to be Coleman and Brown.

Less than a week later, Tonnie Storey, 15, disappeared after being seen with Coleman in Walnut Hills, Ohio.

On July 12, the FBI placed Coleman on its top 10 most wanted fugitives list.

Marlene Walters was found the next day, bludgeoned to death in the basement of her home in a Cincinnati suburb. Her husband, Harry Walters, was badly beaten. The Walters’ stolen car was found two days later in a Lexington, Ky., cornfield.

An Ohio court on July 14 charged Coleman with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and grand theft auto in connection with the death of Walters and the beating of her husband.

On July 17, the FBI charged Coleman with the abduction of a college professor, Oline Carmical, from Williamsburg, Ky., who was driven from Lexington to Dayton, Ohio, in the trunk of his car.

On the same day, Dayton resident the Rev. Millard Gay, 79, and his wife were found beaten and gagged in their home. Their station wagon also had been stolen.

The FBI issued a warrant for Brown’s arrest on July 18 in connection with the Carmical kidnapping. The next day the body of 15-year-old Storey, the Ohio teen abducted in early July, was found strangled.

That day, according to the EPD Web site, Evanston residents reported seeing Coleman at least three times in a four-hour period.

On July 20, authorities finally caught up with Coleman and Brown. Evanston police arrested the couple after a tip from one of Coleman’s high school acquaintances led them to Mason Park.

Nearby, officers found a car belonging to Eugene Scott, a man found slain next to an interstate highway in Indiana.

Trigourea radioed for help, then stopped her car and approached the couple. Coleman had begun to change clothes and Brown was heading toward the southern end of the park as Trigourea walked toward them. Brown was stopped by two police officers near Davis Street.

With the help of another unit of officers, Trigourea approached Coleman.

Though Brown was armed with a gun and Coleman had multiple knives, neither one threatened the officers or tried to run, Trigourea said, but both gave false names.

“(The arrest) was very nondescript,” she said.

The couple was taken to the station, and the officers matched their fingerprints.

“That’s when we knew we had him for sure,” Trigourea said. “It’s not everyday that you get (to arrest) someone on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

‘abused and exploited’

In April and May of 1985 a Hamilton County, Ohio, court found Coleman guilty in the beating death of Walters and sentenced him to die by lethal injection. He was convicted of four 1984 murders and also was on death row in Indiana and Illinois.

Coleman’s execution will come days after a report published by the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment, which called for reforms to Illinois’ death penalty.

Though Coleman is on death row in Illinois, his sentence could not be carried out because of a moratorium enacted in 2000.

In recent weeks, some have questioned whether Coleman should be executed at all. His lawyer alleges that “serious Constitutional issues” were ignored during the trial.

During the 1984 hearing, the county prosecutor’s office “engaged in racial discrimination” by using nine of its 12 challenges to exclude black jurors, said Dale Baich, the Phoenix attorney who represented Coleman.

Coleman’s attorney at the time also was inadequately prepared for the trial, Baich said.

He described Coleman as someone who grew up in a “horrible environment” where “criminal action was the norm.”

Coleman was born with brain damage and “raised in a brothel” where he was “abused and exploited,” but the courts ignored this, Baich said.

On the eve of Coleman’s execution, Baich said he felt justice had not been served.

“I’m disappointed that the courts did not look at the issues we presented,” he said.

‘This is a guilty man’

But Coleman’s last appeal wasn’t enough.

“In each case it was found that (Coleman) was competent and that he knew what he was doing,” said Jon Esther, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Prosecutor.

“There is no doubt about the fact that this is a guilty man,” said Joe Case, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery.

“His M.O. was to befriend his victims, turn on them, assault them and beat them to death,” he said. “Justice in Ohio demands an execution.

“Alton Coleman is the worst of the worst killers on death row in Ohio,” Case added.