Two convicted killers from Lancaster County are among three inmates who have dates with the executioner after Gov. Tom Corbett signed death warrants Thursday.

Abraham Sanchez Jr. 24, and Freeman May, 55, both of Lancaster County, and Orlando Maisonet, 54, of Philadelphia, are scheduled to be executed by lethal injection.

Sanchez's execution is set for March 7, May's for March 5, and Maisonet's  for March 6.

A jury convicted Sanchez of shooting to death Ray Diener in front of Diener's Elizabethtown home during a botched robbery attempt in May 2007.

Sanchez and three friends were driving around, looking for a home to burglarize, when they spotted Diener sitting at a table inside his home.

While Sanchez and two others, Emru Kebede and Robert M. Baker, hid in the bushes, Lorenzo Schrijver rang the doorbell. When Diener answered, Schrijver told him his car had broken down. Diener got his cell phone and handed it to Schrijver.

Sanchez emerged from the shadows and ordered Diener to the ground at gunpoint.

According to court documents, Diener grabbed the gun, crying, "No, no, no." He and Sanchez wrestled over the gun. Sanchez fired, hitting Diener in the groin area and fracturing his hip. Diener fell to the ground, pleading for help. Sanchez backed up and shot Diener in the chest.

Sanchez then shot Diener a third time, hitting him in the neck and shoulder, and the four men fled.

Schrijver and Baker were sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison for third-degree murder. Kebede was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder.

A jury sentenced Sanchez to death in Lancaster County Court in March 2009.

May stabbed to death 22-year-old Kathy Lynn Fair, a young mother who was reported missing on Sept. 4, 1982.  Her skeletal remains were found in a wooded area in Lebanon County in 1988.

In Dec. 1982, two young women, ages 15 and 19, were brutally and repeatedly stabbed by May, who used a short, singled-edged knife. One of the  victims was raped.

The teens were left for dead not far from where Fair's remains were later discovered. Both survived the attack and identified May as the man who had given them a ride from a party earlier that evening.

May was convicted and sentenced to 15 to 35 years in prison.

Due to the similarity of the cases, an investigation led to May being charged with Fair's killing.

May was convicted in Lebanon County Court and sentenced to death in March 1991. The sentence was reversed by an appeals court, but he was sentenced to death again in December 1995. An appeals court again vacated the sentence, but May was sentenced a third time in October 2008.

Maisonet participated in the death of Jorge Figueroa, who was stabbed 20 times in September 1982 inside a Philadelphia home.
lalexander@lnpnews.com