Hartford, Conn. ? Death penalty opponents set off Sunday on a five-day walk to protest the state’s plans to execute a serial killer who admitted killing and raping eight young women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s.

About two dozen protesters began the 30-mile journey that will eventually lead to the prison where Michael Ross is scheduled to be put to death Friday in what would be the first execution in New England in 45 years.

“So many people have asked me, ‘Why are you doing this for Michael Ross?”‘ said Robert Nave, executive director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, who is leading the effort. “We’re not doing this for Michael Ross. We’re doing this because it is state-sponsored homicide.”

Protesters plan to walk for periods each day through Thursday night, stopping at the state Capitol, at churches and for vigils along the way.

They began before dawn in Hartford at Gallows Hill at Trinity College, the site where the state executed five criminals in colonial days. Later, they held a moment of silence for the eight women Ross admitted killing and their families.

Most opponents will not walk the entire 30 miles. They will come and go over the next few days.

Though many participants acknowledged there was little hope the execution would be halted, they hoped to send a message about capital punishment.

Nina Allred, left, and her son, Nick, 14, of Newtown, Conn., begin a march against the death penalty with others from Trinity University in Hartford, Conn. The group plans to continue the march every day on their way to the prison in Somers, where Friday's planned execution of convicted murderer Michael Ross is to take place.

In January, a telephone poll by Quinnipiac University showed 59 percent of Connecticut voters supported the death penalty and 70 percent supported Ross’ execution.

Walter Everett, whose 24-year-old son, Scott, was killed in Bridgeport in 1987, said he never wanted his son’s killer to die, just to serve a long prison sentence.

Everett, a Methodist pastor in Hartford, once testified before a parole board for the man to have an early release after serving time with good behavior.

“I’m convinced the death penalty is society’s way of admitting defeat,” he said.