Killer's life ends

Biros first to get 1-drug injection

It was quiet.

18 years of appeals, reprieves, stays, cries of protest from the victim's family and protests from those who said the death penalty was inhumane ended in not much more than the sound of a hum in a room that was about the size of a hallway.

The only other sound in the Southern Ohio Penitentiary's death house Tuesday morning was Mary Jane Heiss' oxygen tank as she watched the man who killed her daughter convulse, lie still, then turn pale with a large vein protruding across his forehead.

Then her family clapped as the curtain was drawn on Kenneth Biros.

Biros was convicted in 1991 of sexually assaulting, robbing, murdering, then dismembering 22-year-old Brookfield resident Tami Engstrom after he offered her a ride home from a bar one night.

Biros was declared dead at 11:47 a.m. Tuesday morning, following 11 minutes of anesthetic pumping into his arm under a new death penalty the state never used before. The massive dose through a single IV site in his left arm was part of the state's original 3-drug cocktail.

Biros had an extra hour tacked onto his life while the Department of Corrections waited to see if the U.S. Supreme Court would approve or deny his attorney's request for a stay of execution. Biros had escaped the death penalty once before in 2007 in a similar fashion, something victim family members such as Debi Heiss claimed contributed to the death of her father and failing health of her mother.

The state would not proceed with preparations until hearing back from the U.S. Supreme Court. When the word came in at 10 a.m. that the request for a stay had been denied, execution staff went to work for about an hour before Biros could be brought in.

Witness reporters were led out a door into a blacktop driveway, where a hearse waited. They were led toward the death house, a tan brick building with "J 1-105'' stenciled across the brown, metal doors in black paint.

The hallway to the viewing room was dark, and reporters from several news outlets as well as staff with the Department of Corrections crowded together against the rear brick wall of 2 viewing rooms.

The gurney, which Biros was to be strapped to, filled the field of vision just feet away behind the glass of the viewing room. The bed was bolted to the linoleum floor with thick brown bars. A slender metal arm reached the bed from 1 wall of the death room. Plastic tubing, which would pump the drugs into Biros' arm, were threaded through this arm and out through the wall.

His attorney, John Parker, and his 2 spiritual advisers, Eric Weinberg and Bradley Butters, entered the inmate's section of the viewing room, which was partitioned off from the victim's family's side.

The family of Tami Engstrom, Mary Jane Heiss, sister Debi Heiss and brother Tom Heiss, entered the victim's side next. Mary Jane Heiss, who suffers from numerous diseases, including emphysema, was pushed into the death room on a wheelchair.

"My bedroom's only half that big," Mary Jane Heiss said of the death room.

Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere sat behind them, availing himself of law enforcement's right to witness the execution.

In a telephone call following the execution, Altiere said he was the chief of police for Howland Township during the missing person's investigation that eventually turned into one of the grisliest finds of his career.

"We found part of her," he said. "It was terrible."

Biros' family declined to attend.

Shortly after they were seated, a small flat-screen monitor turned on. In washed-out colors, witnesses could see prison technicians dressed in white scrubs seated on either side of Biros, prepping his arms. Biros winced at times and blood could be seen for a moment coming out of an abandoned IV site on his right arm before technicians secured an IV site on his left arm.

Mary Jane Heiss, from her wheelchair in the victim's section of the viewing room, chuckled quietly during the first few winces.

Biros appeared to be calm throughout the entire procedure.

"I want to see him cry," Debi Heiss whispered to her brother Tom.

Biros walked into the death chamber when signaled and laid down on the gurney in the center of the room. He had some sort of wrist band with a ball in his right hand.

As he entered the room, he gave a brief nod to Parker and to the 2 spiritual advisers who taught him Buddhist meditation practices in the last 3 years of his life. Weinberg and Butters appeared to be praying throughout. Butters stood up with his hands together in prayer when Biros entered the chamber before a prison staff technician asked him to sit.

Biros was strapped to the gurney and again nodded to his witnesses. A ceremonial white scarf given to Biros by Weinberg and Butters was draped beside him, and a prison guard stuck what appeared to be a picture of the Virgin Mary into a strap going across his chest.

It sounded like there was another hum in the room.

Biros began breathing deeply, then his chest severely heaved forward in the gurney. This was followed by some smaller heaves before he became still.

The curtain remained open for some minutes before a technician, his face covered with a surgical mask, put a stethoscope to Biros' chest. A guard pulled the curtain back, and a staff member inside pronounced Biros dead. He looked pale. A vein was sticking out across his forehead.

"It's done," Mary Jane Heiss said.

Then the victim's family clapped.

"That was too easy," Tom Heiss said.

In a news conference after the execution, during which Debi Heiss danced with friend-of-the-family Shari King, Mary Jane Heiss said it was a fitting end for the man who ruined her family.

"I was very happy. This was one of the happiest days of my life," she said.

Tom Heiss thanked everyone in law enforcement and the prosecutor's office, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins in particular, who brought Biros to justice. He said he was glad that Ohio devised the new execution method, and he said he would like to see it continued. He had no comment on Biros himself.

"I have no thoughts for that man. I'm glad he's gone. This has brought closure to our family," he said.

Debi Heiss, who frequently was the spokeswoman for the family through its 18-year ordeal, said she believed the execution went smoothly.

She also believed Biros was insincere with his last words: "I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart." She said he didn't look her in the eye.

She was frustrated with the court system and said she wanted to put the last two decades behind her.

"I think it went too smoothly, Heiss said. ''He spent hours raping and beating and robbing her (Tami), and he gets to go to sleep.

"I'm very happy it's over," she added.

Parker disagreed, stating that Biros was always remorseful. He believed Biros should have received life without parole. He said it was a "brutal crime with no excuse."

Debi Heiss told reporters that she would work as a victim's advocate and also said she would prove that Biros was guilty of other crimes in addition to killing her sister.

Source: Tribune-Chronicle, December 9, 2009