Family wants delays to end

Engstroms sister, Debi Heiss, flanked by her mother and brother, offered an emotional plea Friday to the community to start a letter writing campaign, asking state leaders to not grant convicted murderer Kenneth Biros clemency or reduce his sentence to life in prison.

"We cannot have anymore delays," Heiss of Hubbard Township said. "Our family has been through enough pain and devastation over the past 16 years. This is a case that has Kenneth Biros' own admission of guilt while he testified on the witness stand.

"He has been given more humanity and mercy from the state than my sister ever had," she said.

A clemency hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4 in Columbus.

Biros was sentenced Oct. 29, 1991, to die for killing Engstrom of Hubbard and leaving her dismembered remains in Ohio and Pennsylvania. His execution date is set for Jan. 23.

He is being held on death row in Mansfield.

"We are urging people to please get their letters or anything they can in before the 4th is possible," Heiss said.

Family members met on Friday with officials from the Attorney General's Office, Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office and the Victim Division of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to discuss what is going to and what could happen in the weeks leading up to Biros' execution.

Biros has joined as a party in a federal lawsuit that tests the
constitutionality of the death penalty by lethal injection.

The lawsuit challenging the injection as cruel and unusual punishment was filed in early November in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, and is being heard by Judge Gregory L. Frost.

The litigation was filed by Richard Cooey, a death row inmate who was convicted in 1986 of throwing slabs of concrete from an Interstate 76 overpass into the windshield of a car carrying to female students from Akron University. After striking the auto, Cooey went to the highway and raped and murdered both co-eds.

Heiss declined to comment on Biros joining the suit.

Biros is one of 10 convicted killers from Trumbull County on death row.
None have been executed so far.

(source: Tribune-Chronicle)

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