Kenneth Biros

Execution Date Debate
Sept 10, 2008
Convicted Trumbull County killer Kenneth Biros is fighting for his
own life.

The county prosecutor has been trying to convince the Ohio Supreme
court to set an execution date for the man who murdered and
dismembered Tammy Engstrom of Hubbard in 1991.

But in papers filed with the state's high court, Biros attorney says
it would be wrong to set an execution date while he has cases pending
in the federal courts.
www.wfmj.com/Global/story.asp?S=8986562

Convicted Killer Seeks Delay...Again

Last Update: 8:23 am
A Trumbull County man, on death row for the brutal rape, murder and
dismemberment of a Hubbard woman, is again asking for a delay in his
execution.

Kenneth Biros filed a motion on Monday, claiming he is still part of
a federal lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection system.
Biros also says he wasn't properly indicted under capital punishment
law and should not be put to death.

Biros raped and killed 22 year old Tammy Engstrom back in 1991, and
then scattered her body parts throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Just last month, a federal judge denied Biros' claim that lethal
injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

www.wytv.com/content/news/local/story/Convicted-KillerSeeks-Delay-Again/-n75ZTtGx0mGxnLBKQLSvg.cspx

Judge postpones Biros’ execution

A federal judge on Monday granted a stay of execution to another Ohio inmate as state officials and defense lawyers continue to examine the state's lethal injection method following a botched attempt last month.

Kenneth Biros, 51, was scheduled to be executed on Dec. 8. He was convicted in 1991 of murder and attempted rape.

Judge Gregory Frost indefinitely delayed his execution. The judge also indefinitely delayed the second effort to execute Romell Broom, whose botched execution attempt prompted the review.

''This court cannot say whether Mr. Biros is entitled to an ongoing stay of execution based on facts arising from the Broom execution attempt until this court knows what those facts are,'' the judge wrote.

News of the delay angered family members of Biros' murder victim Tami Engstrom, 22 of Brookfield.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," Engstrom's brother Tom Heiss of Girard said via telephone Monday night.

The family had traveled to Lucasville to witness Biros' scheduled execution in 2007, to learn that Biros was getting more time to argue against the penalty.

"I watched my mom age almost daily. Every time it looks like we're finally going to get a little peace, something gets thrown up in our face again," Heiss said.

The ruling comes after the Sept. 15 botched execution of Broom, which was also delayed by a federal judge until a back-up or alternative method of lethal injection could be designed.

Gov. Ted Strickland this month postponed the executions of two other men who were scheduled to die before Biros, Lawrence R. Reynolds Jr. and Darryl Durr, until the spring. The state is considering ways to adjust its death chamber procedure after technicians couldn't locate suitable veins on Broom through which to administer lethal drugs.

A spokeswoman for the governor said a review of execution procedures continued. A spokeswoman for Richard Cordray, the attorney general, said the state was reviewing its legal options. The state had expected to have new procedures in place in time to execute Biros on Dec. 8.

Among the changes the state is considering is injecting lethal drugs into inmates' bone marrow or muscles as an alternative to - or a backup for - the traditional intravenous execution procedure. Broom complained in an affidavit following the execution attempt that execution staff painfully hit muscle and bone at times during up to 18 attempts to reach a vein.

Broom was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 14-year old girl in 1984.

Biros came close to being executed in 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution should be stayed to allow Biros to present lethal injection arguments to a panel of federal judges. Since it has been two years, the state requires another clemency hearing to consider any new evidence.

That hearing was to be held Thursday.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who convicted Biros at trial and argued successfully against clemency in 2007, was to attend that hearing via a video feed from death row. Watkins would then attend a clemency hearing in Nov. 9 in Columbus to counter any new evidence.

Biros had joined nine other death row inmates in Ohio who were to have a re-hearing in federal court on lethal injection and whether it is cruel and unusual punishment. The hearing was set for Nov. 2 before Judge Frost.

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Parole board hears killer Biros’ case on Monday

The state parole board next week will hear arguments on whether to commute the death sentence of a Trumbull County man convicted in a brutal 1991 murder.

Monday’s hearing on Kenneth Biros is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s central office in Columbus.

It’s the second time the panel has considered whether to allow Biros to live out his days behind bars or face execution. The last time, in early 2007, the parole board recommended against a commutation, and Gov. Ted Strickland denied the clemency request.

Biros was actually transported to the death house at the Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville at that time, but last-minute court actions delayed his execution.

He is scheduled to make the trip again next month, though a stay issued by a federal court will likely mean another delay.

Biros, 51, was convicted in the February 1991 murder of Tami Engstrom, a 22-year-old woman he offered to drive home from a Masury bar. The victim was murdered, mutilated and dismembered, with parts of her body scattered in western Pennsylvania, according to documents.

Julie Walburn, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Biros was interviewed by parole board members late last month.

Biros will be represented by attorneys John P. Parker and Timothy F. Sweeney. Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and eight representatives of the state attorney general’s office will represent the state.

Six family members and friends of Engstrom also plan to attend, including her sister, Debi Heiss, and mother-in-law, Pat Engstrom.
www.vindy.com/news/2009/nov/06/parole-board-hears-killer-biros8217-case-on/?newswatch

After Botched Execution, Ohio Back To 1-Drug Method

Barring legal challenges, condemned inmate Kenneth Biros is scheduled Dec. 8 to be the first prisoner in the nation to be executed using a single dose of the drug thiopental sodium instead of the combination of three drugs that the state had been using.

To read more;
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120415558

Ohio mutilation killer denied clemency

The state parole board on Tuesday rejected a plea of mercy from a man who killed a woman and scattered her body parts, clearing the way for him to become the first person in the nation executed with the injection of a single drug.

Kenneth Biros' execution, scheduled for next month, is temporarily on hold, but it could still proceed if a federal judge allows.

The parole board, which had twice previously rejected clemency for Biros, said it was sticking with its earlier recommendations against mercy.

"The brutality and violence exhibited in the offense outweigh the mitigating factors surrounding Mr. Biros' life prior to the offense, and his adjustment to incarceration," the board determined in its January 2007 ruling.

Biros killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar. He acknowledges the slaying but says it was done during a drunken rage.

"He's a murderous monster who committed one of the worst crimes that a human being can commit, because he combines torture, rape, robbery, mutilation, dismemberment," Dennis Watkins, prosecutor in Trumbull County where the slaying happened, said Tuesday.

"He is the poster person for the death penalty," Watkins said.

Biros' attorneys argued at a hearing last week that Biros is remorseful, has grown spiritually in prison, has been a model inmate and had a negligible criminal history before the killing.
www.deseretnews.com/article/705345333/Ohio-killer-denied-clemency.html

A three-judge panel with the U.S. Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Cincinnati this morning voted to lift a stay that had been imposed on the execution of a convicted Trumbull County killer.

The move comes in light of a newly approved method of lethal injection in Ohio and paves the way for the execution of Kenneth Biros, scheduled for Dec. 8.

The stay had initially been issued by federal Judge Gregory Frost until it could be proven that the execution could go forward in a method that did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

A parole board in past weeks issued a unanimous recommendation against granting clemency to Biros, 51.

Biros was convicted of raping, torturing, killing and dismembering Tami Engstrom, 22, of Brookfield after he offered to drive her home from a bar Feb. 7, 1991. Parts of her body were spread over western Pennsylvania and Ohio.
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Peace Cranes on Death Row

kmw108.livejournal.com/15939.html

A man scheduled to be executed next week in the slaying and dismembering of a woman says the state shouldn't beallowed to rush ahead with its new one-drug lethal injection method.

Condemned inmate Kenneth Biros said in a court filing Wednesday afternoon that the state is sacrificing professionalism and caution in favor of an arbitrary and unprofessional process.

Biros' attorneys are asking U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost to allow them to formally challenge the state's one-drug process announced last month.

Biros has been unsuccessful so far in asking a federal appeals court to stop his execution based on a lawsuit challenging the old three-drug lethal injection method.

Biros killed and dismembered 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar.
www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/ohio-dismemberment-killer-fights-1-drug-execution-430468.html

Gov. Ted Strickland has denied clemency for a second time for Trumbull County killer Kenneth Biros.

Strickland released the decision early this afternoon, days before Biros is scheduled to face execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

“My staff and I have again reviewed the record of the proceedings and the evidence presented in Mr. Biros’ case, the judicial decisions regarding Mr. Biros’ conviction, the Application for Executive Clemency filed by Mr. Biros’ attorneys and arguments presented for and against the clemency request, and Mr. Biros’ institutional mental health record,” Strickland said in a released statement. “We have also reviewed letters received in the governor’s office regarding this matter and the unanimous recommendation against clemency forwarded to me by the Ohio Parole Board ... Based on this further review, my original denial of Mr. Biros’ application for executive clemency stands.”
www.vindy.com/news/2009/dec/03/gov-strickland-again-denies-clemency-killer-ken-bi/?newswatch

Federal appeals court clears the way for Kenneth Biros' execution

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied an appeal from death row inmate Kenneth Biros for a new hearing, further clearing the way for his scheduled execution Tuesday at the state prison in Lucasville.

Biros, a 52-year-old killer from the Youngstown area, still could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. He killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar.

A separate hearing was scheduled before U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost in Columbus on Friday. Lawyers for Biros requested a temporary restraining order to halt the execution. They claim the new mode of lethal injection is unconstitutional.

Biros would be the 33rd inmate executed in Ohio since the death penalty was re-instituted in the state in 1999 but the first under Ohio's new method of lethal injection.

The state attempted to execute Romell Broom in September but failed after a suitable vein could not be found to receive the fatal three-drug cocktail.

Since then, the state has established a procedure that allows for execution using a single drug, a sedative, for executions. Ohio is the first state to try the method.

State officials also instituted a backup plan to inject the drug into a large muscle if a suitable vein can't be found.
blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/12/federal_appeals_court_clears_t.html

Kenneth Biros to make second trip to Death House on Monday

The last time Kenneth Biros made the trip to the Death House, he brought a gold cross necklace, a portable compact disc player with some CDs, a rosary and 20 stamped envelopes.

He ate cheese pizza, a salad with Italian dressing, Pepsi, Doritos with French onion dip, blueberry ice cream and cherry pie.

He drank coffee and paced in the tiny cell just 17 steps away from the chamber where two dozen Ohio inmates had been put to death.

And he spent nearly three hours visiting with his mother, his sister, his brother and some friends in a room where they could hug and hold hands.

That was back in March 2007, when the convicted Trumbull County murderer spent more than 30 hours in the brick building behind the razor-topped fence at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Biros, who murdered and dismembered 22-year-old Tami Engstrom, then scattered her body parts in two Pennsylvania Counties, is one of the few Ohio inmates slated to make a return trip to the Death House.

A last-minute stay, issued hours after his scheduled execution time, halted Biros’ walk to the death chamber. Current court action could further delay Biros’ execution, as the state moves to implement a new execution protocol that calls for a single drug injection in place of the former three-drug method, and a direct injection backup if suitable veins are not available to carry an intravenous one.

But barring a court decision, Biros will make the trip to Lucasville and arrive sometime this morning, about 24 hours before his scheduled execution 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“If it’s still on, that’s great,” Tommy Heiss, Engstrom’s brother, told reporters last month following Biros’ second clemency hearing. “If it gets delayed, it’s going to be very sad for our whole family and the community. The way we feel, the way I feel, the way our family and everyone feels, I feel like we’re all a bunch of puppets, and Ken Biros is the one pulling the strings, dancing around the justice system. He’s doing everything he can to buy more time.”
www.vindy.com/news/2009/dec/06/killer-kenneth-biros-to-make-second-trip-to-death/?newswatch

Eighteen years ago, they argued on opposite sides in the death penalty case over the savage murder and dismemberment of a Brookfield woman.

Today, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and James Lewis of the Ohio Public Defender's Office still disagree on whether Kenneth Biros should be executed on Tuesday as planned. They also disagree on whether the 51-year-old so-called ''crybaby killer'' was or could have become a serial killer.

Together, Watkins and Lewis with the Ohio Public Defender's Office have tried more capital murder cases than any lawyers in the area - one as the accuser, the other as the defender. Previously, they had worked together as assistant prosecutors in the 1970s and early 1980s.

But in 1991, when the two men locked horns in the case of the State of Ohio vs. Kenneth Biros, Lewis said the prosecution's use of graphic photos of dismembered murder victim Tami Engstrom, 22, wrongly inflamed jurors to convict and eventually recommend the death penalty.

Lewis, who teamed up with attorney Sam Amendolara to defend Biros and and who is an opponent of the death penalty, said the photos should have served as proof of a coverup to ''something that went wrong that night,'' not abuse of a corpse.

Lewis still says the crime was one of unpremeditated murder with a extremely heinous attempt to mask a horrible mistake.

He maintains Biros and others on death row would be better served spending life in prison. Lewis justifies that opinion in terms of dollars and cents, considering hourly rates for attorneys who file continuous appeals for death row inmates facing execution.

But Watkins calls Biros the ''worst of the worst'' among the killers with whom he is acquainted.

He scoffs at Biros' last-minute attempts to portray Ohio's one-drug lethal injection protocol as unfit for humans and nothing more than an experiment.

''It's a strong anesthetic,'' Watkins said. And even if there's an initial problem, ''if hospital personnel couldn't find a vein when you go in for an operation, you still return to complete the operation.''

Compare that, he said, to the longer, more-torturous ordeal that Engstrom endured and there should be no argument against lethal injection, he said.

At the trial, through most which Biros wept and sobbed, Watkins produced evidence and testimony that Engstrom was strangled, struck five times with blows from fists or the end of a knife, suffered more than 90 pre-mortum wounds, including defensive wounds on the arms and the right breast, which was totally incised before death.

After death, the body was dismembered, including decapitation.

Watkins has also taken issue with Biros' failure to admit what actually happened.

At the last clemency hearing for Biros, Watkins told parole board members that the killer has produced five different versions of how Engstrom was killed.

Biros first told family and friends that Engstrom jumped from his car and ran off somewhere.

Then he told initial investigators that Engstrom jumped from his car and struck her head on railroad tracks and died accidentally.

A third version told at trial was that the victim fled from his car and that he struck her while driving along the railroad tracks. Biros said Engstrom began swearing at him and throwing rocks at him, so he took a pen knife and stabbed her twice. Then he cut her up and put her body in holes in the ground.

A fourth version given to a Parole Board member had Engstrom panicking jumping out of the car. Biros followed and struck her with the car, breaking her leg. The two began fighting, he cut her and put his hand over her mouth, resulting in her accidental death.

In the final version given to the Parole Board in October, Biros said he was extremely drunk and only remembered cutting Engstrom once with the knife, or maybe she cut herself while grabbing the knife.

When a board member asked him about dismembering the body, Biros said he ''blacked out'' and didn't recall.

''His lies have only gotten bigger,'' Watkins said after the latest clemency hearing.

According to Watkins, Biros is a classic example of a schizoid personality who is suffering from the type of personality disorder found in serial killers.

He suggested that Biros could have been linked to several unsolved murders in and around Youngstown and western Pennsylvania in the late 1980s. His jail mug shot resembles a police composite sketch developed out of one of the attacks on a known prostitute.

In another attack on a 21-year-old transient hooker who worked between Sharon, Pa., and Youngstown, the woman's butchered body was found June 23, 1989, in an Ellsworth Township field. Her torso was dissected and her organs were removed similar to Enstrom's body.

That, Lewis said, is ridiculous.

''For crying out loud, Ken Biros was introduced to Tami Engstrom by Tami's uncle. They were in a bar and there were a lot of people there. It's not like he was lurking in the darkness. Something simply went wrong that one time,'' Lewis said.

Watkins said he has no proof at all linking Biros to past attacks, but in a letter to Parole Board members in regard to Biros, Watkins hinted that the makings of a serial killer are found in Biros.

''The facts show he is an incipient serial killer, an educated loner who kept to himself and hated women. That was my opinion. It is my opinion today. It will never change,'' he said.
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Biros prepares for death

While Kenneth Biros' attorneys continue to argue publicly against his lethal injection sentence, the murderer quietly has been preparing to die.

''He doesn't seem that concerned about himself. I think his interest is in spiritually repairing the harm that he's done,'' said Bradley Butters.

Butters is one of two Buddhist prison outreach volunteers the convicted Trumbull County killer has asked to witness his execution. Butters, from Columbus, first met Biros three years ago in a meditation class for inmates at Ohio State Penitentiary.

Butters and Eric Weinberg initially volunteered to go to the prison and work with the prisoners for one year. Over that year, many of the inmates appeared to lose interest except for a handful of prisoners, and Biros who, Weinberg stated in a short essay, was one of the ''rare ones'' who took the lessons to heart. After the year was over, Butters and Weinberg became ''ministers of record'' with the prison so they could continue their meetings with Biros.

And as Biros learned more, he became less self-centered and has taken responsibility for his crimes, Weinberg has written.

Biros, 51, formerly of Brookfield, is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Ohio's death chamber in Lucasville Tuesday morning. He was convicted in 1991 for raping, torturing, killing and then dismembering Tami Engstrom, 22, of Hubbard. He scattered her body parts in sections of Trumbull County and western Pennsylvania.

By this morning, Biros will have arrived at the death house, where he will spend his final 24 hours.

Weinberg said Biros has accepted responsibility for his crimes, but despite speculation by the prosecution that he might be linked to other Northeast Ohio murders, he has never admitted to him of killing anyone in addition to Engstrom.

Weinberg said Biros told him he was genuinely remorseful for his crime.

''He worries about the suffering of the family of his victim. He prays for them and dedicates the worth of his meditations and prayers to their state of mind,'' Weinberg said in a recent phone interview.

And according to Weinberg's essay, Biros has adopted tedious Buddhist rituals that include repeatedly saying the mantra "om ami dewa hri,'' a short prayer asking that all living things be blessed with infinite light.

Biros keeps track of the prayers through origami, according to Weinberg. He creates complex "peace cranes," which he learned from a book in prison.

Each paper crane is made from 390 sheets of paper, folded ten times each. Biros' ritual includes accumulating mantras, which Buddhists usually do with prayer beads similar to Catholic rosaries. He says a prayer for every fold of the crane. Each peace crane represents 3,900 repetitions.

At their last meeting, more than a month ago, Biros gave the two men six cranes one each for Weinberg and Butters, another for a volunteer who went to a meditation retreat, one to a Columbus Lama, one to the head of a monastery in New York and the final one to the Karmapa Lama, the head of the entire lineage in India.

Weinberg and Butters have the final job of witnessing Biros' scheduled death Tuesday morning, by a large injection of anesthetic or a separate injection into one of Biros' muscles.

None of Biros' family will be present for the execution. In addition to his spiritual advisors, his attorney, John Parks, also is scheduled to be present.

Weinberg called Biros' request an ''awesome responsibility,'' one that also means they will be in the same room as the family of Tami Engstrom. Both Weinberg and Butters said they hope the family can continue to heal after the crime.

"Buddhism teaches us to be concerned with the benefit of all beings. It's deep suffering for everyone involved,'' Butters said. ''Our compassion is equal for the victim's and Kenny's family.''

Weinberg said he realizes Biros' crime was horrible, but he believes Biros has progressed in prison, starting from the lowest point anyone can go, and that he has the tools to prepare for death.

''Whoever he was in 1991, he isn't now. They're not killing the guy who committed that crime,'' Weinberg said.

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