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Strickland doesn't halt execution in grisly 1991 murder case
Saturday, March 17, 2007
In his first death-row clemency decision, Gov. Ted Strickland on Friday declined to spare the life of Kenneth Biros of Trumbull County, who in 1991 strangled a young mother then carved up her body in a crime even Biros' attorney says was "inexcusably gruesome."
Biros, 48, could be executed Tuesday in Lucasville if an appeals court overturns a lower court's stay of execution. Other last-ditch legal arguments are pending before a federal court in Cleveland and the U.S. Supreme Court. But prison officials Friday were preparing for a Tuesday execution if Biros' legal bids fail.
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A jury in 1991 convicted Biros of aggravated murder, felonious sexual penetration, aggravated robbery and attempted rape in the slaying and dismemberment of Tami Engstrom, 22, the mother of a one-year-old boy.
Biros, a one-time deer hunter with knowledge of anatomy, strangled Engstrom to death, then decapitated her, cut off her right leg and eviscerated her with knives. The Summit County coroner said there were also 91 before-death injuries consistent with a severe beating and "attempted sexual mutilation."
After his arrest, Biros led police to body parts he had taken to wooded areas in two Pennsylvania counties, miles from the northeast Ohio crime scene.
"It's easy to demonize a guy that's committed a crime that's as terrible as the one Ken did," said his attorney, Timothy Sweeney of Cleveland. "It's very difficult to look past that (mutilation)."
But Sweeney said he's disappointed in Strickland's denial of clemency. He said Biros is remorseful and "was a relatively normal Ohio citizen (before the crime) — hard-working, a college graduate. He's a good, decent person."
Biros' only adult criminal offense prior to the murder was a 1986 drunk-driving citation he received after he plowed his car into a tree in what Sweeney said was a suicide attempt.
A federal judge in Columbus stayed Biros' execution in December to allow him to join a lawsuit arguing that the lethal injection execution method may cause extreme suffering masked by the effects of the drugs. The Ohio attorney general's office appealed the stay, and Sweeney said there are indications the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals could rule to extend or lift it before Tuesday's execution date.
