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Serial killer Pennell executed in Del.
Despite pleas by others, his desire to die never wavered.
Strapped to a steel cross, black rosary beads piled on his chest, his arms outstretched and draped with intravenous tubes, serial killer Steven Brian Pennell was executed yesterday by lethal injection.
Pennell, 34, had no last words. His chest heaved once as deadly drugs coursed through his veins and two clergymen held his shoulders.
The 10-minute procedure inside a windowless, brown trailer on the grounds of the sprawling Delaware Correctional Center was the first execution in Delaware since 1946 and the first in the three-state region in 29 years.
The execution , ending when Pennell was pronounced dead at 9:49 a.m., followed a frenetic night of last-minute appeals by the American Civil Liberties Union, which was representing Pennell's wife, Vera Katherine Pennell.
The last possible roadblock to the execution fell before 9 a.m. when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the bid for a stay.
Pennell was a Glasgow, Del., electrician convicted in the torture slayings of four young women. He was also the prime suspect in a fifth killing.
In the end, he was the architect of his own death. Insisting he was innocent, Pennell nevertheless rejected the help of defense lawyers last year and pleaded no contest to two of the murders. He made the pleas conditional on a speedy execution and gave up all appeals.
He had even argued for his death sentence Feb. 11 before the Delaware Supreme Court, where the case had been automatically sent for review. He had been repeatedly judged competent.
Bearded and wearing a blue prison jumpsuit, Pennell was walked from a special holding cell in the execution trailer to the injection table about 9:15 yesterday.
It was 20 minutes later when the witnesses - 15 state officials and law enforcement officers who had worked on the case, and seven reporters - began to file into a small white room where two large windows looked into the neighboring death chamber.
Pennell was on a padded metal table with custom-made arm wings. He was strapped down with white leather belts. A gold cross was pinned to his right collar, and a larger woven cross of blue and white cloth was in his left breast pocket.
The intravenous tubes ran through a hole in the wall to a cubicle where unseen volunteer technicians waited to carry out the sentence.
An unidentified priest stood on Pennell's left. Prison Chaplain Larry Lilly stood on his right. Each man had a hand on Pennell's shoulders, and they read
from the Bible and a prayer book.
Then, asked by acting warden Robert Snyder whether he had any final words, Pennell opened his eyes for a moment, gazed up at the fluorescent lights and shook his head. It was the most animated thing he did.
The clergymen resumed their readings as lethal doses of three drugs - a sedative, a muscle relaxant and a chemical to arrest his heartbeat - coursed down the clear plastic tubing and into veins on each arm. One tiny bubble raced along the tubing to his right arm.
The reading stopped.
Pennell's hands and fingers had been wrapped with bandages tight against the ends of the table wings. Someone in the witness room drummed fingers on the handrail in front of the windows. No one spoke.
His eyes stayed closed. His chest heaved once. His right foot, clad in an unlaced red, white and blue sneaker, drooped to the side.
The pink drained from his cheeks and nose, replaced by a pallor.
Warden Snyder drew a curtain across the windows to the witness room and announced over an intercom that Pennell had been pronounced dead. Then the warden reopened the curtain to reveal the same tableau, only Pennell's skin had faded to an ashen green and the priest was reading last rites. The witnesses were whisked out.
Outside, some protested and some celebrated.
"We finally got the bastard," said Marlene Simm, mother of a Pennell victim, Michele A. Gordon, 22, of New Castle County. Simm had been denied permission to witness the execution . She stood with other relatives of victims and several dozen death-penalty protesters outside the prison. One protester, Paul Ford Jr., 22, of Wilmington, held a blue Amnesty International banner and said, "We oppose the death penalty as the most extreme example of cruel and unusual punishment. "
Pennell did his killing in 1987 and 1988. He picked up his victims as he cruised a seedy stretch of Routes 13 and 40 in northern Delaware . Each had been bound, beaten to death and mutilated, their bodies dumped near the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.
"We finally have reached justice," said Robert Barlow, whose murdered daughter, Margaret Lynn Finner, 27, was believed to be one of Pennell's victims but whose body was found too decomposed to provide evidence.
"I hope this is the beginning of a period of time in which we can start healing," said Barlow, who is raising Finner's two sons.
Delaware Corrections Commissioner Robert Watson afterward declared there had been "no problem in carrying out the order" for execution . He said that telephone lines to sentencing judge Richard S. Gebelein, Gov. Castle, the state Supreme Court and state Attorney General Charles M. Oberly 3d had been kept open up to the moment the lethal injection started and that a word from Pennell would have stopped the execution .
He said Pennell slept off and on Friday night and took a last breakfast of two helpings of french toast, orange juice and coffee. Pennell was not sedated beforehand and was not offered - nor did he request - any alcoholic beverage.
On Friday evening, he ate a final dinner of crab cakes, steaks, corn on the cob, french fries, bread and butter and cola.
Pennell, 34, had no last words. His chest heaved once as deadly drugs coursed through his veins and two clergymen held his shoulders.
The 10-minute procedure inside a windowless, brown trailer on the grounds of the sprawling Delaware Correctional Center was the first execution in Delaware since 1946 and the first in the three-state region in 29 years.
The execution , ending when Pennell was pronounced dead at 9:49 a.m., followed a frenetic night of last-minute appeals by the American Civil Liberties Union, which was representing Pennell's wife, Vera Katherine Pennell.
The last possible roadblock to the execution fell before 9 a.m. when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the bid for a stay.
Pennell was a Glasgow, Del., electrician convicted in the torture slayings of four young women. He was also the prime suspect in a fifth killing.
In the end, he was the architect of his own death. Insisting he was innocent, Pennell nevertheless rejected the help of defense lawyers last year and pleaded no contest to two of the murders. He made the pleas conditional on a speedy execution and gave up all appeals.
He had even argued for his death sentence Feb. 11 before the Delaware Supreme Court, where the case had been automatically sent for review. He had been repeatedly judged competent.
Bearded and wearing a blue prison jumpsuit, Pennell was walked from a special holding cell in the execution trailer to the injection table about 9:15 yesterday.
It was 20 minutes later when the witnesses - 15 state officials and law enforcement officers who had worked on the case, and seven reporters - began to file into a small white room where two large windows looked into the neighboring death chamber.
Pennell was on a padded metal table with custom-made arm wings. He was strapped down with white leather belts. A gold cross was pinned to his right collar, and a larger woven cross of blue and white cloth was in his left breast pocket.
The intravenous tubes ran through a hole in the wall to a cubicle where unseen volunteer technicians waited to carry out the sentence.
An unidentified priest stood on Pennell's left. Prison Chaplain Larry Lilly stood on his right. Each man had a hand on Pennell's shoulders, and they read
from the Bible and a prayer book.
Then, asked by acting warden Robert Snyder whether he had any final words, Pennell opened his eyes for a moment, gazed up at the fluorescent lights and shook his head. It was the most animated thing he did.
The clergymen resumed their readings as lethal doses of three drugs - a sedative, a muscle relaxant and a chemical to arrest his heartbeat - coursed down the clear plastic tubing and into veins on each arm. One tiny bubble raced along the tubing to his right arm.
The reading stopped.
Pennell's hands and fingers had been wrapped with bandages tight against the ends of the table wings. Someone in the witness room drummed fingers on the handrail in front of the windows. No one spoke.
His eyes stayed closed. His chest heaved once. His right foot, clad in an unlaced red, white and blue sneaker, drooped to the side.
The pink drained from his cheeks and nose, replaced by a pallor.
Warden Snyder drew a curtain across the windows to the witness room and announced over an intercom that Pennell had been pronounced dead. Then the warden reopened the curtain to reveal the same tableau, only Pennell's skin had faded to an ashen green and the priest was reading last rites. The witnesses were whisked out.
Outside, some protested and some celebrated.
"We finally got the bastard," said Marlene Simm, mother of a Pennell victim, Michele A. Gordon, 22, of New Castle County. Simm had been denied permission to witness the execution . She stood with other relatives of victims and several dozen death-penalty protesters outside the prison. One protester, Paul Ford Jr., 22, of Wilmington, held a blue Amnesty International banner and said, "We oppose the death penalty as the most extreme example of cruel and unusual punishment. "
Pennell did his killing in 1987 and 1988. He picked up his victims as he cruised a seedy stretch of Routes 13 and 40 in northern Delaware . Each had been bound, beaten to death and mutilated, their bodies dumped near the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.
"We finally have reached justice," said Robert Barlow, whose murdered daughter, Margaret Lynn Finner, 27, was believed to be one of Pennell's victims but whose body was found too decomposed to provide evidence.
"I hope this is the beginning of a period of time in which we can start healing," said Barlow, who is raising Finner's two sons.
Delaware Corrections Commissioner Robert Watson afterward declared there had been "no problem in carrying out the order" for execution . He said that telephone lines to sentencing judge Richard S. Gebelein, Gov. Castle, the state Supreme Court and state Attorney General Charles M. Oberly 3d had been kept open up to the moment the lethal injection started and that a word from Pennell would have stopped the execution .
He said Pennell slept off and on Friday night and took a last breakfast of two helpings of french toast, orange juice and coffee. Pennell was not sedated beforehand and was not offered - nor did he request - any alcoholic beverage.
On Friday evening, he ate a final dinner of crab cakes, steaks, corn on the cob, french fries, bread and butter and cola.