By CHRISTOPHER BOBBY

Tribune Chronicle

The adult son of murder victim Tami Engstrom relayed a message to Ohio Parole Board members Monday, asking that they turn down any chance of clemency for his mother's murderer and simply ''fry'' Kenneth Biros.

Casey Engstrom, whose father Andy died about four years ago, delivered the message through his grandmother Pat Engstrom, who gave a statement to the parole board in Columbus at Biros' second try at clemency.

The student, who is attending classes in California, was 18 months old when Biros tortured and murdered his mother. The board is scheduled to make its recommendation public Nov. 17.

Biros is scheduled to be executed Dec. 8, but that execution is still under a stay status imposed by a federal judge while Ohio works out a new form of lethal injection.

The Ohio attorney general last week filed a motion with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to lift the stay.

Meanwhile, Mary Jane Heiss, Tami's mother, delivered a video impact statement to the board that addressed the stress the family has been under since the murder in 1991 and since Biros' delayed execution two years ago.

She told the board that she has diabetes, uses a needle to take shots four times a day and doesn't see the need to revise the state's lethal injection protocol.

''I just wanted to stress how hard this has been on my family since we were so close to seeing him executed,'' said Debi Heiss, Tami's sister, who also delivered an impact statement.

Biros' attorneys John Parker and Tim Sweeney produced letters from family members seeking mercy for the death row inmate. And Biros himself sent a letter saying he was sorry.

But Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins says Biros' ''lies have only gotten bigger.''

''He (Biros) remembers less than ever before. He blames Tami more than ever before. And he's not as sorry,'' said Watkins, who is irritated by Biros' latest claim that he drank so much that he ''blacked out'' and doesn't remember everything he did the night of the murder.

In October, Watkins attended a proceeding that allowed him to view Biros' latest claims in preparation for Monday's hearing.

Biros was convicted in the 1991 slaying and dismemberment of Engstrom, 22, of Brookfield, after he offered to drive her home from a bar Feb. 7, 1991. She was tortured, raped, murdered and dismembered and parts of her body were spread over western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Watkins stressed Monday there were more than 90 separate injuries to the victim's breast.

It was the second time that Watkins has argued against sparing Biros' life.

Biros, 51, 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 initial lethal injection arguments to a panel of federal judges. Since it has been two years, the state required another clemency hearing to consider any new evidence.

Engstrom's family had traveled to Lucasville to witness Biros' execution at that point, only to learn that he was getting more time to argue against the penalty.

The stay that Attorney General Richard Cordray wants to eliminate came after the Sept. 15 botched execution of death row inmate Romell 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 postponed until the spring the executions of two other men who were scheduled to die before Biros.

cbobby@tribtoday.com