Suspects' Records

Joshua Komisarjevsky
26, Cheshire
Began burglarizing homes at age 14
Started a nine-year prison term in 2003 for nearly a dozen burglaries in Bristol after being called a "cold, calculating predator" by a judge.
Released to a halfway house in June 2006.
Granted parole on April 10.


Steven Hayes
44, Winsted
Entered the correctional system in 1980, at the start of a criminal career that included dozens of arrests on charges such as burglary, larceny and forgery.
Disciplined nearly two dozen times in prison.
Sentenced to five years in prison in 2003 for burglary; released to halfway house in June 2006.
Returned to prison in November 2006 for using illegal drugs; granted parole May 3.

Sources: State Department of Correction; state Superior Court records

The 35-year-old from Boston was awaiting trial in Connecticut for stealing a ring from a jewelry store.  He was a problem inmate, according to court documents, and had been diagnosed with paranoia and depression.

On June 6, 2002, he was alone in a cell in a restricted housing unit at the MacDougall-Walker prison. As a punishment for misbehaving, he had been denied contact with his family for months. He used a sheet to hang himself from the top bunk.  His sister, Suzanne, has sued the prison system, claiming it fails to do enough to protect suicidal inmates.  According to her lawsuit, her brother's last mental health assessment, conducted the day he died, consisted of a psychologist asking him through the door of his cell if he was OK. He did not reply.

"They deprived him of the help he needed," Suzanne Walsh said Friday. "Just help him. We're not asking you to give him steak dinners. Just help him."  Since Walsh died, there have been 17 other inmate suicides in Connecticut prisons and jails. There have been 13 suicides since April 2004, and four since January of this year.

The latest happened Tuesday, when 23-year-old Adnan Saeed of Meriden killed himself at MacDougall-Walker.  Like most other inmates who commit suicide, he tied one end of a bed sheet around his neck and the other to the upper bunk in his cell, according to prison officials.  Acknowledging a problem, the Correction Department last fall hired outside experts to examine its suicide prevention program. Since then, the department has made numerous changes, said Brian Garnett, a spokesman.

Because many suicides happen within the first 72 hours an inmate is in custody, the department has set up "orientation units" at its jails and intake facilities that are monitored more frequently, Garnett said.  Inmates coming into the system are given more thorough mental health screenings, and they wear slip-on sneakers to prevent hangings with shoelaces, he said.  All state prison cells have also been modified to be more suicide-resistant, he said.

"For example, anything on the wall, like a smoke detector, we've taken off so that people can't hang themselves on it," Garnett said.

The state also has special suicide-watch cells that have nothing in them but mattresses on the floor. Instead of regular prison jumpsuits, inmates are given Ferguson gowns, thick quilted garments that are collarless and sleeveless and cannot be torn or fastened into nooses.

"These experts told us ours are some of the most progressive policies in the nation," Garnett said.  But critics say they are not nearly enough.  A recent report on mental health services at the Garner Correctional Institution and Northern Correctional Institution, the state's highest security prison, found serious problems with the way suicidal inmates are treated.

"In fact, the `treatment' a prisoner receives after disclosing suicide ideation, on average, is more punitive than therapeutic," according to the report written by Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist from the Wright Institute in Berkley, Calif.  Instead of receiving one-on-one therapy with mental health professionals, suicidal inmates are often written up as disciplinary problems.  They are transferred to observation cells and often kept in restraints until they say they are no longer suicidal, according to the report.

"At that point, he will in many cases be deemed a malingerer for having mentioned suicide ideation or exhibited suicidal behavior without actually killing himself," according to the report, prepared for the state Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities.

Kupers' report led to an agreement to overhaul the mental health services at Northern and Garner. The agreement is awaiting approval in U.S. District Court.  Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who represents Walsh and the families of other inmates who have committed suicide, said he believes the department needs more mental health staff and better mental health services.  He said the department also must make it harder for inmates to kill themselves.

"One is, don't put suicidal inmates alone in cells with top bunks and sheets," Ponvert said. "There is no reason to have an inmate alone in a cell with a top bunk."  Garnett said no inmate known to be suicidal is left alone. He also said the department is adequately staffed does not need more mental health workers.

Connecticut's suicide rate is about 29 for every 100,000 inmates, Garnett said. Nationally, it is about 14 for every 100,000 prison inmates and 54 for every 100,000 people in jails.  Connecticut is one of the few states where the Correction Department is responsible for both jails, which are local facilities where people are held after being arrested, and prisons, which house convicts and those accused of more serious offenses.

David Fathi, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's national prison project, said Connecticut's inmate suicide rate is still high.

"In such a controlled environment, where the state controls every movement of someone's life, there is no excuse for someone being able to kill himself," he said.

Somers — After months of legal wrangling over his right to die by lethal injection, Michael Ross was executed early today. He was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m. as he lay strapped to a prison gurney.

The death of the 45-year-old serial rapist and killer, a graduate of Cornell University and a native of eastern Connecticut, was the first execution in the state and New England in 45 years. It also marked, perhaps, the final chapter in a bizarre legal case that began with Ross' arrest in June 1984.

Ross was sent to death row in 1987 for the murders of four girls and young women from eastern Connecticut. He raped three of them. He also raped and killed two others from Connecticut and two young women in New York.

Those who witnessed his execution included his friends, relatives of his victims and five reporters.

The death announcement was made by prison warden Christine Whidden to news reporters who had waited hours at the Carl Robinson Correctional Institution, about a mile away from the prison where the execution occurred.

The last legal obstacles to the execution appeared to fall shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday when word came that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied two appeals by Ross' relatives to stop the execution. When that news reached the Robinson prison in Enfield, camera crews jockeyed for quick interviews with state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

“Only Ross can stop this,” said Blumenthal, “but there is always the possibility that something can be filed at the last minute. ... Clearly if anything is filed at this point, it is a transparent effort to manipulate the system.”

At 12:30 a.m. today, a couple hundred protesters started walking the mile from Robinson prison to the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, where they were allowed to stand at the bottom of a long driveway leading to that prison.

Ross spent his last 17 hours in a cell next to the execution chamber at Osborn. He had communion, read from his Bible, had a final meal, and said goodbye to family and friends, according to a spokesman with the correction department.

Ross' death came seven months after a New London Superior Court judge first set a date for him to die. That decision in October set off a string of court fights to save Ross' life, despite the efforts of the serial killer himself and his attorney, T.R. Paulding, to go forward with the execution.

Ross' decision to give up any voluntary appeals of his death sentence prompted numerous court attempts to reverse his course.

The state's chief public defender, Ross' father and a sister, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty are among those who have tried to save his life. Many of their arguments focused on Ross' state of mind, saying he was not competent to make a decision that would end his life.

On Thursday night, Ross' sister, Donna Dunham, and Antonio Ponvert III, an attorney representing Ross' father, tried to get the execution stayed. They took their appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court after their cases were rejected in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York earlier in the day.

Both Blumenthal and Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano said they were prepared to carry out the execution.

Ross was sentenced to death for the murders more than 20 years ago of Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14 and from Griswold; Robin Stavinsky, 19, of Norwich; and Wendy Baribeault, a 17-year-old from Lisbon. All were walking along roads in eastern Connecticut when he snatched them and strangled them to death. Three were raped.

About six hours before the execution, anti-death protesters arrived at the Robinson prison to voice their opposition to the death penalty. The prison was the staging area for media from throughout Connecticut and neighboring New England states.

About a dozen protesters had started a six-mile walk at Somers Congregational United Church of Christ and ended up at Shaker Field, across the road from the entrance to the Robinson prison.

They carried “Abolish the Death Penalty” banners.

“We make a hero or celebrity out of (Ross),” said Robert Nave, executive director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. “He should have been forgotten 20 years ago. The death penalty doesn't work.”

There was only one demonstrator at Shaker Field advocating the execution.

Late Thursday, Morano said that a command center was set up at his Rocky Hill office to counteract any 11th-hour lawsuits filed with the intention of stopping the execution.

At midnight, he operated the command center from Osborn prison.

He said Ross' execution was needed to end the pain of his victims' families.

“I can guarantee you it has been the same ripple effect of pain since these acts happened so long ago ...” Morano said. “The bottom line is we are going to be doing everything we can to carry out a lawful sentence that has been reviewed again, again and again.”

Blumenthal said the recent appeals were filed by “intermeddlers” who wanted to stop a lawful execution. He said the execution would only be stopped if Ross requested it.

Speaking to media Thursday afternoon at the Robinson prison, Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the correction department, said Ross woke up early, at 5:45 a.m., and had a light breakfast of oatmeal and grapefruit juice.

Shortly after 8 a.m., he said, Ross was taken to a holding cell next to the room where he was to die. He had a Bible, a book of biblical verses, a coffee mug and some candy.

During the day, Garnett said, Ross watched television, read newspapers and greeted visitors through a Plexiglas window. He received communion at around 9:15 a.m. from a department chaplain, Garnett said.

Ross had his last meal shortly after 3 p.m., Garnett said, and chose to eat what was being served for dinner to prisoners throughout the state –– turkey a la king with rice, mixed vegetables, bread and a beverage.

Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz said that, since her department received the first death warrant back in October and then again in February, it started to formulate a plan to carry out the execution safely and lawfully.

The selection and training of the volunteer execution staff started in November, Lantz said. At least 30 simulation drills were carried out in preparation, she said.

“In my 29 years in the field of correction in various positions, I personally never experienced a more complex and comprehensive and challenging operation,” she said. “I can assure you we have done extensive research, networking, planning and training in carrying out this responsibility.”

As described by correction department procedures, the execution occurred as follows:

Thirty minutes prior to his execution, all visits with Ross were ended.

The execution team escorted him from the holding cell to the execution room, where a primary intravenous line was put in his left arm and a backup line in his right arm.

Ten minutes later, witnesses were escorted into an observatory room with a large window looking into the room where Ross was strapped down.

Ross, who had a microphone near his mouth, was allowed to give a one-minute statement.

At 2:01 a.m., at the direction of the warden, the executioner started the lethal injection.

Three drugs were administered: 2,500 milligrams of thiopental sodium, an anesthetic; 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide to paralyze his body; and 120 milliequivalent of potassium chloride to stop his heart.

Ross' body was to be taken to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected two last-minute appeals from Ross' relatives late Thursday afternoon but the U.S. Supreme Court was expected to review one if not both cases Thursday night, attorneys in both cases said.  The appeals court rebuffed a lawsuit brought on behalf of Ross' father that claimed Ross' execution would lead to a wave of suicide attempts among Connecticut inmates.

The court also rejected an appeal from Ross' sister, who asked to intervene because she claims that Ross is mentally incompetent to forgo his appeals.

In Connecticut, prison officials said Ross made no special request for his last meal, choosing to eat the same dinner served to all 18,000 inmates throughout the state prison system: turkey a la king, rice, mixed vegetables and fruit.

His family, friends and attorneys visited with him after he was moved in the morning to a holding cell near the death chamber at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers. He had with him a Bible, a book of Bible verses and some candy.

The Ivy League-educated killer was sent to death row for the murders of four young women and girls in Connecticut in the 1980s, and confessed to four more such slayings in Connecticut and New York. He also raped most of the women.  Last fall, he announced he was abandoning all remaining appeals - which could have kept him alive for many years - because his victims' families had suffered enough.

"I owe these people. I killed their daughters. If I could stop the pain, I have to do that. This is my right," the former insurance agent and Cornell University graduate said last year. "I don't think there's anything crazy or incompetent about that."

Desperate to save his life, public defenders and Ross' family argued that Ross suffered from "death row syndrome" - that is, he had become deranged from living most of the past 18 years under a death sentence.

Ross was hours from death in January when a federal judge scolded Ross' attorney and threatened to lift his law license for trying to hasten Ross' execution. The lawyer agreed to a new hearing on whether Ross was mentally competent.

At the hearing, two psychiatrists have testified that he was mentally incompetent. They said he has a personality disorder that compels him to choose death to avoid looking cowardly. Two other experts disputed the finding of incompetence and said he was genuinely remorseful.

Last month, a judge again found Ross competent to decide his fate.

The last execution in New England was in 1960, when Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky went to the electric chair in Connecticut. Of the six New England states, only Connecticut and New Hampshire have the death penalty. New Hampshire has no one on death row and has not executed anyone since 1939.

Death penalty opponents warned that Ross' execution could break down a political and psychological barrier against capital punishment in New England and start a domino effect in the region.

Some opponents have spent the week walking the 25 miles from Hartford to the prison. Bob Nave, the executive director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, said they are resigned to the fact that the execution will happen.

"I have had no doubt about that for some time," he said. "This has become all about Michael Ross. Capital punishment will be wrong long after Michael Ross and it was wrong long before him."

Edwin Shelley, whose 14-year-old daughter Leslie was Ross' seventh victim, said he planned to watch Ross die.

"It's going to be nice to come home and realize that the case is finished and that he has received his just rewards," Shelley said. "I think I will be very relaxed and at ease with myself."

Barring last-minute legal complications, convicted serial killer Michael Ross will be executed by lethal injection a couple of hours after midnight tonight.

It will be the first execution in New England in nearly half a century - putting Connecticut on a path out of step with much of the world and even the nation, where public opinion is slowly shifting and juries increasingly are reluctant to impose capital punishment.

Understandably, there is little public sympathy for Mr. Ross, a twisted psychopath who admitted killing eight girls and young women and has been on death row for nearly two decades. Even some people who oppose capital punishment favor it in this case.

Mr. Ross will be led to the death chamber because he has abandoned all appeals and, in effect, has volunteered to die. But should such a momentous decision be his to make? Will Connecticut effectively be pushed into a legal corner, where it executes only prisoners who abandon their appeals? Another death row inmate, Sedrick Cobb, recently announced that he, too, wants to die.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the General Assembly have reaffirmed their support for capital punishment in the belief that they are in sync with majority opinion. Poll results, however, show a preference among Connecticut residents for life imprisonment without possibility of parole over the death penalty.

Nationally, dozens of people have been freed from death row because of wrongful convictions. Jurors also are aware of the arbitrary application of the penalty. As a result, death sentences declined last year to the lowest level since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

When the state Supreme Court ruled this week that Mr. Ross was competent to abandon his appeals, Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr. issued a stinging rebuke to his colleagues, asking, "Has our thirst for this ultimate penalty now been slaked, or do we, the people of Connecticut, continue down this increasingly lonesome road?"

Some politicians assumed that they could appear tough on crime by embracing the death penalty - believing that Connecticut would never actually execute anyone.

We now know that their assumption was wrong. The execution of Mr. Ross should spur lawmakers to take another look at a discredited penalty, which one day likely will be declared "cruel and unusual" punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The state Supreme Court planned to convene Wednesday afternoon to consider hearing an appeal of serial killer Michael Ross' sister, who wants to intervene and stop what would be New England's first execution in 45 years.

The state has asked the high court to dismiss the appeal of Donna Dunham, who claims her brother is mentally incompetent to drop his appeals and accept his death sentence, scheduled to be carried out by lethal injection early Friday.  The high court earlier this week upheld Ross' mental competence in another appeal. It has also previously rejected requests by Ross' father and the state's public defenders to intervene and file appeals against Ross' wishes.

Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding said Tuesday that because the court has left no doubt that Ross is competent, others will have a hard time stopping the lethal injection.

"The issue of competence was the only potentially valid issue that would allow any of these interlopers to get their foot in the door," he said. "That mechanism for them to get their foot in the door seems to be closed."

Citing that ruling, Rockville Superior Court judge Jonathan Kaplan ruled Tuesday that Dunham has no standing to act on her brother's behalf.  But Dunham's attorney, Diane Polan argues that Ross is not able to make a voluntary decision to die. The harsh conditions on death row, and Ross' narcissism coerced him into thinking that death is a noble choice, and have made it impossible for him to recant, she said.  Polan said Tuesday she expects the issue will end up in the federal courts.

"The constitutional validity of Mr. Ross's waiver of his appellate rights is a legitimate and, indeed, crucial issue," Polan said. "We believe the federal courts are obligated to consider these issues, which requires that the rush to execution be derailed."

Paulding said he was preparing for the possibility that others will attempt to intervene before the execution, scheduled for 2 a.m. Friday, but believes the courts will be highly suspicious of any new claims.  "I assume those claims could have been filed a long time ago," he said.

Ross, 45, was sentenced to death for murdering four young women in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s and has confessed to four other murders in Connecticut and New York.  Last year, he decided to end his appeals and accept his death sentence. He was hours away from being put to death in January, when Paulding, under pressure from a federal judge, asked for a new hearing to examine his competency.

Edwin Shelley, whose 14-year-old daughter Leslie was killed by Ross in 1984, said he's hopeful it will happen this time.

"None of the people who are filing these appeals have standing," he said. "These are all frivolous lawsuits brought by uninterested parties. They should be made to repay the state of Connecticut for the money wasted defending against them."  Dunham is one of Ross' three siblings and lives in Texas. Ross has no relationship with her, and has not heard from her in years, Paulding said.

On Tuesday, attorney Thomas Groark, who was hired as a special counsel to argue at a competency hearing that Ross is mentally incompetent, said he would file no further appeals following Monday's Supreme Court ruling.  In addition to the court fights, the state Department of Public Health has received formal complaints from at least four doctors asking it to investigate the planned execution.

The department rejected complaints from three Connecticut physicians alleging numerous medical, ethical and legal problems with the state's lethal injection procedures. A fourth doctor, from Ohio, alleges that the Department of Correction and its clinical director improperly volunteered to train Ross' execution team in the medical procedures needed for lethal injection.

The Department of Correction, citing safety concerns, has refused to say who will administer the lethal injection or how they are trained. The department also refused to say how it determined the dosages of the drugs being used or how it will ensure they are properly administered.  The state Freedom of Information Commission is expected to order the department on Wednesday to make some of that information public. But the department will have several weeks to appeal any such order.

Rockville Superior Court Judge Jonathan Kaplan ruled Tuesday that Donna Dunham has no standing to act on her brother's behalf.

Ross, 45, was sentenced to death for murdering four young women in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s and has confessed to four other murders in Connecticut and New York.

Last year, he decided to end his appeals and accept his death sentence. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection just after 2 a.m.  Dunham's attorney, Diane Polan had argued that Ross is not mentally competent to make a voluntary decision to die. The harsh conditions on death row, and Ross' narcissism coerced him into thinking that death is a noble choice, and have made it impossible for him to recant, she argues.

Those were similar to the arguments used in failed attempts by Ross' father and the state's public defenders to intervene and file appeals against Ross' wishes.  Judge Kaplan's decision, which calls the complaint "wholly frivolous," came a day after the state Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Ross is mentally competent.

Judge Kaplan wrote that in light of the high court ruling, he cannot find that Dunham's claims "even remotely amount to meaningful evidence" that Ross cannot act for himself.

Ross' Attorney T.R. Paulding, who has been helping clear the path to execution, said he believes Monday's Supreme Court ruling removed the last major hurdle.

"The issue of competence was the only potentially valid issue that would allow any of these interlopers to get their foot in the door," he said. "That mechanism for them to get their foot in the door seems to be closed."  Paulding said he believes the courts will be highly suspicious of any new claims being brought in the remaining hours before the lethal injection.

"I assume those claims could have been filed a long time ago," he said.

Dunham is one of Ross' three siblings and lives in Texas. She was not in court Monday, and a call to her home was not returned. Paulding said Ross has no relationship with her, and has not heard from her in years.  Polan has said she plans to take her case to the state Supreme Court and federal courts if necessary. The petition to intervene was brought in Rockville Superior Court because Ross is incarcerated in Somers, which is in the Rockville judicial district.

State's High Court Again Delays Ross Execution;  Date Moved Back To Allow Arguments On Lower Court's Decision On His Competency
By IZASKUN E. LARRANETA, New London DAY
May 3, 2005

For the seventh time, the execution of serial killer Michael Ross has been delayed.

The state Supreme Court announced Monday that Ross cannot be put to death before 12:01 a.m. May 13. He was last scheduled to die May 11. A new execution date is expected to be announced today.
The delay will allow the high court to hear arguments Thursday on whether a lower court erred when it found Ross competent to forgo his appeals and proceed to his execution.

It is not certain, however, how the delay will affect the death warrant, which is worded so that it expires five days after the execution date is set.  Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said the DOC is in the process of reviewing the ruling and its implications on the death warrant.

In February, New London Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford appointed special counsel Thomas Groark Jr. to play devil's advocate to Ross' assertions that he is competent and able to waive his right to appeal the death sentence. Clifford made the appointment after Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding Jr., filed a motion Jan. 31 to stay Ross' scheduled execution and reopen a hearing on his competency. Paulding has been an advocate for Ross in his effort to move forward with the execution.

Paulding made the request to reopen the hearing after U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny threatened to take his law license if Chatigny found that Paulding had not adequately explored his client's state of mind.

Groark's appointment enabled Paulding to stay on the case and argue that his client is competent while Groark took the opposing position.  Following a six-day competency hearing last month, Clifford for a second time found Ross competent.

Groark appealed Clifford's ruling.

In response to Groark's complaint, prosecutors on Monday asked the high court to reject the appeal on the grounds that Groark has no standing to file one. The state claims Groark was appointed to argue the issue of competency only, and that his role in the case ended when Clifford rendered his decision.

“Special counsel's role at the trial-court level in this case was extremely limited and it was never intended to authorize special counsel to participate in any litigation before this court, let alone allow it to initiate such litigation,” wrote Harry Weller, a supervisory assistant state's attorney at the Office of the Chief State's Attorney.

The state also argued that Paulding, not Groark, has the right to file appeals on his client's behalf.

Groark, however, wants the high court to determine whether the lower court erred when it concluded that Ross did not suffer from a mental disease that substantially affected his ability to make rational choices.

Four psychiatrists took the witness stand during the competency hearing. Two found Ross competent, two did not.  Neither Paulding nor Groark could be reached for comment Monday.

Ross was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14, Robin Stavinsky, 19, and Wendy Baribeault, 17. Brunais, Stavinsky and Baribeault were also raped. Ross was given two life sentences for the rapes and murders of two other young women in Windham County.

Convicted serial killer Michael Ross drew closer to becoming the first person executed in New England in 45 years Friday when a New London Superior Court judge found him competent to forgo his appeals and proceed to his May 11 execution.

Judge Patrick Clifford found Ross competent for the second time. Before reaching his decision, Clifford had to decide if Ross suffered from a mental disease, defect or disorder that substantially affected his capacity to understand his legal options and to make a rational decision. He also had to find that Ross' decision was voluntary and not coerced.

“This court finds by a fair preponderance of the evidence that Ross suffers from mental disorders but those disorders taken individually or together do not substantially affect his understanding of his legal position and the options available to him,” Clifford wrote in his 23-page ruling. “... Michael Ross' decision to waive his right to further post-conviction relief is knowing, intelligent and voluntary.”

Ross has repeatedly maintained that he wants to go ahead with his execution to spare his victims' families the pain of added court appeals and hearings.

Clifford found that Ross' reason for not pursuing his appeals was legitimate.

“His decision is the product of a rational intellect and an unconstrained will,” Clifford wrote. “Ross had indicated that he is only doing what he feels is right and his only other choice is to do the wrong thing. Ross' mental condition is not coloring his free will and dictating the outcome.”

Both Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano and New London County State's Attorney Kevin Kane said, “The state will proceed in accordance with today's decision to carry out the sentence.”

“It's a very hard time for the families, and I am glad for their sake that we have a decision now and hope the proceedings are coming to a close,” Kane added.

Clifford's decision is expected to set off another flurry of appeals. It's not certain, however, where those appeals will come from.

For now, it appears that Thomas Groark Jr., an attorney Clifford appointed to play the role of devil's advocate to Ross' assertions of competence, is the only one who can appeal Clifford's ruling, attorneys said. They also wondered whether Groark's status as special counsel will carry forward into the appellate process.

“The only person with standing to appeal is Groark,” said Antonio Ponvert III, who represents Ross' father, Dan Ross. “Depending on what he does, I will know what to do. I am on instruction to do everything humanly possible to prevent this execution.”

Ponvert, however, would not provide specifics.

Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said his office will assist Groark if he decides to appeal Clifford's ruling.

“We are certainly disappointed with the decision,” Smyth said. “Credible experts testified that he was incompetent. We remained hopeful that the court would find him incompetent. We have to accept the results.”

Groark said he would not comment on the decision but was “considering all options.”

Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding Jr., said his client was relieved at the decision.

“He certainly feels that it was the correct decision,” Paulding said. “He's hoping that everything will stop so he could have some private time to get emotionally ready.”

Paulding said he is not sure if more appeals will be filed but that it would not surprise him.

“... Right now we're taking it one day at a time,” he said.

•••

Clifford's decision came a week after a six-day competency hearing that he ordered after Paulding filed a motion Jan. 31 to stay Ross' execution and reopen the competency hearing. By that time, Ross' execution had been postponed five times.

Paulding made the request after U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny threatened to take his law license if Chatigny found that he had not adequately explored his client's state of mind.

Groark's appointment enabled Paulding to stay on the case and argue his client's desire to go ahead with the execution.

Ross was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14, Robin Stavinsky, 19, and Wendy Baribeault, 17, the last three of whom he raped. He was given two life sentences for the rapes and murders of two other young women in Windham County.

He also confessed to killing two young women in New York in the early 1980s, one of them a fellow student at Cornell University.

Four psychiatrists took the witness stand during the competency hearing. Two found Ross competent, two did not.

Groark introduced the testimony of Drs. Stuart Grassian and Eric Goldsmith, who argued that Ross suffers from narcissism, a personality disorder that causes him to have a grandiose sense of self, an inability to have empathy and bouts of depression.

The mental disease prevents Ross from making a competent decision, they argued.

The doctors also said the harsh conditions of death row have contributed to Ross' decision to proceed with the execution.

But Drs. Michael Norko and Suzanne Gentile both said Ross is making a rational decision. He has weighed the pros and cons of that decision — an action that only a competent person can make, they said.

The doctors said that Ross' decision not to pursue his appeals because he wants to spare the victims' families from further pain is logical and not being made because he wants to commit suicide. They found that his narcissism was under control and was not the catalyst for his decision.

Clifford found the Norko-Gentile testimony more credible. He also noted that no evidence was presented to show that the conditions on death row contributed to Ross' decision

“This court finds the testimony of Norko and Gentile more persuasive concerning Ross' actual motivations for ending his appeals,” Clifford wrote. “Although part of his decision or motivation may be to satisfy his narcissistic personality traits, this court does not find that he has absolutely no empathy as suggested by Grassian and Goldsmith.”

Dr. Stuart Grassian included Ross in the ranks of infamous figures such as Jim Jones, who in 1978 convinced 912 followers to drink cyanide-laced punch at his People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana; David Koresh, who died along with 74 Branch Davidians during the siege of their Waco, Texas, compound in 1993; and the two students who opened fire on classmates and teachers six years ago this month at Colorado's Columbine High School.

"Obviously [Ross'] desire to be noble, to die a martyr - a victim - is entirely consistent with his narcissism," Grassian said. "He's trying to go down in a blaze of glory like these people did."

Grassian said Ross' sundry mental illnesses - predominantly narcissism - drove his decision to forgo further appeals and opt for execution. Grassian refuses to buy Ross' purported desire - stated publicly for more than a decade - to spare the families of his victims the additional emotional torment of further appeals.

"I don't think he has the capacity to empathize with the families whatsoever," Grassian said. "He has never attempted to really come to grips with the horrible things he's done."

Playing out in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford is an odd - and for Connecticut, unprecedented - tug-of-war over the state of Ross' mind and what truly motivates him.  Clifford must decide, for the second time in four months, whether Ross' decision to die is knowing, intelligent and voluntary - free of coercion from other people or mental illnesses that might rob him of his ability to make rational choices.

Clifford appointed lawyer Thomas Groark as special counsel to argue Ross' incompetence, thus adding an adversarial element to offset what in December was an amiable agreement between New London State's Attorney Kevin Kane and Ross' lawyer, T.R. Paulding, that Ross be granted his wish to die.

The focus this time is heavily on the "voluntary" aspect of Ross' decision. This is the first time the issue of whether his harsh conditions of confinement - living locked most hours in an 8-by-10 concrete cell with a solid steel door - are being considered as the underlying cause of his desire to die.  Grassian has maintained it was Ross' despair over his living conditions that prompted him to seek his execution, and the inflated ego borne of his narcissist personality disorder that will not permit him to reconsider.

"It's clear from the evidence this is a man who couldn't bear the humiliation of backing down, the utter humiliation of that," Grassian said. "He can't do it. He can't."

Ross, 45, could become the first convict executed in New England in nearly 45 years if he is put to death by lethal injection May 11 as scheduled. He saw a series of execution dates in late January come and go amid a maelstrom of legal appeals filed by his former public defenders and members of the bar.  Ross was arrested in June 1984 for killing six young women in eastern Connecticut in 1983 and 1984. He has admitted to killing eight women in all, including two in New York, when he attended Cornell University.

Grassian was dismissive of Ross' assertions that his deep religious beliefs have only reinforced his decision to opt for death, and Paulding's portrayal of Ross' choice as the product of a spiritual and moral journey.

"It isn't valid," Grassian said. "I took a careful look at the evidence and it isn't valid."

Paulding noted that Ross has consulted seven clergy or experts on the laws of the church on whether his "volunteering" to be executed equated to the mortal sin of committing suicide. Paulding said Ross was reassured by the seven, including former Norwich Bishop Daniel Hart, that accepting a lawfully imposed sentence was not a sin.

Paulding asked Grassian a hypothetical that seemed to make the psychiatrist uncertain: If Ross were to receive a letter from a newly appointed pope who said his actions did amount to a mortal sin, and tomorrow opted to pursue further appeals, would Grassian still consider him incompetent?

"I don't know," Grassian said. "I'd have to evaluate him then. I'd have to know what's actually going through his mind when he makes that decision."

Paulding appeared indignant, almost angry, during portions of his cross-examination of Grassian. "You say it's a facade, a sham, that he doesn't want to put the families through this?" Paulding challenged.

"I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming that he is not basing this on moral conviction," Grassian replied.

Grassian pointed to Ross' prolific writings - published articles and group mailings - as the source of the real reason he is opting for death. It is, Grassian said, Ross' desire to escape an environment that has become more restrictive since he was first incarcerated in 1984 and sentenced to death row in 1987.

"As he said over and over again - `I can't stand another day of it. I can't take it any longer.' It's a desperate act of a desperate man," Grassian said.

Grassian was highly critical of court-appointed psychiatrist Michael Norko's determination that Ross is competent, saying Norko and others take Ross' assertions at face value.

Ross "made it very clear he's never let anyone know what he thinks and feels," Grassian said. "He said that to me. He said he's never revealed what goes on in his head."

Grassian said one question Ross has never answered is how his assaults escalated from rape to the so-called sexual sadism in which the killing - and not the rape - is the addiction. The inconsistencies in what Ross has said at various moments are profound, Grassian said.

"He'll say he doesn't remember the crimes," Grassian said. "Yet, he's told people he compulsively masturbated while reliving the crimes.

"If you look into the cracks of what he says, there are a lot of lies, a lot of fabrications," Grassian said.

Grassian even mocked the book Ross next plans to read and discuss with his girlfriend, Susan Powers. It is Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," which ends with the now-famous line, "It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." The psychiatrist cast it as reflecting the veneer of nobility in which Ross wraps his decision.

Kane asked Grassian whether he is an opponent of the death penalty.  Grassian said he doesn't have a stance, but when pressed, said his feelings about it are "very mixed, very confused."

Paulding, asked after court if Ross is upset that his religious devotion is being questioned, said, "I think he sees this for what it is - part of a bigger picture. Far more than Michael Ross' faith is being challenged. There are a lot of things about Michael Ross that are being questioned."

The fourth day of the hearing is scheduled to resume today at 10 a.m.

At least four psychiatrists are expected to testify during hearings that begin today in Superior Court in New London on whether serial killer Michael Ross is making a knowing, intelligent and voluntary decision to forgo further appeals and proceed to his scheduled execution May 11.
 

COURT-APPOINTED

Dr. Michael Norko, medical director of Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown, first deemed Michael Ross mentally competent in 1995, when Ross wanted to stipulate to a death sentence rather than go through a second penalty phase hearing. A judge ultimately trumped his efforts to do so. Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford turned to Norko last December, when the public defenders who no longer represent Ross were insisting he is incompetent to opt for lethal injection rather than wage further appeals. Norko, after a nearly four-hour interview with Ross in mid-December, testified Dec. 28 that Ross is mentally competent, even under the stricter standard required when a convict seeks to "volunteer" for execution. Norko is a past president of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society, and deputy training director of Yale's forensic psychiatry program.
 

HIRED BY T. R. PAULDING, LAWYER FOR MICHAEL ROSS

Dr. Suzanne Gentile since last November has been the chief psychiatrist in charge of restoring the mental competence of criminal defendants at Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown. Prior to that she worked in correctional health care in both Connecticut and Texas. Between 1983 and 1990 she was a second lieutenant with the U.S. Air Force Reserve and was chief of aerospace medicine and chief of professional services during a 1990 posting to Taegu Air Base in Korea. From November 1990 through July 1992 she was director of emergency services at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas. She has taught psychiatry at Baylor University in Texas and at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.
 

HIRED BY ATTORNEY THOMAS GROARK, COURT-APPOINTED COUNSEL

Dr. Stuart Grassian taught psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for 25 years and specializes in the psychological effects of close confinement and solitary confinement. He has testified as an expert witness on that subject in more than a dozen cases, and has been hired as a consultant by correction departments in Florida and Massachusetts. When he testified before Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in January, Grassian was critical of Norko's findings that Ross is competent, saying the 17 years Ross has spent on death row have robbed him of his ability to make rational decisions. In an affidavit submitted in the Ross case by the public defenders, Grassian stated, "In my opinion, the conditions of confinement which inmates typically experience on death row, coupled with the ordeal of the vagaries and uncertainties of the appeal process, are often so oppressive and coercive, they greatly tax any individual so situated, and are often the underlying basis of inmates' decisions to drop their appeals and thus `volunteer' for execution."

Dr. Eric Goldsmith is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, and is co-director of the NYU training program in psychiatry and the law. He is currently vice president of the Tri-State Chapter of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. In an affidavit submitted by the public defenders to the state Supreme Court, Goldsmith said he, too, had questions about Norko's assessment. Goldsmith said there was no testimony or discussion about the voluntariness of Ross' decision. Goldsmith said the bipolar type mood condition Ross has been previously diagnosed as having would worsen with stress and "could essentially lead Mr. Ross to be deflated, emotionally exhausted and to give up hope."

Hartford— In a first for opponents of capital punishment, the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut and establish life imprisonment with no possibility of release as the state's harshest criminal punishment.

The bill, with strong support from the co-chairmen of the committee and some in the legislature's Democratic leadership, passed on a vote of 24-15 after more than two and a half hours of sometimes impassioned debate.

Supporters of the legislation conceded that its chances were not good in the House of Representatives, where a majority of members, including House Speaker James Amann, are presumed to favor capital punishment.

Still, they said they were optimistic that a full legislative debate could only help efforts to eventually repeal the law.

“It's a long shot, but clearly you can see there's some movement,” said Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, a former state prosecutor and a co-chairman of the committee. “The death penalty is losing confidence in Connecticut.”

Rather than spend years and millions trying to execute killers, he said, courts could achieve a quick finality by locking up the guilty and throwing away the key.

“We're saying, ‘Let 'em rot,' ” Lawlor said.

While the legislature has considered proposed changes in the death-penalty statute over the years, and entertained amendments to eliminate it, a bill specifically seeking its elimination has never been approved by the judiciary panel, according to Lawlor and others who support the change.

The issue of capital punishment has continually resurfaced in state politics since October, when serial killer Michael Ross announced that he would pursue no further appeals and seek to be put to death by lethal injection for the murders of eight women and girls in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s.

Ross was scheduled to die in January, but his execution was called off at the last minute after his attorney, T.R. Paulding Jr., announced that a conflict of interest precluded him from representing Ross in his quest to die. Paulding was referring to a federal judge's threat to revoke his law license if it was shown that he had not adequately investigated Ross' mental competency to make such a decision.

Ross is to undergo a new psychiatric examination, and his execution has been tentatively scheduled for May 11. It would be the first execution in the state — and all of New England — since 1960.

But while Ross' case and the death penalty in general riveted much of the state this winter, it has not dominated the Capitol, largely because Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced early on that she would not offer Ross a reprieve and would veto any attempt by the legislature to repeal the law.

Persuading a majority to repeal the law is highly unlikely, even according to Lawlor and death-penalty opponents, and attaining the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto is seen as nothing short of impossible.

But other measures have come close; an amendment to impose a moratorium on executions failed by just five votes.

The bill approved Monday would commute the sentences of all seven death-row inmates to life without any possibility of parole.

“That means exactly what it says,” Lawlor told the committee. “No possibility of parole, no possibility of furlough. You would serve every day of your natural life in prison.”

The death penalty not only fails to deter murders, supporters of repeal said, but proves torturous to families of victims who wait, sometimes for decades, for a closure that may never come.

Waking up on the morning after Ross' execution was halted, Lawlor said, “The only thing I could think of ... was, ‘It's our fault, the legislature, for allowing this fraud of a public policy to remain on the books for 45 years.' ”

Opponents of the bill, however, were just as critical of repeal.

“This bill is a fraud,” said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield. “... I think it is not accurate to state that just because it is difficult to impose we should throw it out.”

And the bill, he said, would spare the life of Ross, who terrorized southeastern Connecticut as he seized women and girls on the region's rural highways, raping all but one of his victims before strangling them with his bare hands.

“And we're going to commute his sentence?” Kissel said. “I don't want to be a party to that.”

“I don't believe he's a human being,” said Sen. David Cappiello, R-Danbury, adding that he felt the same about the six others on death row. “I believe they gave up every one of their rights when they committed their crimes.”

The issue is a thorny one for area lawmakers such as Rep. Melissa Olson, D-Norwich, a lifelong opponent of capital punishment, who also represents a community from which some of Ross' victims hailed.

Olson voted against the death penalty.

“Certainly, it's very different with Michael Ross, and that's something that I've been struggling with, because he's evil,” Olson said afterward. “We know he's a horrible individual, that he committed horrible crimes. And there's no amount of sympathy we can feel for the families of the victims that will be enough.”

But proponents conceded that the death penalty would deter no murders, would save no money and would necessarily compel the families to relive their loss through Ross' appeals, Olson said.

“What does the death penalty achieve?” she said.

The only other local legislator on the committee, Rep. Lenny Winkler, R-Groton, missed the vote. She had shown up for the morning meeting originally scheduled, but it was delayed by foul weather.

Winkler said she would have supported capital punishment.

“In cases where there is absolutely no question (of guilt or innocence), I support the death penalty,” Winkler said. But she added that she understands the arguments against it, more than in previous years.

“I'm not as strong a proponent as I was when I went to the legislature,” she said, “and I think it's from sitting and listening to the debate. I can certainly see both sides of the issue.”

Lawlor said he sees colleagues and the public increasingly eager for just such a debate, but he has many left to convince, both in his party and not.

“I'm not surprised at it,” said Rep. Steve Mikutel, D-Griswold, whose constituents include the families of Ross' two youngest victims. “I don't believe this reflects the will of the people of Connecticut or the majority views of legislators. I think in this particular case, the Judiciary Committee wants to take the people of Connecticut down a road that they do not care to go.”

Top legislative Republicans in Hartford Wednesday asked a congressional committee to investigate what they called "a grievous example of judicial misconduct" by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny - whose actions last week led to the postponement of serial killer Michael Ross' execution.

"We strongly urge your committee to investigate the matter fully, and to commence proceedings to redress this misconduct, including the [judge's] possible removal from office," state Republican General Assembly leaders wrote in a letter to U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The letter - written by Senate Minority Leader Louis C. DeLuca, House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward and three others - complained of "explicit instances of Judge Chatigny's bias, bullying and abuse of judicial authority" last Friday when the judge delivered a verbal dressing-down to Ross' lawyer. Chatigny's harsh remarks, during a telephone conference, proved pivotal in leading to indefinite postponement of the execution.

Meanwhile Wednesday, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano were planning their own moves - including a potential effort to remove Chatigny, or get him to disqualify himself, from further involvement in the case, sources said. Blumenthal's office issued a statement saying he would have no comment. Morano also refused to comment.

During Friday's phone conference, Chatigny assailed lawyer T.R. Paulding's representation of Ross, who had given up appeals of his death sentence and was ready for last week's scheduled lethal injection. Chatigny told Paulding, "I'll have your law license," if it later proved that Ross' mental condition had been impaired by his years on death row.

Hours later, Paulding asked state authorities to delay the execution so he could consider whether he had a conflict of interest in the case. Paulding said he wants to look further into whether Ross suffers from "death row syndrome" after living there so long.

The Republicans said in Wednesday's letter that Chatigny's extraordinary conference with Paulding and other lawyers - which came after a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court overturned two earlier attempts to delay Ross' execution - represented "conduct designed to undermine and circumvent" laws and court decisions. The judge's "threats and insults" to Paulding "are irresponsible and improper conduct," they wrote.

House Majority Leader Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, said Chatigny does not deserve the blasts being hurled at him.

"Judge Chatigny upheld the law," Donovan said. "He was courageous in upholding the law. It would have been easy to just let it go. ... I was surprised how quickly the attorney backed down, as if he felt there was a realization that he was wrong. If he felt so strongly that he had a good case, why did he back down?"

However, DeLuca, the Senate Republican leader from Woodbury, went further than his four co-writers of the letter, calling Chatigny's behavior so outrageous that he should be removed from the bench.

"My personal point of view - he's gone way beyond and ... I don't think he should be able to sit on a court," DeLuca, a non-lawyer, told reporters at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. "That goes beyond anything I've ever heard a judge doing. I believe he should be removed from the bench, yes."

"Can anyone remember a judge ever acting like this - on any case?" DeLuca asked. "It's absurd."

Another of the letter's co-authors, Rep. Lawrence Cafero, a deputy House Republican leader, said he was dumbfounded by Chatigny's comments included in a transcript of the 55-minute teleconference.

"To say, `I'll take away your law license' is the most incredible utterance from a judge I've ever heard in 22 years of practicing law," said Cafero, a Norwalk attorney.

Deputy House Republican leader Claudia "Dolly" Powers of Greenwich, who also signed the letter, said that her constituents keep asking her the same question: "Who does this guy think he is?"

"And that's a very good question," said Powers, who is not a lawyer. "And you can get all the lawyerly explanations, but that's fundamentally the question: Who does this guy think he is?"

Ward, the House minority leader from North Branford, said Chatigny's words were unusual for a federal court judge, particularly the direct statements to Paulding.

"He oddly suggested that [Paulding] ought to have a court reporter present when he meets with his client," said Ward, a lawyer. "I don't know whatever happened to privilege. ... The judge doesn't have a right to call a lawyer after the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled and say, `Change your mind in the case or I'll take your law license.'"

The five Republicans, who also included Senate Minority Leader Pro Tempore John McKinney of Fairfield, transmitted their letter to U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, asking him to hand-deliver it to Sensenbrenner, the powerful judiciary committee chairman.

Simmons, whose district was home to most of Ross' victims, was happy to do so, said his chief of staff, Todd Mitchell.

"He commends his colleagues in the Connecticut General Assembly in their efforts to seek reasonable closure in this terrible matter," Mitchell said. "He's supportive of what they're doing."

Republicans at the congressional committee's offices in Washington Wednesday did not commit themselves on what action they might take or how far it would go. They said they were still researching the matter.

The five Republican legislative leaders said they recently became aware of Chatigny's political affiliations. Chatigny was named to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench by President Clinton on the recommendation of U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. Dodd and Chatigny have been personally close, and Chatigny performed Dodd's 1999 outdoor wedding at Dodd's home along the Connecticut River. Chatigny has been listed as an unaffiliated voter in records at the Simsbury Town Hall.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell was not nearly as opinionated about the judge's actions as her fellow Republicans. "I've read many of the accounts, of course," she said. "And I don't know whether he's overstepped his bounds or not. I'll leave that to the legal minds to determine."

Dr. Michael A. Norko evaluated serial killer Michael Ross on Dec. 15 and testified on Dec. 28 that Ross was mentally competent to make his own decision to forgo all further appeals of his death sentence. Norko signed an affidavit on Sunday saying he might have reached a different conclusion had he seen certain documents, including two letters written by Ross, and had an opportunity to question Ross about them. Some excerpts from Norko's affidavit:

"... In the last two days, I have reviewed documentation that was not provided to me prior to rendering the above opinion [that Ross was competent]. ...

"Had I been provided with these documents prior to conducting my most recent interview and evaluation of Michael Ross, it is possible that my eventual conclusions and opinions would have been different. ...

"As such, I can not rule out the possibility that the answers given by Mr. Ross may have led me to a somewhat different opinion, or might have influenced me to think about this case in a different way."

Excerpts from the two letters written by Ross:

From a letter dated May 24, 1998:

"... Publically I have always maintained that I am not suicidal and that I do not wish to die. However, the truth is probably not quite that clear-cut.

"...Do you have any idea what it is to hate who you are, and to live daily with that hatred? Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a place where every single day someone reminds you of who you are and what you have done? Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a place where you are constantly judged by your absolute worst deed? ... It is a living hell. It is my life.

"So the thought of my being actually executed was not unpleasant to me. ... The truth is I was driven more by a desire to end my own pain than out of any noble cause. ..."

From a letter dated June 2003:

"... I've been doing this for 19 years now - 16 on death row - and it gets harder every year. I honestly don't think that I can do much more of this. I now understand why 12% of the men executed in this country were men who gave up their appeals and `volunteered' for execution.

"... It looks like the issues in my current appeal are strong enough to send me back for a third penalty hearing. Round and round we go on the never ending merry-go-round - a horrible ride that never ever stops. People show more mercy to a rabid dog, for at least they take him behind the barn and put a bullet in his head, instead of locking him in a cage and torturing him for years on end. ..." 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Serial killer Michael Ross wants to die, and Connecticut residents overwhelmingly think he should. So it would have been easy for U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny to walk away on Monday from a last-minute appeal of Ross' scheduled execution.

Instead, Chatigny delayed Wednesday morning's planned lethal injection and ordered a new hearing to decide whether Ross is competent in deciding to call off his appeals. Those who know the judge best were not surprised.

In 2001, Chatigny ruled that the state's sex offender registry violates criminals' due process rights, even though lawmakers and the public overwhelmingly supported the registry.

On Monday, Chatigny again took an unpopular stance: 81 percent of people surveyed recently by the University of Connecticut supported Gov. M. Jodi Rell's decision to not delay Ross' execution.

"Am I surprised he'd say, 'Wait a minute. Let's not rush into this without considering whether there's a legal basis for this?"' former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy said. "Not at all."

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately determined that sex offender registries are constitutional, but the case only reinforced Chatigny's reputation as someone willing to tackle thorny issues.

Hartford defense attorney Ross Garber, who worked for Chatigny's law office during law school and later clerked for him, said Chatigny is known for being meticulous.

"He's very, very careful," Garber said. "In this case, as in every other case, he's going to do what he thinks is correct, regardless of public opinion."

Chatigny, 52, a married father of two boys, was nominated to the bench by President Clinton in 1994. A graduate of Brown University and the Georgetown Law Center, he previously was a partner in the Hartford firm of Chatigny and Cowdery.

Chatigny wasn't scheduled to hear Monday's appeal, filed by Ross' former lawyers. But Judge Christopher Droney, who has already ruled in favor of the execution, was serving on an appeals panel in New York. With Droney absent, the appeal fell to Chatigny.

As chief judge, Chatigny has had to make some tough legal calls recently.

He ruled that then-Gov. John G. Rowland's former legal counsel must testify against him in a grand jury investigation, a decision that was later overturned. He also settled a dispute between defense attorney Hugh Keefe and federal prosecutors, who subpoenaed his client's records.

"He has strength in his convictions, and that's exactly what you look for in a federal judge," Keefe said. "That's why we give them lifetime appointments, so they can do what's right, not what's popular." 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a stay of execution for serial killer Michael Ross.

The decision, on a 5-4 vote, does not affect a 10-day restraining order issued on Wednesday by a federal judge, but brings Ross another step closer to becoming the first person executed in New England in 45 years.

The action was opposed by the court's more liberal members -- Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The decision was made without comment.

Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said the ruling ends his office's attempts to block the execution.

"There will be no hearing on his mental competency," Smyth said. "It appears he will be executed without anyone hearing all the evidence that we have that he is mentally incompetent."

The Department of Correction scrapped plans to execute Ross by lethal injection at 2:01 a.m. Friday after postponing the execution twice this week. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled a hearing for 10:30 a.m. Friday to review the restraining order issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny. But a clerk at the court said that could change depending on the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

"A new date for the execution may be set later today depending on a ruling anticipated from the United States Supreme Court on an earlier stay," Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett said Thursday.

Judges planned to review the Supreme Court decision Thursday afternoon and decide whether to hold the Friday morning hearing, a clerk said. They had not received the decision by 3:30 p.m.

Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, criticized the decision.

"I'm mildly surprised and deeply disappointed the Supreme Court wouldn't give time because there is no rush after 20 years," he said. "There's no reason why we couldn't take some time to give a close examination of the law."

The group will now pin its hopes on Chatigny's temporary restraining order. "That could stop the state murder," he said. "We're hopeful that will stand."

Smyth said he was disappointed that a competency hearing would not be held.

"What would be the harm in postponing this for a reasonable period of time to hold a hearing and determine his mental competency?"

Ross is on death row for strangling four young women and girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s. He also has admitted murdering four other young women in Connecticut and New York. He raped most of the victims.

January 23, 2005
By LYNNE TUOHY And ALAINE GRIFFIN, Courant Staff Writers

Michael Ross' killing spree began May 12, 1981, on the campus of Cornell University, with the rape and murder of Dzung Ngoc Tu, a diminutive and brilliant economics graduate student. It continued for three years, one month and one day.

He killed eight young women in all, ranging in age from 14 to 25. He left eight families shattered by grief and horror at the gruesome nature of his crimes. He concealed his victims so well in secluded or wooded areas, and one inside a stone wall, that their families first suffered the anguish of not knowing, of suspecting the worst but holding out a shred of hope that they had merely run away. They hadn't, of course.

They were snatched by a man who first made small talk with them, then forced them into his car or into the woods. He has admitted to raping all but one. After the rapes he forced them to roll over on their stomachs. Then he would straddle them and strangle them from behind.

The siblings of each of these young women lost not only a sister, but in a sense their parents for a time to grief and the emotionally grueling court proceedings that continue even now, with Ross' scheduled execution only three days away. Holidays for two families were ruined beyond the empty chair and pall cast by murder.

Ross killed Robin Stavinsky, 19, of Columbia on Nov. 16, 1983, and carefully hid her body. Her mother was confident she would come home on Thanksgiving. Instead, two officers came to her door that day, asking if she would come with them to identify her daughter's remains.

Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14 and best friends, were kidnapped and killed by Ross on Easter Sunday 1984. Leslie's older sister, Robin, said the holiday is still difficult for their families to endure.

How does one measure the loss of these eight young women? There is no way to know what they would have done with their lives - the careers they would have pursued, the people they would have loved, the children they might have had. Had they lived, they would have ranged in age today from 35 to 49.

They were, in the order Ross killed them:

#1 - Dzung Ngoc Tu

Dzung Ngoc Tu came to the United States from Vietnam when she was 10, mastered English almost immediately and was a high honors student at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. She went on to Vassar, where she was quiet and studious but far from reclusive.

"We went to Bloomingdale's and bought these matching work shirts. She lived in that!" recalled her freshman roommate, Victoria Balfour. Maria, another close friend in college who did not want her last name used, described Dzung as "very bright, sweet and kind. And she had a wry sense of humor."

Dzung was an economics major, and Maria said she spent her junior year at the London School of Economics.

"She loved her time in London," Maria said. "She went to the theater quite a bit while she was there. I think that was a real turning point for her. Going to London really made her branch out and come out of herself more."

Balfour recalled that Dzung had a large, extended family that was so proud of Dzung and her attending Vassar "they all came in carloads" at the end of the year to pick her up. "She was a big source of pride."

Dzung graduated from Vassar in 1977 and won the economics department's honors prize.

Her friends described Dzung as very petite, maybe 5 feet 1 and 90 pounds at most. "It angers me that he picked on someone so small, and so polite," Balfour said.

Dzung's body was found at the bottom of Fall Creek Gorge in Ithaca, N.Y., near the fraternity house where Ross lived. She had had an evening class with him the night she was last seen alive. Campus and Ithaca police initially listed her death as a suicide, which angered her friends.

"A mutual friend called" with news of Dzung's death, Maria said. "We both agreed it was not possible. I don't think I ever heard of her having a single bout of depression. She was not that kind of person. She enjoyed living too much. She enjoyed everything too much."

#2 - Tammy Williams

Tammy Williams was the only child of Norma and Everett Williams. She loved to figure skate and play basketball and would probably be alive today if she hadn't looked at Ross after he raped her and said that she knew who he was.

Tammy lived in Brooklyn, Conn., barely a mile from where Ross grew up and his family had a large egg farm - Eggs Inc. When she disappeared Jan. 5, 1982, her father and uncle and other relatives organized search parties, crisscrossing the wooded areas and marshes surrounding her home. The found no clues or sign of her. She was 17.

"She was missing almost 21/2 years," said Steve St. John, Tammy's uncle. "It was really devastating. We all went out and searched. Come to find out two years later I could have walked right over her body."

"Tammy was a sweetheart," St. John said. "She was a typical teenager, with a family that was separated and she hoped they would eventually get back together. She was a very outgoing person."

Her mother got remarried, to a pilot, and had the opportunity to travel with him to a new posting in American Samoa. Tammy went along and lived there, and later Hawaii, with her mother and stepfather.

"My daughter was a good daughter," said Tammy's mother, Norma Deems. "I kind of spoiled her."

Tammy loved the exotic travel, but felt alienated from her friends and longed to return to Connecticut. She moved in with her father and stepmother on Prince Hill Road when she was about 14.

St. John said Tammy was very bright, but bored with school. Her father permitted her to drop out.

"She loved being with her friends," St. John said. "She had a very outgoing personality. She would be 42 this February.

"The scary thing about this whole thing is that she knew him," St. John said. "It really changed not only our lives, but the lives of everyone in the community. You never used to lock your doors. We used to let the kids go out and play, be by themselves and walk to school. That all changed."

#3 - Paula Perrera

The classrooms and hallways of Valley Central High School in Montgomery, N.Y., were quiet one morning in March 1982.

One of the school's juniors, a petite, curly-haired blonde named Paula Perrera, 16, who had been missing for more than two weeks, was found dead on the side of the road in the town of Wallkill, about 60 miles north of New York City.

"That was a very sad day in school," recalled Barbara Willard, 39, of Middletown, N.Y. "I remember I couldn't sit still. I broke down in study hall and had to go home." It is also how Willard remembers her 17th birthday.

Paula was "the girl everyone wanted to be friends with" in school, Willard said. She loathed cliques and bent her ear for everyone. Willard said students who attended Paula's funeral had a tough time viewing the open casket, something Paula's mother insisted on so her friends could understand that she was indeed dead. Many who chose to raise their own families in town still don't want to talk about it.

"It was really a tough sight," Willard said. "They had so much makeup on her to cover the bruises."

Willard met Paula in the fourth grade. Paula had just moved into the trailer park down the street with her family. They were instant best friends.

Hanging out with Paula was always a carefree adventure, rarely scripted and sometimes reckless.

"We'd ride our bikes for miles," Willard said. "One summer, we rode for so long we got bad sunburn. We looked like lobsters."

And when the seasons changed, Paula didn't need good weather to find an escape hatch from her troubled family life, one where her single mother struggled to pay the bills while working two jobs and raising four children.

"One day, she was an actress going off to Hollywood. Then, she was thinking about being a singer in Nashville," Willard said. "Her home life wasn't the greatest so she always put herself in this fantasy world and thought of things she probably would never be."

But Paula's biggest adventures - the ones she embarked on with the flip of her thumb - concerned her tight-knit group of friends. Paula viewed her hitchhiking trips like chapters from journalist Charles Kuralt's "On the Road," describing to friends never-ending details of the interesting motorists she met along the way.

"She'd tell us all these stories about the people she would meet, while all along, we'd be like, `OK, that's great this time but don't do it again.' We would tell her again and again not to do it."

On March 2, 1982, Paula asked a friend for a ride after she missed the bus to the vocational school where she was taking culinary classes. When the friend could not oblige, Paula hitched a ride. It was her last.

Ross, then 22, was headed home after visiting his girlfriend at Cornell University when he picked up Paula. In September 2001, Ross pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in connection with Paula's death and he was later sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

Two months before her death, Paula found God during her membership in a church youth group, Willard said. In regard to Ross' execution, Willard says she believes Paula would feel the same way she does about the punishment.

"I'm actually concerned about his soul," Willard said. "I don't want him to rot in hell. I don't wish that upon anybody."

#4 - Debra Smith Taylor

In a perfect world, Debra Smith Taylor, 23, would be dressed in jeans and her black fur coat with the white and gray collar, dancing to "Love Me Tender" in Elvis' arms.

That's the image Debra's sister, Linda Brodeur, 52, of Jewett City, has of her youngest sibling when she's able to think of pleasant thoughts about Debra. But she admits those thoughts are far too fleeting on the eve of the execution of her sister's murderer.

"I really want to see this happen because I hate him for what he did," Brodeur said. "He took my sister away from me. I think about her all the time. I miss hearing her voice. Lethal injection is the easy way out for him after what he did to her. I never thought in my life that something would happen that would make me feel this way."

Debra disappeared on June 15, 1982, after a quarrel with her estranged husband. Their vehicle had run out of gas, and the two parted in search of a service station, walking in opposite directions. A witness reported seeing Debra sitting on a park bench in Danielson about 11 p.m.

Three months later, hunters found Debra's remains in Canterbury. Ross received a sentence of life in prison for her death.

The loss of Debra, Brodeur believes, weakened their usually tough father as he fought leukemia. James Smith died in 1984. He was 56. Father and daughter rest side by side in a local cemetery.

"He said somebody's got to be with her," Brodeur said.

Debra's mother, Fabiola Smith, is not in the best of health at age 86, but Brodeur said she has been monitoring recent events in the Ross case on television and has said she is "really happy" her daughter's killer soon may die.

Brodeur often tells her three children about how much Aunt Debra, who did not have children of her own, loved to baby-sit them and hold them close to her.

"She was a very good aunt," Brodeur said.

If Ross is executed, Brodeur said, she will be relieved. Perhaps then Debra's eight-track tape collection of Elvis Presley songs, which Brodeur still has, and Debra's favorite furry jacket, which Brodeur said she has hanging in her closet, will take her back to better thoughts.

"Those songs, hearing them, bring her to me," Brodeur said.

#5 - Robin Stavinsky

Robin Stavinsky would have turned 41 this month.

It's hard for her stepmother, Joan Stavinsky, to picture her at that age. In her mind, Robin is still the mischievous teenager, the strong-willed, blond tomboy she helped raise with her husband at their home near Columbia Lake.

"She would have been a beautiful young woman, a really good person who would have put 100 percent into whatever she did," said Joan Stavinsky, 61. "It's very sad that it never happened because she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Stavinsky's co-workers were the last people to see Robin, 19, alive on Nov. 16, 1983. She had recently moved to Norwich, where she planned to keep working until she saved up enough money for college. A jogger found her body near the entrance to the Uncas-on-Thames Hospital in Norwich. Joan Stavinsky's memory of Thanksgiving 1983 is a trip to the morgue to identify her daughter's body.

Robin's family recounts her childhood stories with great detail, as if they happened yesterday.

There's the time Robin challenged her father, Ronald, to a push-up contest. The competitors hit the floor and grimaced through their task, each with only one hand in a military style.

Ronald won, but not easily.

Jennifer Tabor, Robin's stepsister, recalls how Robin, a state champion discus thrower, would ascend a seven-step staircase in the house, barely touching a step.

"She had one speed and it was super speed," Joan Stavinsky said.

From hockey to water-skiing, there wasn't a sport Robin couldn't ace. In local newspaper stories about Robin's success in high school track and field, students talked about how they idolized her. Newspaper photographs of her in action on the field show Robin with a determined face, muscular thighs and outstanding discus form.

"The boys in the neighborhood feared her," Joan Stavinsky said.

Robin poked fun at herself when asked about her athleticism in a May 31, 1980, story in The Chronicle of Willimantic.

"All I hear from guys is, `Hey musclewoman' because I throw in the field events rather than run," Stavinsky told the newspaper. "It used to bother me. Now, I laugh. I just go along with it. They call me `Hulk' now."

Tabor said she could never understand how Ross was able to overcome her sister's power.

"I still can't believe how he could've gotten the best of her," said Tabor, 33. "She was a fighter. She took care of all of us. I could never understand how this could happen to someone with her will and her strength."

Tabor was 12 when her big sister died. Though the tragedy brought her and her two other siblings, David and Debbie, closer, gatherings at the family home just weren't the same. Tabor said she feels as though she has spent the past two decades nursing a wound that reopens every time there is something new in the Ross case.

Though she won't discuss publicly whether she believes Ross does indeed want to die and whether she thinks it actually will happen, Tabor said she feels her "wound" is beginning to scar.

"I know I will have this scar the rest of my life, though," she said.

Joan Stavinsky said that neither she nor Robin's father would attend the scheduled execution but that the family would have "representatives" there.

"Will it bring closure?" Tabor said. "No."

"Will I feel sorry for him?" Joan Stavinsky added. "No."

#6, #7 - April Brunais and Leslie Shelley

Two months before they died, on an afternoon when they had nothing better to do than just be the best of friends, Leslie and April drew up adoption papers for one another. They adopted each other as sisters, making it all sound quite official, using their middle names and all.

The adoption papers were superfluous. They may as well have been sisters.

"If April wasn't down here, Leslie was up there," Leslie's father, Edwin Shelley, said as he motioned to a window that looks out on Dina Lane, where April Brunais lived with her mother and stepfather, Ellen and Ray Roode, a few houses away.

The girls had been thick as thieves since the Roodes moved to the neighborhood when both girls were about 6. They signed cards to one another "love you like a Sis." They made cookie dough ornaments and drove their parents crazy with their hysterical giggling.

Shelley said his daughter could be as sassy as she was silly, and would sometimes trick April by hiding a tape recorder under the couch and getting April to talk about boys. April was half a year older and in the ninth grade. Leslie was still in eighth grade, looking forward to high school. Shelley finds it hard sometimes to look at Leslie's eighth-grade class photo, the one with the cascading blond hair and sweet, shy smile. The blouse she is wearing in the photograph is the one she was wearing when she was killed.

"She hated that curly hair," Shelley said.

April had two younger brothers, ages 5 and 2 months. Leslie was the second youngest of four children. Her older sister, Robin, was married but living nearby. But the two sisters remained close.

"She would come over to my house and we'd play cards or just talk," Robin said. "She played softball. She was just starting to bloom in the eighth grade.

"I blocked it all out for years and years," Robin said. "It's a really hard thing to deal with."

Leslie's mother, Lera Shelley, said she can't cope with interviews these days, and is anxious that legal maneuvers could stop the execution. Ed Shelley spoke of how Leslie on weekends would wait up for her mother to come home from working the second shift at Norwich State Hospital so the two could play Uno into the night.

The girls had gone to First Congregational Church of Griswold that Easter Sunday morning in April 1984. Leslie spent the early afternoon baby-sitting her little sister. When her father came home, Leslie asked if she and April could go into Jewett City - the center of Griswold - to catch a movie. Shelley gave his permission, but told Leslie before she left she had to kiss him on the cheek.

"I hadn't shaved. I was grizzly," Shelley said. "She bent down and kissed me on the cheek."

The two girls, inseparable, left for the movies. Leslie called her father about 7 p.m. to say they were on their way home, that Mrs. Roode was picking them up. Robin said that her parents were quite strict and that she and her siblings were required to call their parents any time they changed locations.

But the girls didn't have a ride. They were hitchhiking home, and it was Michael Ross who offered them a ride. He drove to Preston, to a deserted stretch of road near the woods. It was dark, but mild out. He pulled April out of the car first and made Leslie get into the trunk so she couldn't run. April had a small knife and tried in vain to slash at Ross. According to his confession, as Ross was raping April, Leslie yelled words of reassurance and comfort to her. Ross strangled April, then came back for Leslie. He said in his confession he thought she was brave, and really didn't want to kill her, but his fear of detection was great. It's the reason he killed his victims. Ross said he did not rape Leslie. He just killed.

The Shelleys and Roodes had no idea what had happened. When the girls did not return home, both fathers went knocking on the doors of friends' houses and looking in areas where teens were known to party.

"I guess we kind of put ourselves on numb," Edwin Shelley said. "We didn't know if she'd run away or been killed or what."

When Leslie's class had its graduation ceremony, they put a robe and a rose on an empty chair in her honor. Weeks later, after Ross was arrested and began to lead police to the girls' bodies, her fate was known.

The grief was devastating. Shelley said it wasn't until a year after the girls were buried that his wife told him she would go to Preston, put her hands on the ground where the girls' bodies were, and just talk to her daughter.

Shelley, a mailman, said he would be driving down the street and would see a girl from the back who had a blond mane of wavy hair similar to Leslie's and become overwhelmed with grief. "I don't know how many times I pulled the mail truck over and just cried and cried."

Shelley does the media interviews in part to shield his wife. "She has really been my rock. I love her, and I want to protect her."

Robin feels her mother's pain as well.

"I hope some day that Easter won't be as hard for her as it is."

#8 - Wendy Baribeault

Wendy Baribeault was well-liked by her friends at Norwich Free Academy, who described her as a caring and sensitive person who enjoyed life.

The 17-year-old junior from Lisbon liked going to the movies and hanging out at the beach. She loved music and would sit in on jam sessions with a local band that played some of her favorite tunes.

Wendy left her parents a note on the kitchen counter on June 13, 1984, saying she was walking to a nearby convenience store. She never returned. She was last seen alive walking along Route 12. Her body was found two days later under a pile of rocks near the road.

It was a tip learned during the investigation of Baribeault's death that helped lead police to Ross. A motorist told police he recalled seeing a man sitting in a blue compact car parked along Route 12 in Lisbon.

Investigators focused on more than 2,500 owners of blue Toyotas registered in Connecticut. Their first stop was Ross' home because his house was in the center of the small circle where the women had either disappeared or where their bodies were found.

Ross invited police in, and within hours was detailing his murders and leading police to other victims.

Baribeault's sister, Joanne Baribeault Welch, earlier this month told The New York Post she wanted to "look into Michael Ross' eyes" during the execution, which she planned to witness.

"It'll be good for him," Welch told the newspaper. "It's not too tragic. It's justice, and I want to see justice done." She said she would be attending the execution "for my sister, and I am going for my father, who has passed away. I'm glad it's finally happening, and I hope this will give us some closure." 

Serial killer Michael Ross has nightmares about his execution and does not relish the thought of crowds of people outside cheering his death. But he is resolute in his wish to go through with it later this month and adamant that it is his right to do so.

"I owe these people. I killed their daughters," Ross said. "If I could stop the pain, I have to do that. This is my right. I don't think there's anything crazy or incompetent about that."

Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding, has said for months that the best argument that his client is competent to make the grave decision to proceed to his execution is made by Ross himself.

So when it came time Tuesday to respond to claims by Ross' former public defenders that Ross is incompetent, Paulding gave the state Supreme Court an unusual exhibit: Michael Ross.

Paulding submitted videotapes of a nearly four-hour interview of Ross conducted last month by Dr. Michael Norko, the court-appointed psychiatrist who subsequently testified that Ross is well aware of his various legal options. Norko concluded that Ross' decision to forgo further appeals is a well-reasoned one. Ross is scheduled to die by lethal injection Jan. 26.

Ross on the tapes is eloquent when talking about his desire to spare the families of his victims more suffering and publicity, meticulous in discussing the details of his case and witty at times - whether mocking certain security arrangements or discussing his need for stronger bifocals. "I'm getting pretty old," quipped Ross, 45, who has spent the last 20 years behind bars.

He spoke candidly with Norko about the level of anxiety he has experienced since his execution date was set by Judge Patrick Clifford In Superior Court in New London, and about his anger and frustration that his former lawyers persist in their efforts to halt his execution.

"It's not state-assisted suicide and it's not that I'm tired of living on death row, though, like I said, I'm not sad to leave this place," Ross told Norko on the tapes obtained by The Courant. "It's because these people have a right to have an end to this [expletive deleted] horror that's been going on for 20 years. And I've finally got - after 20 years - the opportunity to be able to do that. Does that make me incompetent? In the public defenders' eyes, yes it does. I guess that's what you're going to decide."

Throughout the interview Ross is seated inside a cell, talking through the bars to Norko, who is off-camera. The interview is akin to a lengthy conversation, with Ross doing most of the talking. When Ross says, "I guess that's what you're going to decide," he may as well have been addressing the Supreme Court panel that has the power to stay his execution and order a new competency hearing.

Ross emphasized to Norko that he had six lengthy visits with his former public defenders between June and August of 2004, when he fired them and officially hired Paulding, who agreed to help him assert his right to "volunteer" to be executed.

"They were basically guilt trips," Ross says of those legal sessions. "But I sat patiently through all their arguments, the legal issues I could pursue. ... Now they say I'm not fully apprised of my options. They sure as hell told me all my options."

The interview with Norko was conducted Dec. 15, and just before it began Ross learned that Clifford had denied the public defenders' motions to intervene on Ross' behalf and refused to permit them to cross-examine witnesses or otherwise participate in the competency hearing he scheduled for Dec. 28.

The public defenders are now challenging that ruling, as well as Clifford's finding that Ross is competent, in the Supreme Court. The high court held a hearing last Wednesday, and set deadlines Monday and Tuesday of this week for briefs and responses. The court ordered the public defenders to submit details about the witnesses they would call and testimony they would elicit in support of their claims that Ross is incompetent.

The public defenders responded with more than 150 pages of testimony, correspondence and Ross' writings - some of which the court initially ordered sealed on a motion by Paulding that the submissions included privileged attorney-client communications and other "sensitive" material. The court at 8 p.m. Tuesday released most of those documents, withholding some of the material Paulding referred to.

The public defenders propose to call nine witnesses, including five of Ross' former public defenders, two psychiatrists who have studied the effects of long-term imprisonment in restrictive settings, Michael Ross' father, and Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, who visits Ross.

It is not clear whether the Supreme Court will hold another hearing or when it might rule.

Paulding said be believes the videotapes are the best evidence he can provide the panel of four justices and three appellate judges.

"It shows his humanity, and it certainly shows he is competent," Paulding said of the interview.

In a one-page cover sheet, Paulding tells the court that the best source of information on Ross' competency "comes from viewing him and listening to him speak and answer questions."

The tapes provide a window into Ross' daily life, from the religious routine he maintains to his writing of farewell letters and his escape into cryptograms and jigsaw puzzles. He said he embraces routine and gets annoyed when that routine is disrupted. He said he is perplexed by the heightened anxiety he has experienced.

"As you know, I've been trying to do this [proceed to execution] since 1995. And stupidly, I thought I could just come over here and just kind of chill out till the day, but there is a considerable amount of anxiety involved. I don't really understand it, to be honest."

Ross was moved in late October from his cell on death row at Northern Correctional Center to a cell at the neighboring Osborn Correctional Institution, where the death chamber is located. Ross is in the same wing of cells that once was death row, and where he spent eight years, before Northern was opened.

He said he wakes at 4:30 a.m. and reads Scripture and prays for nearly 90 minutes, and is usually in bed by 8 p.m. At Northern he used to take a two- to three-hour nap each afternoon. Legal visits and phone calls and daily visits by mental health professionals make that virtually impossible at Osborn, he said.

While at Northern, Ross said, he was permitted to walk to the shower unescorted, ran the book cart for other inmates and stocked supplies. He bristles at the added layers of security since his transfer to Osborn, and the requirement that he be watched by two guards anytime he leaves his cell. But he tempered his sarcasm with wit.

"In order to do this interview, I'm locked in the cell and you're out there," Ross noted. "Why? I'm going to jump on you? I don't think that's going to help my case for competence.

"I have a priest come down and we have to meet like this," Ross added. "I've got enough trouble with God; I'm going to jump on a priest?"

Ross spoke of his love of old movies and his disdain for the reality shows so prevalent today. He wept while recounting the end of a recent television movie he saw based on Mitch Albom's book, "The Five People You Meet In Heaven." He paused momentarily to wipe his eyes and regain his composure, then quipped to the camera, "The students might as well see the good, the bad and the crazy." Then he added, "It was a very powerful movie." Its underlying themes are forgiveness and redemption.

Ross said that while praying very recently, two thoughts came to him.

"Trust. Trust in God," he said. "And the second is the [biblical] passage where Peter was refusing to let Jesus wash his feet. Jesus said, `What I do now you don't understand, but you will understand later.' I believe those things. One of my meditations talks about how God can make good out of even the most unmitigated evil act. ... It's true I did some truly evil acts. And hopefully, some good comes out of this."

Ross stressed that he's "not a religious fanatic. ... I have strong beliefs and they've helped me over the years and they've helped me to find peace."

Asked by Norko whether he has any hopes, Ross replied: "Yeah, that this is going to help them," referring to the families of his eight victims, and particularly the families of the four young women whose kidnap-murders resulted in two penalty hearings involving gruesome evidence. He also said he hopes that in five years, when another man is facing execution, perhaps the state will rethink its position and abolish the death penalty.

"They're not going to do that now. Now it's about killing me."

The prospect of execution does not rest easy with him. Ross told Norko about a recurrent nightmare he had the last time he lived at Osborn, when the electric chair was still standing in the death chamber a few cells away. He envisioned himself being strapped in, and then he "would float out over the prison and watch the, um, crowd as they counted down my execution, just like it was New Year's Eve: 10. 9. 8, and the lights would dim and they would all cheer. Thirty seconds later the lights would dim and they would all cheer again."