Lost lives, lost hopes mourned

Families: Relatives of women slain by Steven Oken recall their loved ones and ponder what might have been

By Julie Bykowicz - Baltimore Sun

June 13, 2004

Dawn Marie Garvin would be 37 years old now, and her family has no doubt that she'd have a house full of kids and a successful accounting career. She'd be an aunt to her brother's stepson and two little girls, one of whom is named after her. She'd probably stop by for dinner at her brother's townhouse in Harford County, and she'd visit her parents.

But in November 1987, the lives of Garvin and two other women - Patricia Hirt, who'd be a grandmother now, and Lori Ward, who perhaps would have fulfilled her dream of becoming a veterinarian - were cut short by Steven Oken. With the convicted killer at the brink of execution, his victims' families fondly remembered their loved ones, pained by thoughts of what might have been. Seventeen years ago, Garvin was feeling good about her chances of landing an accounting job for a company at Baltimore's World Trade Center. She was 20 years old, with red hair and an easy smile. She'd been working as a secretary for the military and taking accounting classes at Harford Community College.

That summer, the former Dawn Marie Romano had married a naval officer named Keith Garvin, her boyfriend since their days at Harford County's Joppatowne High School. Dawn Garvin adopted a poodle puppy she named Pepper to keep her company while her husband was on base in Oceana, Va., and was busy making a home of the White Marsh apartment they'd rented. One day, the young wife called her mother, Betty Romano, to ask for a lasagna recipe. Her husband was leaving that night for the Navy base, and she wanted to cook him something special before he left.

After dinner, Keith Garvin took off on his motorcycle for Virginia. He later called his wife to say he'd arrived safely, but there was no answer. Dawn Garvin's father went to check on her, and he found his only daughter dead. She'd been raped, sexually assaulted with a condiment bottle and shot twice in the head. Her family says Garvin no doubt would have had a good life. "I miss my daughter more than anything," Fred J. Romano says. "She was a pure joy, with her whole life ahead of her."

Grandchildren

Patricia Hirt would probably still be best friends with her two daughters, whom she raised in Hamilton as a single mother. Her girls were 17 and 18 when she was killed. She was 43. She'd also be a grandmother. Her younger daughter, Jessica, has a 17-month-old girl and twin girls on the way.

A longtime administrative secretary at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Hirt was beloved by her colleagues, who still talk about her on Internet message boards. She worked to send her daughters to Notre Dame Preparatory School. Her daughters believe their mother would be proud of their careers. Monique Klapka, 35, is a nurse midwife. And Jessica - who is uncomfortable with her last name being used in the newspaper - is a school guidance counselor. "We were three peas in a pod," Klapka says. People always described Hirt, with her brown hair, brown eyes and warm smile, as an attractive and caring person, Klapka says. She volunteered with the Special Olympics and loved to ski - a pastime she passed along to both daughters.

Klapka last saw her mother at a mother-daughter weekend at Hood College in Frederick. A few days later, Baltimore County detectives found Hirt's nude body in a ditch along White Marsh Boulevard. She had gone to return a camera to her younger sister's husband, Steven Oken, at their White Marsh apartment. He raped and beat her, then shot her. Oken took off in Hirt's white Ford Mustang, heading north.

Love of animals

Lori Ward, who worked as a motel clerk in Maine in November 1987, would be 42 now. Suzanne Tsintolas believes her younger sister would have become a veterinarian and continued educating children about the responsibilities that come with having a pet. Instead, there's a memorial fund in Ward's name at the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Ward was tall and thin, and she considered herself an "ugly duckling," says Tsintolas, a lawyer who lives in Rockville. "No one else felt that way about her, of course."

Ward was living with her parents in Portsmouth, N.H., taking classes at the University of New Hampshire and working part time at the Coachman Motor Inn in Kittery, Maine. She had decided that, after Christmas, she would stop working to concentrate on making progress toward a veterinary degree. Even as a little girl, Ward loved animals, her sister says. When she was about 10, she picked out a miniature poodle and named her Misty. It was the family's dog, but the poodle adored Lori and followed her everywhere, her sister says. After Ward's murder, Tsintolas says, Misty stopped eating and died.

A maintenance man at the inn found Ward's body. She had been sexually assaulted and shot.

Just before Ward's father died two years ago, he asked Tsintolas to see to it that the man who killed his youngest daughter paid for his crimes with his life. "He said, 'Stay with it for me,'" Tsintolas says. "'Stay the course. Don't let it go.'"

The three victims' families saw Oken be held accountable for the slayings. He pleaded guilty in Maine to Ward's murder, and he pleaded guilty in Baltimore County to Hirt's murder. A Baltimore County jury found him guilty of Garvin's murder and, in January 1991, sentenced him to death.

Over the next 13 years, the families have had limited contact with one another. Tsintolas says she met the Romanos early in Oken's appeals process. Tsintolas says she and Fred A. Romano, Garvin's brother, have had lengthy phone conversations about having lost a sibling to murder. Last week, some of Hirt's relatives, including Klapka, met with the Romanos in Bel Air. Each family plans to have a representative among the witnesses if Oken's final appeals fail and he is executed by lethal injection this week.

Fred A. Romano said it pains him to know that his children - two little girls and a teenage stepson - never got to meet "Aunt Dawn." "Oken cheated them, too," he said. He contemplated what he would write on the signs he plans to hold outside the prison hospital in Baltimore the night of Oken's execution, if it happens. He thinks they will say, "Judgment Day has come."

Maryland Executes Oken; 1987 Rampage in 2 States Left 3 Women Dead

By Susan Levine - The Washington Post

June 18, 2004

BALTIMORE, June 17 -- Steven Howard Oken, the Maryland inmate whom a prosecutor once called a "poster boy" for capital punishment, was put to death shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday for the murder of a young Baltimore County college student and newlywed nearly a generation ago.

A trio of chemicals -- color-coded red, green and blue by a team of hidden executioners -- was pumped into Oken's veins starting at 9:09 p.m. Within minutes, the lethal injection rendered him unconscious, paralyzed his lungs and, finally, stopped his heart. Witnesses said his face turned ashen as the solution started to flow, but there apparently were no complications. It was the first capital sentence carried out by the state since 1998 and came only after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay of execution late Wednesday.

Observing the moment inside the old Maryland penitentiary in downtown Baltimore were not just Dawn Marie Garvin's husband and mother but relatives of the two other women he sexually assaulted and fatally shot during a two-week rampage from Maryland to Maine in November 1987. "I want to thank God. This is finally over," said Betty Romano, Garvin's mother. "The only problem is Steven Oken died in peace. My daughter didn't have the luxury to die in peace, as I saw Steven Oken die tonight."

Oken's former wife, Phyllis Hirt Ryan, whose sister was killed by Oken, was among the witnesses. "After 17 years of torture, her nemesis is gone," said her husband, Mark Ryan. "She wanted to see justice done for her fallen sister."

Outside the prison, in the shadows of its medieval-looking walls and turrets, demonstrators and counter-demonstrators gathered for hours, some hoisting posters, some holding candles in a scene alternately raucous and somber. At the center of the crowd of death penalty supporters stood Garvin's father and brother. "I feel good right now. I feel very good right now," said her father, Fred Romano Sr., who had waited through years of legal appeals for Oken to die. "I thought for a while he would outlive me."

David and Davida Oken, who had maintained as tireless a campaign to save their son as the Romanos had to see him put to death, were not at the prison Thursday night.

With the window rapidly closing on his life, the 42-year-old Oken had spent the day meeting with two rabbis, his parents and sister and his attorneys, whose final efforts to find other legal issues to save their client were rebuffed by three federal courts. The Supreme Court refused another petition in which the prisoner contended that he had suffered from ineffective representation at his 1991 trial. Word on his final, failed appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit came just 19 minutes before the execution was set to begin at 9 p.m.

"The system has failed," said attorney Fred Bennett, who has represented Oken for more than decade. "It's broken. It cannot be repaired." Bennett remained with this client until 7:30 p.m., giving him a hug through the cell bars, and witnessed the execution. "I said: 'You are not alone. You will not stand alone. I will be with you till the last breath of your life.' And I was," Bennett recounted in a choked voice.

One of Oken's last hopes had been Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), whom he had asked to commute the capital sentence to life without parole. At 5:08 p.m., Ehrlich's office faxed the defense a three-paragraph statement announcing that the governor had denied the request. Ehrlich, a strong supporter of the death penalty, had pledged repeatedly since taking office that he would carefully review any case that came before him. This was his first opportunity to do so, and Ehrlich wrote that he had employed "a deliberative process," examining all the facts and judicial opinions, and "as thoughtful decision making as I am able to summon in this so tragic matter."

In an interview earlier in the day, Ehrlich said he was not troubled by the weight of the decision. "That's why I get paid," he said. "Executives make decisions. If you have difficulty making tough decisions, maybe you shouldn't be an executive. It's part of the job."

Oken faced the death penalty for Garvin's slaying. He received two terms of life without parole for his other crimes -- the killing in Maryland of his sister-in-law, Patricia Hirt, and the slaying of Lori Ward, a young motel clerk in Maine whom he chanced upon while fleeing up the coast. By agreement between the states, had Ehrlich granted clemency to any degree, Oken would have been transferred to Maine and served the rest of his life behind bars there. The governor's conclusion, though, was no surprise: "It is my decision not to override the judicial determinations of the sentence of death imposed upon Steven Oken." In a separate statement, he said, "My sympathies tonight lie with the families of all those involved in these heinous crimes."

The various groups that have rallied around Oken, despite the details of the murders and his undisputed guilt, lamented Ehrlich's refusal to intervene. "That would have been the humane thing to do and would have avoided the media circus" of the past week, said Cathy Knepper, Amnesty International's coordinator for abolition of the death penalty in Maryland. "I'm thinking of the Romano and Oken families. This was all unnecessary, and I can't imagine what it's put these two families through. Because he clearly was never going to get out."

But after more than a decade of court appeals, Bennett said his client was "ready to die." Before being transported across the street from the Supermax prison, where officials recently moved him from death row to solitary confinement, Oken composed a two-page letter to Ehrlich that Bennett said expresses contrition.

Oken offered no words for the witnesses as he lay on the padded, stainless steel table, catheters inserted in both arms and a pale blue sheet pulled up to his chest. Witnesses said Oken was conscious and seemed to be joking with a prison chaplain immediately before the procedure. He offered no resistance as the solution began to flow at 9:09. There was no movement after 9:11. He was pronounced dead at 9:18.

Seventeen years ago, Oken was a college dropout working at his parents' pharmacy near Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and watching as his marriage fell apart. He'd been drinking heavily, stealing antidepressants and other drugs from the pharmacy shelves and generally spiraling downward. In court, he initially claimed that he could not remember what happened the night Garvin was killed -- a memory lapse he blamed on the booze, pills and a "sexual sadism" that he could not control. Psychiatrists who testified for him after he recovered his memory late in the trial provided horrific details of what he said he did to Garvin after he approached her as she walked her dog and persuaded her to let him use her phone. Garvin's father discovered her body in her White Marsh apartment, a nightmarish scene that has haunted him ever since.

"You are a very evil and dangerous man," declared Baltimore County Circuit Judge James T. Smith Jr. at the conclusion of Oken's trial in 1991. His death penalty launched appeals in state and federal court on a multiplicity of issues. Twice, Maryland's highest court came within one vote of ruling that Supreme Court decisions had rendered his sentence illegal. One death warrant lapsed because of an execution moratorium imposed by then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), responding to growing concern about racial and geographic disparities in the way the system is administered in Maryland.

Staff writer Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.

Powerful Feelings Converge on Oken

Execution Supporters, Death Penalty Foes Gather Outside Md. Prison

By Darragh Johnson and Susan Levine - The Washington Post

June 18, 2004

BALTIMORE, June 17 -- Just after 6 p.m. -- three hours before the man who brutally raped, tortured, then murdered his sister was scheduled to die -- a hoarse Fred Romano drove up to the curb on Madison Street. Days of shouting in favor of death for convicted murderer Steven H. Oken had cost him his voice, but the messages scrawled on the tinted windows of his silver Jeep Grand Cherokee said everything:

JUSTICE HAS BEEN 17 YEARS TOO LONG - JUDGEMENT DAY IS HERE - OKEN MUST GO

And across the back windshield -- beneath a teddy bear perched on the roof to signify the sexual torture Romano's sister endured -- were the words:

IN LOVING MEMORY - DAWN MARIE GARVIN

Nearly 17 years had passed since Romano last saw his sister as she headed out of her Baltimore County apartment to walk her dog. Somewhere along the way, she encountered Oken. Thirteen years had passed since Oken was sentenced to die for her murder. Finally, after another last-minute reprieve was struck down by the Supreme Court, Oken was assigned a time and date of execution: 9 p.m. Thursday. Romano wasn't going to miss it.

His wife, Vicki, got out of the car with a cooler and a pile of signs she placed on nearby benches. They stood at the edge of Maryland's Supermax prison, a sprawling sea of brick buildings surrounded by a double circle of barbed wire. As Romano held up a sign urging death for Oken, he sighed heavily, took a drag on his cigarette and nervously tapped his right foot. "Waiting. I'm waiting," he said. "When he's dead, I'll have peace. Dawn will have peace. My dad will have peace." Romano paused. "We'll all have peace."

Often when the Romano family had lobbied for capital punishment in Annapolis, the family felt outnumbered by death penalty opponents. This time, the honking cars and chanting crowd suggested that they had plenty of support. At one point, a stranger walked up to Romano's father, also Fred, and embraced him. "Give me a hug," Jeannette Edmonds of Baltimore said to him. "I'm so sorry. I had to be here. God bless you."

Two blocks away, two women carried a sign that said: "No more killing; Stop executions." They were walking to the other side of the prison, where police officers had told death penalty opponents to wait. "It's sad. This execution won't bring healing to the families. Only forgiveness brings healing," said Susan Crane, 60, of Baltimore.

Art Laffin of Northwest Washington stood among the protesters, his heart with the families of Oken's victims as well as with the death penalty opponents. He said his brother, an associate director of a homeless center in Hartford Conn., was stabbed to death outside the center five years ago. "How do you break the cycle of violence with more violence?" he said, adding: "My . . . prayers go out to the Garvin and Romano families. I know the terrible anguish they've experienced."

Down the street, Betty Romano, Dawn Garvin's mother, was escorted soon after into the prison to witness Oken's death. The elder Fred Romano said he decided against watching the execution so that he could offer support to his son and daughter-in-law as they stood outside. The father acknowledged that he was curious what Oken's final words would be. "I'd like him to say, 'I'm sorry,' in his own words," he said. "Not his attorney. Not his psychiatrist. I'd like him to say, 'I'm sorry,' for what he did. All he's ever done is snicker, laugh and mock us." The elder Fred Romano would soon learn that Oken did not make a final statement but composed a two-page letter to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) expressing his contrition.

The younger Fred Romano stood near his father, waiting nervously for news of the execution. "I want this over with," he said at 9:18, 18 minutes after the procedure was scheduled to begin. Another 20 minutes passed before he grabbed the bullhorn and announced to the crowd that Oken was dead. Amid the cheering, someone asked him what life would be like now. "That's what we'll find out tomorrow morning," he said. "This starts the day." He continued: "I just thank God that it has finally come to an end. The burden has been lifted. Oken is dead."

Down the street, Stephanie Gibson, 49, a professor at the University of Baltimore, approached the microphone in front of about 80 death penalty opponents and delivered the news. "I've just been told that Steven Oken was executed tonight," she said. "Boo on Maryland," shouted a woman in the back of the crowd. "Boo on Maryland. Shame on our governor." The crowd fell quiet.

Murder Victims Of Steven Oken

WBAL Channel 11

June 17, 2004

Steven Oken was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder and rape of Dawn Marie Garvin, (pictured, right) a 20-year-old newlywed. He also was convicted of killing Patricia Hirt, his wife's sister, and Lori Ward, a motel clerk in Maine, during a 15-day spree.

The following is a look back at the victims.

Dawn Marie Garvin, 20, Army secretary and accounting student at Harford Community College. Killed Nov. 1, 1987, in her White Marsh, Md., apartment.

Patricia A. Hirt, 43, Johns Hopkins Hospital administrative secretary, found in a ditch beside White Marsh Boulevard in White Marsh, Md., on Nov. 16, 1987. She was a sister of Oken's wife.

Lori Ward, 25, of Portsmouth, N.H., motel clerk and student at University of New Hampshire, found Nov. 16, 1987, at the Coachman Motor Inn in Kittery, Maine.

Mother Of Steven Oken Speaks Out: "We’ve been to hell and back."

The New Abolitionist

Davida Oken is the mother of Steven Oken, a Maryland death row prisoner who had an execution date set for early March, but won a stay. She talked to John Coursey about her fight for her son’s life.

What is it like having a son on death row?

Having a son on death row is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face. Sometimes you think that you’re dreaming and you’ll wake up from this horrible nightmare. It’s impossible to convey the pain and fear that our family faces at this time, except to say that I hope no mother ever has to go through what we are going through right now.

I’ve learned to appreciate every day that I can share with Steve. Every visit with Steve and every phone call is a bonus to me. My family and I have had to reassess our priorities. There are many ups and downs -- every hearing and appeal can either make you happy or very sad.

When Steven received his stay of execution from the Maryland Court of Appeals, I felt that a tremendous weight had been lifted from me. The feeling of gloom disappeared and I felt hope, even though it may be temporary. I hope that the Supreme Court will hear his case and realize that there are many problems with the death penalty in Maryland and in the United States.

Maryland is in the midst of a big debate over whether to continue executions. From your experience, what would you tell Marylanders about their state’s death penalty system?

The Maryland Court of Appeals has stated that "the legislature needs to look into new sentencing guidelines in issuing a death penalty." The death penalty in Maryland is now based on a preponderance of evidence rather than absolute certainty -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- to kill a human being. Stronger standards are used to turn off a person’s electricity than to give a death penalty in Maryland.

Additionally, Steven was serving a life without parole sentence in Maine before he was given the death penalty in Maryland. We believe that the first sentence should have been carried out before he can serve this death penalty sentence in Maryland. This was strictly a political move by the governor of Maryland.

Also, the governor has ordered a study to look into the administration of the death penalty in the state, and this study isn’t over until late into this year. Why are the prosecutors so anxious to kill without seeing the results of the study?

Where do you find hope in the fight for your son’s life?

I look for hope for Steven in the Supreme Court’s decision on the applicability of the Apprendi ruling on death penalty cases showing violations of due process.

I also believe that the pain of the victims’ family will not be addressed by Steven’s execution. Why do we have to face yet another murder, this time by the state of Maryland? What will this heal? Certainly it won’t bring the victim back, but it will make me and my family new victims.

We’ve been to hell and back -- what about our healing? If there wasn’t a death penalty, we would have healed, and so would the families of the victim, 14 years ago.

The Jewish Times

Steven Oken smiles and rolls his eyes. A few fleeting hours before the start of Passover, he contorts his large, bulky frame like a question mark to enable a correctional officer to unlock the heavy metal handcuffs that bind his wrists behind his back. He seems embarrassed and mildly annoyed with the amount of time required to unshackle him. Rubbing his elbows and massive forearms, he shakes his head and sits on a concrete stool. "Hey," he says from behind an ultra-thick plate glass window, running his fingers through his close-cropped, prematurely graying hair. "Happy Pesach."

If Steven Oken has made teshuvah (repentence) for brutally murdering three women, should he still be executed?

Taken aback, I simply say, "Thanks," and pause for a moment. "You, too." I study his round, smooth, well-shaven face carefully, as I have during all of our meetings over the past four years in visitation rooms like this one at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, also known as Supermax prison in downtown Baltimore. It's a face I've known for nearly a quarter-century, since our days as schoolmates at Randallstown Senior High, Class of '80.

It might sound cliche but even then, something seemed different, perhaps inscrutable, about Oken. Maybe it was that smile, which really could be described as more of a kind of smirk, connoting a wise guy demeanor. Or those intense bluish-gray eyes that suggested a mixture of self-assurance and restlessness. "There was always a bit of an oddness about him," a childhood buddy of Oken's once told me, sounding like virtually anyone who's ever personally known a convicted killer.

Still, everyone — relatives, friends, former classmates, acquaintances — agrees he was basically your average suburban Jewish kid growing up in a tight-knit, hard-working, decent middle-class family that gave him lots of love and attention. Good grades, plenty of A-list friends, Pep Club member, strong athlete, cheerleader girlfriend, well-liked among teachers, attended temple, helped out at his parents' pharmacy.

"Lots of kids have tendencies where they might take the wrong road, but Steve wasn't one of them," Lincoln Bogart, Oken's varsity lacrosse coach at Randallstown, told me back in 1987. "There was nothing abnormal about him. As far as a sex maniac killer, I never saw it. He was a nice guy and got A's in all my classes."

Oh, he got into a little mischief, here and there. Some partying with pals. A few wild weekends. But no on-the-fringe, alienated, disgruntled, prone-to-violent-outbursts loner reminiscent of the Columbine killers or some type of deranged Unabomber figure. Nor was he an impressionable Timothy McVeigh ideologue in search of a cause and possible martyrdom. Just your average Jewish kid. But something went wrong. Terribly wrong. And not even Steven Oken himself is sure why. Jewish kids from Pikesville aren't supposed to sexually abuse, terrorize and murder women. But this one did — three of them.

Through the battered white speaker box mounted on the faded concrete wall, I barely hear Oken's voice above a din of clanging metal and shouting coming from the other side. We're exchanging grins and pleasantries, but he stops for a moment until the noise subsides. He still looks like the guy you share a beer or off-color joke with, but his face is somehow different this morning. A little older, more somber, maybe paler. He's wearing a green prison-issued jumpsuit, rather than his usual solid-colored shorts and T-shirt.

I immediately remind him that today — unlike our other meetings of schmoozing about old friends, current events, family news, his myriad appeals and frustrations with the prison system — we're finally going to talk, for the first time, about his case and the unspeakable, incomprehensible crimes he committed more than a decade ago. Up to now, it's been friendly, off-the-record chats between a pair of acquaintances who remember each other from their high school and college days. Now, it's a no-holds-barred interview.

He nods quietly, nervously, wringing his hands, knowing he's journeying into an area he hates to visit and rarely does, except within the solitude of his own mind and conscience, or maybe on occasion with legal counsel. It's a place he hates more than the hellhole of a home, also known as cell No. 34, that he landed for himself in the bowels of Supermax.

And he seems to hate it even more than the fate that could await him. "There are no excuses for what I've done," says Oken, 39. "And I can't begin to imagine the suffering, the cost of what I've done to these people. It's a terrible thing I did."

In a community that prides itself on producing what's considered the best in society, Steven Oken is generally thought of as an aberration, an anomaly. He is a Jew on Death Row, one of eight to 10 in the United States, according to the Aleph Institute, HOPE-HOWSE International and Jewish Prisoner Services International, all organizations that offer assistance to an estimated 4,000 Jewish inmates.

Oken is also one of 13 inmates — and the only Jew — on Maryland's Death Row. More than 13 years following his capture and incarceration — after pleading guilty to committing murder and being sentenced to life without parole in Maine, extradited to Maryland, sentenced to death by lethal injection by a Baltimore County jury in January 1991, and countless appeals on the federal and state levels — Oken remains on Death Row, trying desperately to stay alive.

Living in an 8-by-8-foot cell with only an hour of outside time per day, Oken — known by the state as no. 212-612 — can understand why some people might be perplexed by his resolve to evade execution. But he says his reasons are selfless. "I want to live for my family," he says. "They're also victims of what I've done. And if I'm executed, they'll be victims again. That's why I'm fighting this fight.

"Also, I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from the past — what I did to get me here. Young people today, a lot of them are on drugs, alcohol abuse. I think a lot of people, myself included, can still contribute to society and talk to young people about the dangers of drug abuse. "I'm a good example of the worst thing that can happen to somebody when under the influence."

In the aftermath of the defeat of legislation proposing a two-year moratorium on executions in Maryland, Oken bought some extra time — at least several months — to fight his sentence as the Court of Appeals agreed two weeks ago to consider his appeal on constitutional issues. The case probably will not be heard until this fall.

As a result, Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra O'Connor said last week that she would not seek a death warrant for Oken. Thirteen prominent local and national religious leaders — including Rabbi Mark G. Loeb of Pikesville's Beth El Congregation — have called on Gov. Parris N. Glendening to halt executions for two years.

"All of this has been more difficult for my family than it has been for me," Oken says about the roller coaster ride of legal and political maneuverings involving his case in recent months. "But I have a good feeling for how things will probably go."

Their names were Dawn Marie Garvin, Patricia Antoinette Hirt and Lori Elizabeth Ward.

Over a 15-day period in November 1987, Steven Howard Oken sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered these three young women. He characterizes that time as a turbulent period in his life in which he was grappling with severe drug and alcohol abuse, marital difficulties, financial and business concerns, and a self-described void or depression in his soul that he's never been able to adequately identify or reconcile. "I can't point to one thing that made this happen. I think I was trying to run from something," Oken says. "I don't know if run is even the right word. I just didn't want to deal with everything."

Oken, who had attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was 25 and co-owned his family's Rexall Pharmacy near Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he worked as a clerk. His wife of a year, Phyllis, was away on business, near Seattle, during that time. The Okens, who did not have children and have since divorced, were planning a vacation in the Virgin Islands the following month.

But at the same time, Oken — who says he first experimented with marijuana while attending Old Court Junior High School — notes that he spent much of the period prior to the murders drinking heavily and taking cocaine, halcyon, Zanax and prescription drugs from his family's pharmacy. "I was depressed. I don't think I really appreciated what was happening. And instead of dealing with problems that came up, I found a way to escape. Drugs were what I was all about," he says.

Despite his track record, Oken — knowing how incredible this sounds coming from someone on Death Row — doesn't consider himself a violent person. "I know how I was brought up and the values my parents instilled in me, that taking someone's life is just horrendous," he says. "I've been a quiet, soft-spoken person all my life. Growing up, I didn't get into a lot of fights. I wasn't really confrontational. "If I was in my right mind, this wouldn't have happened. I don't want that to sound like an excuse. But before this happened, I didn't ever have a desire to physically hurt someone. People tell my parents it was completely out of character, and I agree with that."

According to published reports, Oken's first victim, Garvin, a 20-year-old newlywed, was found Nov. 2 shot in the head and sexually assaulted in her third-floor White Marsh apartment, four blocks from his modest, two-bedroom townhouse on Stillwood Circle. Her husband, who was in the U.S. Navy, had just returned to his base in Norfolk, Va. Neighbors in Garvin's Lincoln Woods complex reported that an apparently intoxicated man matching Oken's description had been knocking on doors the previous evening, claiming alternately to be a Baltimore County police officer, a physician whose pager went off, a stranded motorist needing assistance and a boyfriend who'd been kicked out of his house.

Hirt's nude body was found on the morning of Nov. 16 in a ditch beside White Marsh Boulevard. She had also been shot in the head, as well as strangled. The previous day, Hirt, 43, a Hamilton resident who was the sister of Oken's wife, had gone over to his house to drop off a camera. After receiving a missing person's report and finding her body, police searched Oken's home and found blood stains, signs of struggle, some of Hirt's clothing and the .25-caliber automatic pistol used to kill Garvin.

After stealing Hirt's 1979 white Ford Mustang, Oken drove to Kittery, Maine, and registered at the Coachman Motor Inn, using his real name and address. Hours later, Ward, a 25-year-old clerk at the motel who lived in Portsmouth, N.H., was found fatally shot in the head, bruised and sexually assaulted in an anteroom behind the front desk. More than $300 was missing from the cash register.

Oken, who knew the area well from vacationing there, subsequently drove 65 miles north to the Freeport Inn in the Maine coastal town of Freeport. The motel's manager, having heard a radio report about Ward's murder and a description of the Mustang, identified the car and called authorities.

After speaking on the phone with negotiators for a few minutes, Oken yelled, "I'm coming out, don't shoot," exited Room 215 unarmed and surrendered peacefully to Maine State Police Nov. 17 after more than 20 officers and tactical units surrounded the motel. Police found an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, the one used to kill Hirt and Ward, in the blood-stained car.

Discovered in Oken's motel room in Freeport were wads of cash, a blood-stained surgeon's smock, a half-empty bottle of vodka and two pieces of nylon cord. He told police he had "a bad drug problem" and couldn't recall anything about the previous 24 hours. According to court records, Oken had been seeing a psychiatrist for about six months prior to the murders. Also, on Nov. 9, a week after Garvin's murder, Oken had received probation before judgment and was given one year of supervised probation for a case in which he was arrested Oct. 13 for punching and trying to sexually assault an East Baltimore hotel desk clerk. He was fined and ordered to undergo alcohol and drug treatment.

"Steven Oken thought he was above God, and he destroyed the lives of so many people," says Fred Romano, Dawn Garvin's brother. "People who do what he did can't be helped. He raped my sister in a horrible manner and got a kick out of it, and then he shot her twice in the head and killed her. That's how my father found her. "I don't care if he's Jewish or Arabic or what. If he goes to God and God forgives him, so be it. But as long as he's dead. Eventually, he's going to pay for what he did. He needs to accept his judgment and die for his crime. He should suffer." Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, Romano, a former Marine, adds, "Let Steven Oken know I'm not going anywhere until he's dead. I won't rest."

Davida Oken paces around her tastefully decorated living room, talking on a cordless phone. In what's become a daily ritual, she's just accepted a collect call from her son on Death Row and is talking about the chances for a moratorium on executions.

Her tone, while for the most part controlled, occasionally borders on frantic. Mrs. Oken, who has become well-acquainted with state legislators and anti-death penalty groups, is a mother trying desperately to save her son's life. "Our life is a living hell, as far as constantly worrying about what will happen to him," Mrs. Oken, a soft-spoken woman with short hair and a round face, says in almost a whisper. "It's like a tremendous veil is put over your life. Not a day goes by when you don't think about him and pray he's going to live."

Her husband, David, a silver-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses and an easy smile, takes it a step further. "It's taken a big chunk of our lives and put it down the toilet," he says. "Over the years, it's been a drain."

Both Baltimore natives, the Okens — who asked that the whereabouts of their home not be identified in this article — speak hesitantly to me at first. Since my initial correspondence by mail with Steven in December of 1992, they've been reticent about generating more publicity regarding the case.

But it seems that as Oken's possible execution has drawn closer, they changed their minds, perhaps as a last measure for clemency, a final effort to set the record straight and get their views across. "The death penalty doesn't solve anything," Mrs. Oken tells me. "It doesn't prevent murders or save money. It's all about retribution. But why must another family suffer? We're victims, too. Why do my children and grandchildren have to suffer murder from the state? Living in the rat hole Steven lives in is punishment enough for any human being."

The Okens proudly point to their other two children, both of whom are younger than Steven and involved in the medical profession, as "proof in the pudding" of their strong parenting skills. And they insist that Steven was always a good kid who never got into any serious trouble or run-ins. "He had a religious, moral upbringing," Mrs. Oken says, smiling. "He was a wonderful little boy, a happy-go-lucky child, carefree, just perfect, very obedient. He's the sunshine of my life. He was in the Boy Scouts, a Little Leaguer, you know? It was just the luck of the draw. Something went wrong, somewhere."

Mr. Oken, though, tries not to soft-pedal things. "He was always a little more mischievous than most," he says of his son as a youngster. "He always wanted to go a little further than he should. He could push the envelope a little. ... He was more aggressive, more willing ... to walk the thin line between right and wrong, what he should or shouldn't do. He always thought he could do a little more, stay out a little later."

But the Okens say they've still never quite figured out what — besides possibly drugs — really turned their son into a cold-blooded killer. And it's a subject they've never dared broach with Steven himself during their countless visits and talks. In some ways, it seems that it's something they've emotionally compartmentalized, separating Oken and his homicidal spree from the boy they raised and loved, as well as from the young man they've visited in prisons for the past 13 years.

"I've sort of let the 'why' go because ... why isn't important enough for me to hurt. And I don't want to hurt," Mr. Oken says. His wife cuts him off. "There is no 'why,'" she says. "He doesn't know why. He does not know. It's like another person. ... But I think he's a kinder and gentler person today. He's become more serious, more caring. He's matured."

Going down for their weekly visits to Supermax — a parent's nightmare if there ever was one — has become a routine matter, they say, although some things they'll never get used to. "We haven't touched him in five or six years. [Before,] I could hold his hand, I could kiss him," Mrs. Oken says. "But it just becomes a way of life. You do what you have to do. It's better than the alternative. He makes me feel good. I adore him. At least I know he's living."

Says Mr. Oken, partially to himself: "It's a consequence of his actions. These are the consequences he has to live with. I just wish some people could understand that life in prison, particularly the way he is imprisoned, is a terrible punishment. Life in prison can be as severe as the death penalty."

The Okens, who adopted Steven when he was 2 days old and arranged for his conversion to Judaism shortly afterward, suspect that his insecurities about being adopted may have played a role in his descent into substance abuse, particularly during high school. "In his teen years, he often said to me, 'You don't know what it's like not to know where you come from,'" recalls Mrs. Oken. "He was trying to research his birth mother, never successful. And it breaks my heart because I wish I could help him. And when his wife began traveling [prior to the murders], I just think he felt like somebody else abandoned him."

At this point in the conversation, Mr. Oken adds, with his voice breaking, "We're not biological. There's a difference here that I can't understand. I guess you have to be the person who's adopted. I'd think about it and say to myself, 'Who cares? I've got two people here who love me.'" Lost in her thoughts, Mrs. Oken acknowledges that most adopted people are law-abiding citizens. "I just think some people handle it better than others, like other things. If I knew the answer," she says, with her voice trailing off.

Oken himself agrees with his parents that being adopted might've contributed to his penchant for drug experimentation, but he rejects the notion that it might've led to the murders. "Being adopted is hard," he says, "but I don't think it had anything to do with what happened. I think anyone who was adopted has to have that little place in their heart and mind — where did I come from? What's important is I have a family. They've always been there for me. I can't begin to say how much I love them," he says, struggling to keep his composure.

Furthermore, he scoffs at the tendency among some Jews to dismiss his unusual status as a Jewish serial rapist/murderer merely because he wasn't born Jewish. Accept it or not, he says, he is a Jew, regardless of his ethnic or genetic makeup. "I don't think that makes any difference," Oken says during the only slightly testy moment of our 80-minute interview. "I grew up Jewish and lived in a Jewish house. When I was 8 days old, I had a bris. My Hebrew name is Shimon Hirsch. I'm Jewish, period."

Like many inmates, Oken, who became a bar mitzvah at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, has become progressively more religiously observant since his incarceration. The Jewish Big Brother/Big Sister League has been involved with Oken since his extradition to Maryland in 1990, and the agency's executive director, Louis H. Jacobs, personally meets with him on a monthly basis. In its prison outreach program, the league visits and maintains contact with 177 inmates across Maryland.

"We're not close buddies. I don't think he thinks of me as among his most private confidants," Mr. Jacobs says of Oken. "Our conversations are usually fairly superficial. He's a well-defended guy. He has a cloud hanging over his head, so there's a place that's very sensitive. But I enjoy my time with him, being with him. He's engaging, bright, thoughtful."

Mr. Jacobs finds that most people in the Jewish community are unfamiliar with Oken's case and are "floored" to learn of a local Jew on Death Row. "There's a morbid curiosity," Mr. Jacobs says. "My parents always want to know about it and why the agency reaches out to him, or if it affects my personal feelings about the issue." Moishe Davids, a league volunteer, also meets with Oken once a month. Since 1997, Mr. Davids, who belongs to the Bais Lubavitch Congregation, has provided religious books, commentaries on weekly Torah portions, holiday packages and spiritual instruction to Oken. During one of their meetings a couple of years ago, Mr. Davids, a retired probation officer, brought a pair of tefillin, or phylacteries. "I showed him how to put them on," he says. "Of course, at Supermax you can't have physical contact so I showed him through the window, with a telephone propped on my shoulder, and then I gave the tefillin to a guard to give to Steve on the other side. He got the hang of it."

For Mr. Davids, Oken is a soul to reach, a Jewish heart and mind to win over, languishing in one of the most remote and terrifying places imaginable. And he's had some success. "He's undergone a religious transformation," says Mr. Davids, who lives in Park Heights. "There's definitely been a change in his Jewish outlook and commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people. He now fasts on all of the fast days and observes the major holidays, and he reads articles and books [on Judaism] and asks me to discuss them. He's a smart fellow."

Despite the heinous nature of Oken's crimes, Mr. Davids says he feels no apprehension or moral quandary about visiting with him. Oken, he says, is not a monster or a demon but a lost Jew. And he turns to the Torah and its emphasis on compassion and non-judgmentalism for guidance. "We're taught that a Jew is a Jew even if he sins. That's the Jewish way," Mr. Davids says. "Mitzvahs are not always easy to do. This is a hard mitzvah. I understand it's difficult for some people to separate sins from the sinner. But I can't ignore him because of the crimes he's convicted of."

Oken, who says he now puts on tefillin just about every day, describes Mr. Davids' visits as nothing short of life-changing. The tone of his voice perks up and his eyes glow when discussing his blossoming interest in Judaism. "I'd never heard the word HaShem growing up," he says. "We celebrated the High Holidays, Passover and Purim, but I never knew there was a fast day before Purim, or about the Ninth of Av or the Fast of Gedaliah or the 17th of Tammuz. "I try to do as much as I can," Oken says. "I consider myself now a spiritual person. It calms me and brings peace to me. It makes me feel like there's a purpose."

And becoming a more observant Jew, he says, has helped him deal better with the actions of his past. "I hurt a lot of people," he says, staring at the floor, "and I pray they forgive me — for themselves, to get some peace. I've done teshuva [repentance]. I've admitted I did it, recognizing this is a horrible act and I'm responsible for it. I have this awful feeling about what I did. "But it's not just what I did against people," Oken says, barely audibly, "but what I did against God."

A soft evening rain falls on the roof as Davida Oken glances at a table full of framed family photographs, including one of Steven standing on a balcony with the ocean in the background. She thinks it was at Bethany Beach, a few months before the murders. He's grinning, holding a rolled-up newspaper, looking like he doesn't have a worry in the world, wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and jeans.

It's a nice memory, she says, the kind that keeps her going. But other memories make her seethe. "Almost the first day [after Oken was arrested], I was in Pikesville and someone I've known since high school came up to me and said, 'Didn't you ever teach your son that you don't do things like that?'" she recalls. "What do you say to a stupid, ignorant person like that? For someone to say something that stupid is unbelievable."

The Okens, who are former longtime congregants of Baltimore Hebrew, say that type of disregard for them has been a hallmark of the Jewish community's behavior toward their family since the slayings. In conversation, they can barely contain their bitterness toward the community — individuals and as a whole — for failing to provide virtually any emotional, spiritual or political support to them or their son.

Over the years, they've called and sent scores of letters to rabbis and other Jewish communal leaders, particularly those who've publicly stated their opposition to capital punishment. They say few have responded. Interestingly, the Catholic church, particularly Archbishop William H. Keeler, has been in touch frequently to offer encouragement. "I thought the Jewish people were a brotherhood. I don't feel that way now," says Ms. Oken. "I needed someone to help us handle this. When you reach out to your leaders and they turn a cold shoulder, you have to wonder what it's all about."

Oken himself is more disappointed in his old friends' unwillingness to visit or keep in touch. "I don't think people want to be bothered. Maybe they can't deal with it," he says. "But I think if the shoe was on the other foot, I would've kept in touch. I feel let down." As far as the organized community is concerned, "I don't care for myself but for my family. They were members of Baltimore Hebrew for many years," he says. "I don't know if it's politics or what."

Lou Jacobs, of Jewish Big Brother /Big Sister, agrees with the Okens' assessment of the community, even though he acknowledges that Jews are as divided about the death penalty as the rest of America. Last fall, he sent a form letter to more than 40 area rabbis to inform them about Oken's situation, and to suggest using the case as a means of creating dialogue about capital punishment in their congregations.

He was shocked when he received only a few responses, including one from a rabbi who was "indignant" that Mr. Jacobs advocated discussions about the death penalty merely because a Jew was on Death Row. "Shouldn't the Okens feel they're getting support from somewhere, or do they have to live with this black mark forever? The community institutions and leaders haven't been there for them," Mr. Jacobs says. He attributes it to a tendency among Jews to avoid viewing themselves in an unflattering light.

"We don't think the Jewish community has a substance abuse problem or domestic violence. We think we're immune to those problems, whether because of genes or conditioning," he says. "But a Jew could be executed in Maryland, and one way or another our community will have to make a decision about this."

However, the Oken matter is simply not a Jewish issue and that's why the case has received scant attention from the community, counters Arthur C. Abramson, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. "He's an individual who committed atrocious crimes, was found guilty and happens to be Jewish, but it had nothing to do with his ethnic or religious beliefs," says Mr. Abramson, whose agency supported the moratorium bill.

Rabbi Donald R. Berlin is one of the community leaders to whom the Okens wrote a letter requesting assistance. The former spiritual leader of Temple Oheb Shalom, who has publicly criticized the death penalty, admits that he never responded, largely because he wasn't really sure what to do with this matter.

But he says he also felt the Okens were specifically seeking his involvement in the campaign for their son's clemency, something he didn't feel comfortable doing since "the crime was so horrific." "I understand why they feel abandoned. This must be excruciatingly painful for them. Their child is in trouble," he says. "But they seemed only to want a rabbi who'd intervene for their cause. I had no major reason to get involved. ... The death penalty is wrong. But I wouldn't want to come to his defense. Because he's Jewish?"

When he was contacted by the Okens, Baltimore Hebrew's Rabbi Rex D. Perlmeter delegated the matter to an associate rabbi who met with them about a month ago. "I don't have a personal history with them," he says, noting that he sent a "letter of concern" about the case to the governor's office.

But in retrospect, Rabbi Perlmeter says he could've handled the situation better, and that embarrassment played a role. "When I see someone in these circumstances, I feel a sense of shame and sorrow that this has happened to a member of the Jewish community," he says. "If I had to do it again, I think I would've read between the lines and provided comfort for them." That's exactly what Rabbi Jacob A. Max, of Moses Montefiore-Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation, has tried to do. After being contacted by a mutual friend, Rabbi Max visited recently with the Okens and Steven. He has also written a letter to the governor requesting that Oken be returned to Maine to complete his life sentence.

Rabbi Max says he can understand why many of his colleagues and others in the Jewish community don't want to deal with the Oken case. "Our people used to be convicted for white-collar crimes, not violent crimes. But a Jewish guy on Death Row? It's a new creature of its type. The community doesn't know how to handle it," he says.

But the rabbi feels people must rise above it, especially for a fellow Jew. "He's still a person, created in the image of God until the very end," he says. "The act he did was monstrous, but he's not a monster. He still has a neshamah, a soul."

Unlike most of us, Steven Oken doesn't look at capital punishment from a theoretical point of view. It's something real, vibrant, immediate, an organism that shares his cell with him, along with his sink, toilet, shelves, TV, stacks of books and magazines, and concrete slab with a mattress. "Look at the company this country is in — China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan," he says. "This is a country that executes children and the mentally retarded. And it's not fairly applied. Nobody on Death Row in Maryland is here because they killed a black person, and the vast majority of homicides in this state are black-on-black. It just doesn't address the situation, and it's unfair."

Unfair like the fate of his three victims, their families, and that of his own parents and siblings. Oken says he thinks about his victims every day of his life. It's a pain that's beyond words, he says, knowing how hypocritical and insensitive that might sound. But he appears to really mean it — at least from this side of the window. "It's something you can never block out of your mind," Oken says. "You wake up every morning and you're here, and you know why you're here — you took lives, the pain you gave their families, all the happiness you took from them."

At this point in the interview, he studies his large folded hands. He pauses and begins to mumble. It's apparent he's no longer talking to me but to a few unseen forces that seem to be crowding the tiny visitation room. "I just want to be clear that I did this. Not the drugs, it was me. I can't express how sorry I am. There are no words."

Maybe Steven Oken is someone who learned too late during his time on earth about the preciousness of life — that of his own and others. While his victims lost their lives, so did he, to a certain extent. His is now an existence, spent from moment to moment trying to maintain his sanity by reading books and working on appeals. For all intents and purposes, he ceased being alive, stopped being a functioning human being, the moment he lured Dawn Garvin into her apartment that chilly November night and proceeded to torture and kill her.

He knows there are those who would like to do the same to him, who feel that death by lethal injection is simply not good enough. But that, he points out, will still not rectify the actions that forever concluded his life as a member of society, at the age of 25.

And so he presses on, to stay alive, to keep moving. As an armed guard wearing a bulletproof vest arrives to inform us that our time is almost up, Oken and I stare at each other for what seems a long time. Without saying a word, he reminds me that he comes from the same place I do, with the same values and ethics and belief system and culture that permeated the lives and times we once shared. And it makes me shudder when I look at my reflection in the window and beyond, at Oken. "I was brought up to care about people and respect them," he insists, still sounding like a nice Jewish boy from the old neighborhood. "I just think I'm basically a good person who's done terrible, terrible things."

And when the guard returns and begins to place handcuffs on Oken and usher him away, he waves and again wishes me a happy Passover.