OHIO EXECUTION In Columbiana, victim's mother thinks justice is done

The victim's mother said the family spent a hideous month waiting for her son's killer to be executed.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- Doreen Kyle still lives in the house where her son Kurt grew up. That's where she waited while three of Kurt's friends witnessed the execution of his killer.
The death of Adremy Dennis, 28, of Akron by lethal injection Wednesday ended a 10-year wait for the Kyle family. The family spent the last month reliving the horror while preparing to make statements at a Sept. 21 parole hearing.
"We had to go over everything again, look through all Kurt's pictures and things because we had to tell the board about the kind of person Kurt was," she said. "It was just a hideous time, with the legal hearings and all the phone calls. Then it was just agony waiting to see what Gov. Taft would do."
Kyle was referring to the family's wait to see if Gov. Bob Taft would intervene before Wednesday's scheduled execution.
A sense of closure
"We are pleased that it is over," Kyle said. "This scum is gone."
She said that in the last month before Dennis' execution, two family birthdays and an anniversary came and went. Kurt's brother, Craig, turned 36, and Mrs. Kyle turned 64.
"There wasn't much celebrating," she said.
She said that while waiting Wednesday for the execution of his killer, she would look out the window and imagine a young Kurt playing in the back yard.
"He was just a great person," Mrs. Kyle said. "We'd watch TV, and we'd just about roll off the couch laughing. He just had this giggle you couldn't forget."
College graduate
Kurt graduated from Columbiana High School in 1983 and received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Youngstown State University in 1987. He also had a degree in advertising art and was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Columbiana.
Dennis was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and unlawful possession of a gun in the 1994 shooting death of Kyle, 29.
Kurt left Columbiana in 1987 and had a job as a salesman for Kobelco Stewart Boiling Inc., a Hudson-based designer and builder of equipment in the rubber and plastics industries.
Kurt was also an avid stock car racer and was celebrating a race victory with friends and his father, Howard, and brother, Craig, in his Akron back yard the night he was killed.
"He had a lot of goals, and he achieved a lot of those goals," Mrs. Kyle said. "He was caring and loving and got along with everyone. He would never hurt anyone. That just sounds like something everyone would say, but it's true. He was just that way."
Prosecutors said Dennis, then 18, and Leroy Lemar Anderson, then 17, approached Kyle and Martin Eberhart in front of Kyle's home June 5, 1994. Anderson demanded money while pointing a gun at Eberhart's neck. Eberhart handed over $15. Kyle searched his pockets, prompting Dennis to shoot him, prosecutors say.
What killer said
Dennis said during a death-row interview that he told Kyle not to move, then shot Kyle in the head with a 20-gauge sawed-off shotgun because he moved as he searched his pockets for cash.
Dennis said that the killing wasn't planned and that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He said he regretted that the robbery netted so little cash and that he allowed any witnesses to survive.
The parole board voted 5-3 that Taft deny clemency. The dissenting members said Taft should consider clemency, citing Dennis' age at the time of the killing and a troubled childhood.
Anderson is serving a life sentence. Ohio prohibits the death penalty for defendants under 18.
"We are a loving and compassionate family, but this was just a cold, cold, cold crime -- a terrible wrong," Mrs. Kyle said.
She said Eberhart told family members that despite Dennis' claims, Dennis did not have a reason to shoot Kyle -- because Kyle did not move.
Final moments
She said Kyle's friends called her Wednesday and described Dennis' final moments, in which he said he would be "in God's hands now."
Mrs. Kyle, however, still believes Dennis had no remorse for her son's death.
"We heard a lot of tapes, and his friends said he went out the door that night intending to kill someone," she said. "He said a lot of terrible, terrible things on those tapes."
tullis@vindy.com