INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously Monday to recommend against clemency for Marvin Bieghler, the self-professed "King Kong of Kokomo" sentenced to death for the execution-style slayings of a Howard County couple in 1981.\nBarring a last-minute reprieve from Gov. Mitch Daniels or the courts, Bieghler, 58, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City early Friday.\nBieghler, an admitted marijuana dealer, was convicted of killing Tommy Miller, 20, and Kimberly Jane Miller, 19, whose bodies were found Dec. 11, 1981, in their mobile home near Russiaville, Ind. Tommy Miller had been shot six times and his pregnant wife three times.\nAuthorities contended he killed the couple because he believed Tommy Miller had told police about his operation moving marijuana from Florida to the Kokomo area and also felt Miller owed him a drug debt.\n"By his own testimony, Mr. Bieghler stated he was the 'King Kong of Kokomo in the drug business," Valerie Parker, vice chairwoman of the Parole Board, said, reading her letter to Daniels recommending against clemency.\nBoard Chairman Raymond Rizzo acknowledged Bieghler was convicted largely on circumstantial evidence, as the condemned prisoner's attorney had argued during the clemency hearing earlier in the day.\n"What we have is a convicted double killer, scheduled for execution in less than 96 hours, who also lacks evidence proving his innocence, woven deeply into a sordid saga of marijuana by the bale, money by the cooler-full, guns of every type, and a seemingly endless parade of felons, all of whom seem eager to drop a dime on each other," Rizzo said.\nBieghler had dropped a dime on each of the victims' bodies, according to court records, to send a message to that he would not tolerate informants. Authorities have said Miller was not an informant.\nBieghler told the Parole Board Friday that he was innocent and wanted Daniels to commute his sentence to time served, but that if not granted his freedom, he wanted to die.\n"If I can't get out, then let's get at it," he said. "I'm not in here begging for my life. I'm not going to do life without parole for something I didn't do."\nBieghler's attorney, Brent Westerfeld, asked the board to recommend clemency as it had in the case of another death row inmate, Darnell Williams, in 2004. Former Gov. Joe Kernan commuted Williams' sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.\nOthers implicated in Bieghler's drug operation cut deals with prosecutors in exchange for the testimony that wound up convicting his client, Westerfeld said.\n"The evidence against Marvin was never strong," Westerfeld said. "Police pressured (one witness) to get a story. They made a deal to get a story."\nKimberly Jane Miller's brother, John Wright of Greentown, choked back tears as he testified during Monday's hearing.\n"Our family pleads with this board and Governor Daniels to go through with and uphold this death penalty," Wright said.\nThe Parole Board also heard the reading of a letter from Tommy Miller's mother, Priscilla Hodges, in which she lamented losing the opportunity to be a grandmother to the slain couple's unborn child.\n"This entire family has been victimized by what Marvin Bieghler did for over 20 years," Hodges wrote.\nThe Parole Board has recommended clemency in a capital case just once since the death penalty was reinstated in Indiana in 1977. Board members unanimously recommended clemency for Williams in 2004, saying his case had too many unresolved questions.\nDaniels commuted the death sentence of Arthur Baird II to life without parole last August. Baird's lawyers argued that he was mentally ill, but the state Parole Board voted 3-1 to recommend that the execution be carried out.
It was not clear when Daniels would decide whether to grant clemency to Bieghler. Daniels spokeswoman Jane Jankowski said the governor had received a briefing on the case and was reviewing the information.\nFive people have been executed since Daniels took office in January 2005.
