Aug 20, 2008 11:00 pm US/Eastern
I-Team: Botched Execution?
Reporting
Jim Osman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
Three years ago, the State of Delaware administered a lethal injection to killer Brian Steckel and flatly denied that there were problems during the execution.
But now, Investigative Reporter Jim Osman, who was a witness to the execution, has uncovered documents that show otherwise.
Killer Brian Steckel asked his cousin Mary Kolesnik to be one of two family witnesses to his execution in 2005.
And Mary has held a secret for years to protect the killer's mother from discovering exactly what happened in the execution chamber that night.
"We kind of made a pact we'd walk out of there and say he went to sleep and it was over and he was peace and it was OK," said Kolesnik.
On November 4th, 2005, 12:06 a.m., murderer Brian Steckel was laying on a gurney waiting to die for the brutal killing of Sandra Lee Long.
The lethal injection should kill him within minutes.
It took 15 minutes to execute Steckel.
At one point he looked at the warden and asked "I didn't think this was supposed to take so long."
The state flatly denied any problems.
But federal public defenders using prison records and depositions of prison officials now reveal otherwise.
In the depositions, prison officials say the executioners had problems with one IV line and switching to a second failed to give Steckel anesthesia.
Then the executioner gave Steckel twice the amount of potassium chloride.
Marlene Edwards - Steckel's mother - makes no excuses for her son who raped and murdered Long in 1994 at a Delaware apartment complex.
But she also says the State of Delaware is also not excused in her opinion - botching up and covering up - mistakes in the execution chamber.
A lawsuit by Federal public defenders goes to court in Delaware next month challenging Delaware's death penalty.
The lawsuit contends the state has administered wrong doses in almost 40 percent of executions since 1992, including Steckel's.
The State of Delaware still defends what happened at as standard procedure and declined further comment.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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