
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990                   TAG: 9006280577
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

SAVINO'S FATHER TRIES AGAIN TO PERSUADE SON AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

With less than a week to go before his son's execution, Joseph Savino Sr. says he will try again this weekend to persuade his son to appeal his death sentence.

Savino said he and his wife, his brother and his sister-in-law will have a non-contact visit with Joseph Savino Jr. at the State Penitentiary today.

"We've been badgering him," the older Savino said Friday in a telephone interview from his Westchester County, N.Y., home. "We spoke to him last night. I did some badgering again and I intend to do some badgering Sunday."

He and his brother also will have a contact visit with the younger Savino on June 29, the day he is scheduled to die in the state's electric chair.

Savino, 31, has refused to pursue appeals of his conviction for the November 1988 robbery and beating death of his lover, Thos "Tom" McWaters, 64, at the Bedford County farm where they lived.

Savino said in an interview this week that he could not stand living on death row for 10 years or more while his appeals run out.

"I just really think that he's so frustrated with the inhumanity of the system. Life on death row has probably gotten to him more," the older Savino said.

"I understand his frustration," he said. "I would like to see him certainly change his mind."

Savino said he offered to file an appeal for his son, but the younger Savino said a death row inmate who had that done for him in Texas had his execution delayed only two days.

by CNB