ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA LAFAY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
JOSEPH SAVINO says he's a victim - of priests, defense lawyers and the gay lover he beat to death in Bedford County. Now he faces death himself.
Barring a reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court or clemency from the governor, a New York man convicted of killing his male lover in Bedford County will die tonight by lethal injection.
Joseph John Savino III, 37, a native of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., pleaded guilty to capital murder in the 1988 killing of Thos ("Tom") McWaters, another New Yorker who moved to Virginia after buying a farm here in 1985. Savino moved in with McWaters in 1988 when he was paroled to Virginia after serving six years in a New York prison for robbery.
Savino had known McWaters for seven years and worked for his New York construction firm. The two had "a domestic relationship," according to court documents. That relationship went sour, according to Savino.
Although the 64-year-old McWaters supported him and gave him money, Savino said in an interview this week, he also hounded him for sex and routinely threatened to try to get his parole revoked if he didn't comply. In an effort to avoid McWaters, Savino said, he began spending time in Roanoke, shooting cocaine with friends.
"McWaters was painted by the prosecutor at Joe's sentencing as simply wanting Joe to be happy," Savino's lawyer, Gerald T. Zerkin, said Tuesday. "That's clearly nonsense. This case was about sexual obsession and the power and the control that McWaters attempted to exert over Joe."
The situation came to a head on Nov. 29, 1988, when McWaters was found bludgeoned to death in the home he shared with Savino. The following day, police arrested Savino in Roanoke. In April 1989, he pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to death.
In subsequent appeals, Savino and his lawyers argued that police badgered Savino into confessing to the killing even though he had repeatedly asked for a lawyer and refused to waive his Miranda rights.
In addition, they claimed, Savino got ineffective assistance from his trial lawyers because they made no efforts to suppress his confession, allowed him to plead guilty without sufficient knowledge of the consequences and failed to tell him that his state of acute cocaine psychosis on the night of the murder could have been a viable defense.
Savino grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., raised by his mother, a beautician. He attended Catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade. From the beginning, he claimed, he and a group of other boys were sexually molested by several priests at the school. Many of those boys grew up to die of heroin overdoses or go to prison, he said.
"They really wreaked a lot of havoc on my town, those priests," said Savino, himself a former heroin addict. "I mean, all these people are dead."
As he got older and began to get into trouble, Savino said, the priests were afraid to discipline him for fear he would tell on them. They began to pay him to keep his mouth shut. Meanwhile, he began to trade sex for money with men outside of school.
At 21, after spending two years in prison, Savino met McWaters when the older man gave him a job. As the relationship progressed, Savino said, he became addicted to heroin. McWaters began paying him for sex and Savino used the money to support his habit.
"I needed money, so I started tricking with him for money," Savino said. "But it was important to him to think that I wasn't doing it for the money. It was important for him to believe that we were in a relationship. Like it wasn't a relationship, like he wasn't just paying for it."
Bishop Walter Sullivan came to Savino's cell in the death house at the Greensville Correctional Center Tuesday and celebrated Mass.
"I received the Sacrament and I was forgiven for all my sins and anointed with oil," said Savino. "It was very comforting. Just the ceremony of it reminds me of home."
Savino's execution is scheduled for 9 p.m.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Savino. color.by CNB