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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990                   TAG: 9005230675
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

EXECUTION SET JUNE 29 FOR KILLER OF LOVER

Savino, who had asked for an early execution date, told the judge he was satisfied with the date and planned no appeal. Savino showed no emotion during the 10-minute hearing today.

He did ask Circuit Court Judge William Sweeney to allow his execution to be broadcast on television - an act he said might deter others from committing similar crimes.

"I would like to request that since my trial and sentencing were public, that my execution be made public," Savino said.

Bedford County Circuit Court allows television cameras in the courtroom as part of an experiment sponsored by the Virginia General Assembly. Though Savino's sentencing was filmed, Sweeney allowed no cameras in the courtroom today.

If it was up to him, Sweeney said, he would also block cameras from filming the execution.

Sweeney asked Savino whether he also would have wanted the crime itself televised - had that been possible. Savino said quietly, "No."

Sweeney said the issue of a televised execution was outside his jurisdiction.

Savino, 30, pleaded guilty last year to the capital murder and robbery of Thos McWaters Jr. He told a judge that "something snapped" in his mind the night of Nov. 29, 1988, when he hammered and stabbed to death his 64-year-old lover.

McWaters' demands for sex were no longer tolerable, Savino said. Savino said he had also used cocaine that night and that he was feeling "extreme paranoia."

Savino moved in to McWaters' 200-acre estate south of Bedford in February 1988 when he got out of a New York prison after a robbery conviction. McWaters, an engineer, had moved to Bedford three years earlier. The pair had met years earlier when Savino worked for McWaters.

Circuit Court Judge William Sweeney sentenced Savino to death in the electric chair in July 1989.

In April, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Savino's sentence, saying his long criminal record showed he was likely to commit further violent crimes.

Justice Roscoe B. Stephenson Jr. wrote that the manner by which McWaters was killed also could be considered in judging Savino's future dangerousness. "Undeniably, the manner of the murder was excessive and brutal," he wrote.