Steven Brian Pennell

Name

Steven Brian Pennell

Also known as “The Corridor Killer”

Status / Outcome

Steven Brian Pennell was executed by lethal injection in Delaware on March 14, 1992.

He was executed at age 34 in 1992 by the State of Delaware.

He became the first person to be executed in Delaware since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated.

His execution was carried out inside a trailer on the grounds of the Delaware Correctional Center near Dover.

A Roman Catholic priest administered last rites.

Timeline

• November 29, 1987 — Shirley Ellis was killed, and the violent murder marked the beginning of Steven Brian Pennell’s reign as the state of Delaware’s first convicted serial killer.
• September 20, 1988 — The body of Michelle Gordon was found.
• November 29, 1988 — Steven Pennell was arrested, one year to the day after the first victim was found.
• November 29, 1989 — Steven Pennell was found guilty in the deaths of the first two victims.
• October 30, 1991 — Steven Pennell pleaded no contest to the murder of two others.
• Halloween 1991 — Steven Brian Pennell was sentenced to die by lethal injection after being convicted of two of the five murders he committed.
• March 14, 1992 — His sentence was carried out; he was executed by lethal injection at age 34.
• March 15, 1992 — Delaware conducted an execution for the first time in almost half a century, putting to death Steven Brian Pennell.

Background

Steven Brian Pennell (1957 or 1958 — March 14, 1992) was suspected of three more murders in addition to two New Castle County, Delaware women.

He maintained innocence to the end.

He asked for the death penalty so that he could spare his family further agony.

He fought his wife’s efforts to appeal his sentence, saying his continued imprisonment was causing his family anguish.

His execution was the 166th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed resumption of capital punishment.

No executions in Delaware had occurred since 1946.

Delaware Correctional Center was near Dover, and the execution occurred in a trailer on its grounds.

Other details

Pennell’s wife was Kathy.

Marlene Simm, the mother of Michelle Gordon, was among a crowd of 40 death-penalty supporters and opponents gathered on the prison grounds.

Marlene Simm said she was pleased by the execution.

Pennell’s execution cost the state a grand total of $47,085.

Pennell had been serving a lifetime prison term for the murder of two women when he was indicted last year on charges of killing two others before his capture.

Pennell represented himself on appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court and urged the court to hasten his execution.

The offence

Pennell was convicted of the murders of two New Castle County, Delaware women.

He pleaded no contest to the murder of Kathleen Meyer once DNA evidence linked him to the case.

He was suspected of three more murders.

A fifth woman’s body was never found.

Pennell lured women into his van with a promise of money for sex.

Once inside, victims were bound with tape, tortured and mutilated.

Pennell carried a “rape kit” in his van containing devices used to torture victims. Items described included pliers, a whip, handcuffs, needles, knives, and other restraints.

The modus operandi varied across murders, including:

• binding a victim by the hands and ankles while raping and beating the buttocks with a whip
• hitting victims with a hammer until they were battered and bloody (and still alive)
• using pliers to squeeze a victim’s breasts and cut off her nipples

Pennell strangled victims to death, then bashed in their skulls with a blunt object.

Bodies were dumped along wooded areas next to highways 40 and 13.

Pennell cruised Interstate 40 and 13 for about eleven months in search of women he could torture and rape.

Victims and places

Shirley Ellis

Shirley Ellis was killed on November 29, 1987.

Michelle Gordon

Michelle Gordon was 22.

Her body was found on Sept. 20, 1988.

Marlene Simm was her mother.

Kathleen Meyer

Kathleen Meyer was 26.

She had disappeared 10 days earlier.

Her body was never found.

Pennell pleaded no contest to her murder after DNA evidence linked him to the case.

Fifth woman (unnamed in record)

Pennell was the chief suspect in the murder of a fifth woman.

Her body was found so decomposed that police could not retrieve any evidence.

The body of a fifth woman has never been found.

Investigation and arrest

State and county police collaborated with the FBI to identify and hunt down a suspect, forming a task force of over 100 officers and spending about one million dollars.

The FBI used knowledge and experience with other serial killers to create a psychological profile of Delaware’s serial killer.

Pennell was arrested on November 29, 1988, after months of around-the-clock surveillance.

Pennell was caught when an undercover state police officer named Renee C. Lano, posing as a prostitute on route 40, gathered fibers from Pennell’s van and submitted them to the FBI laboratory for testing.

Blue fibers from an automobile had been found on one of the victims, and the results were described as a perfect match.

The police’s inexperience with serial murder was described in connection with why the FBI agreed to help.

Special agents John Douglas and Steve Mardigan aided the investigation.

Douglas testified against Pennell at his 1989 trial.

Trial and sentencing

Pennell was convicted in the deaths of the first two victims on November 29, 1989.

Pennell pleaded no contest to the murder of two others on October 30, 1991.

A judge in New Castle County Superior Court ruled that Pennell’s wife had not shown that her husband was mentally impaired.

The State Supreme Court later agreed, stating: “There is not a scintilla of evidence that Pennell is incompetent.”

State law required that a death sentence be automatically appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Pennell was sentenced to death and later sentenced to die by lethal injection after being convicted of two of the five murders he committed.

He was sentenced on Halloween of 1991.

Appeals and last efforts to stop execution

Motions for a stay were filed for Mrs. Pennell.

W. Michael Jacobs of the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Litigation Project argued that Pennell was committing “a foolish suicide” and an “irrational act and one which Mrs. Pennell wishes to do everything in her power to stop.”

Mrs. Pennell argued that her husband’s outlook proved that he was mentally incompetent.

State and federal courts turned down the petition for a stay.

At 9 o’clock this morning, the United States Supreme Court issued the final rejection of her petition.

On the day of execution, the death chamber was divided into a glass-enclosed death chamber and an adjoining room for witnesses.

Asked by the acting warden, Robert Snyder, whether he had any last words, Pennell “briefly opened his eyes and shook his head.”

Execution

The acting warden was Robert Snyder.

Serial Killer Technicians began injecting Pennell with lethal drugs.

After a few moments, Snyder closed a curtain to the death chamber and announced over an intercom that Pennell was dead.

Snyder reopened the curtain, and a Roman Catholic priest next to the body administered last rites.

Delaware Correctional Center was described as near this town 15 miles north of Dover.