For Son of Slain Woman, Execution Fails to End Sorrow

Seated just outside the San Quentin prison’s death chamber early Tuesday, Vitoon Harusadangkul watched intently as his mother’s killer was executed, a reluctant participant at the end of a bitterly fought legal saga.

For years since the 1981 murder, the 31-year-old computer programmer tried to put the gruesome crime behind him, going to boarding school out of state and eventually settling in Virginia.

But last November, after killer Jaturun “Jay” Siripongs won an unexpected reprieve from execution, Harusadangkul decided to get involved.

“I was sick of him playing games with the law. I wanted to do something,” he said. “I made a conscious effort to fight this time. . . . I will never get over the pain of separation from my mother.”

Harusadangkul traveled to California and testified last week in favor of execution before a state prison panel. Gov. Gray Davis cited his testimony in rejecting clemency for the man who killed Harusadangkul’s mother, Pat Wattanaporn, and her clerk, Quach Nguyen, at a Garden Grove market.

His stand clashes with the position taken by other family members.

His half-brother and stepfather--who owned the Garden Grove market that Siripongs robbed--publicly called for clemency for the killer, saying capital punishment is against Buddhist teachings.

“My God will decide. It’s not something I should,” said his brother, Chris Wattanaporn, 18, hours before the execution.

Harusadangkul’s stand won praise from prosecutors, who said his efforts helped seal Siripongs’ fate.

Jim Tanizaki, the Orange County deputy district attorney who handled the case, sat next to Harusadangkul early Tuesday as Siripongs was executed.

“It was a bittersweet, emotional roller coaster ride for him,” the prosecutor said. “He thought often of his mother. He felt comfortable that she would be approving of his presence and his support for Siripongs’ execution.”

Harusadangkul was one of 40 people, including Siripongs’ sister, state officials and prosecutors, who looked on as the poisonous mix of chemicals was injected into Siripongs’ body, inducing sleep and then the paralysis that stopped his heart within 15 minutes.

Strapped to a padded gurney, two intravenous tubes stuck into his arms, Siripongs appeared oblivious to the crowd gathered outside the death chamber.

He lay still, his eyes closed, seemingly at peace with his fate.

The serene presence of the onetime Buddhist monk was met with silence from execution witnesses. His sister, a Los Angeles resident who emigrated from Thailand after her brother and was his only relative to witness the execution, watched stoically.

Siripongs, clad in blue denim trousers and a work shirt, made only one movement while the poison trickled into his veins. A few minutes after the injection, Siripongs thrust his head back after a brief shudder and opened his mouth in an apparent gasp for air. Then his head dropped again.

The execution came after attorneys for Siripongs exhausted all court appeals in their campaign to commute the death sentence.

Efforts to spare his life were supported by several unlikely sources, including a former San Quentin prison warden and two former jurors who had recommended the death penalty. Few of them contested Siripongs’ guilt but said his sentence should be reduced because of his exemplary prison record and troubled upbringing.

Late Monday, Pope John Paul II joined the pleas for clemency. In a letter to Davis on the pope’s behalf, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States urged “a gesture of mercy that would certainly contribute to the promotion of nonviolence in today’s society.”

Prosecutors, however, called the evidence against Siripongs overwhelming and his acts callous.

Tanizaki called it a “humane” execution process that afforded Siripongs, 43, the opportunity to spend time with friends and relatives in the hours before dying. “Contrast that to the violent deaths of Pat [Wattanaporn] and Quach [Nguyen], whose families never had the chance,” he said.

Times staff writer Greg Hernandez contributed to this report.