Families share moment of compassion in murder case

RENO - It was a single act of compassion in a courtroom chamber of horrors for the families of a convicted rapist and killer, his victims and their families.

Minutes after the guilty verdict was read, Brianna Denison's grandmother extended her hands to the mother of the man convicted of kidnapping the petite 19-year-old, raping her, strangling her, then - as prosecutors said - dumping her naked body in a field "like garbage."

A jury returns to Washoe District Court on Tuesday to hear more testimony as it decides whether James Biela should be sentenced to death for Denison's murder and the sexual assault of two other women.

Denison's grandmother, Barbara Zunino, slowly walked across the courtroom aisle to come face-to-face with Biela's mother, Kathy Lovell, after the verdict was announced Thursday.

Lovell grasped Zunino's outstretched hands, and they looked at each other through tear-filled eyes. While their words were inaudible from a few steps away, their body language suggested an expression of sorrow and sympathy.

"I'm a mom, she's a mom," Zunino told The Associated Press later, declining to comment further.

That Lovell deserved some sympathy became clear the next day as she and Biela's siblings described the torment Biela's abusive father put them through growing up in poverty in the Chicago area and later Reno.

According to their testimony, most nights Joseph Biela would handcuff or tie Lovell to the bedpost before he whipped and beat her, describing his sexual fantasies as he assaulted her in the bedroom next to the one Jimmy Biela shared with his older brother, Jeff.

"I can still hear it in my mind, the whipping noise the belt would make as he would whip her, and her begging him to stop," Jeff Biela said. "Merciless wailing on her. Just agony. Torture, I guess."

The family members said Joseph Biela broke Lovell's teeth and her ribs; he pulled hair from her head and earrings from her lobes; and he bound her wrists so many times she eventually had to have surgery to repair the bones.

"They'd see their father enter the room and drag her out from under the bed," said Dr. Melissa Piasecki, a psychiatrist who interviewed Lovell, James Biela, his brother and two sisters.

Piasecki said Joseph Biela's "bizarre" behavior included putting the family cat in the freezer and urinating in its cat box.

Lovell finally separated from her husband after they moved from Illinois to Reno in 1990.

In a telephone interview Friday, Joseph Biela, 61, said the testimony was filled with "lies."

"Everything was fine," said Joseph Biela, who still lives in the Reno area. "I beat my wife but never my kids."

Asked if the beatings were severe, he said, "That you will have to ask her."

Biela's lawyers said the mitigating factors they're presenting in a bid to spare Biela's life are not meant to justify or excuse the horrible crimes he is convicted of committing.

"Nothing we say is meant to lessen the tragic loss of life or take away the pain so many people have suffered on a very human level," public defender James Leslie said. "But there are reasons not to vote for the death penalty in this case."

Prosecutors said the bottom line is that Biela alone is to blame for what happened.

"All the emotions, all the travesties of this case - all the impacts on friends and families, it's all happening because of (Biela) and nobody else," Deputy District Attorney Chris Hicks said.

For at least one moment last week, Denison's grandmother wanted Lovell to know she was not to blame. Zunino said perhaps she'll eventually reveal the words she told the fellow grieving mother.

"Maybe," she said with a slight smile, "someday."