ROLL'S EXECUTION IS NEAR: FATHER REMEMBERS MURDERED SONS

When asked to describe the kind of people his two youngest sons were, Ron Scheper hesitates to answer.

"At the time of their deaths, they were still pretty young," said Scheper, referring to Curtis Scheper, 21, and Randy Scheper, 17. "They didn't have time to establish themselves."

Along with his former wife, Sherry Scheper, Curtis and Randy were murdered eight years ago by Gary L. Roll at their Cape Girardeau home.

On Wednesday at 12:01 a.m., Scheper expects to see Roll die by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center.

Roll and his attorney, Michael Shipley, have filed a clemency request with Gov. Mel Carnahan but have not filed court appeals, and none are planned. A spokesman said the governor was still weighing the clemency request.

"I don't think I'll get a stay," Roll said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press from his prison holding cell. "I've been in constant pain for over 20 years. I'm not really fighting this very hard.

"It hurts to talk about it," Roll said. "It affected my life so much. It changed me."

"I hope I'll get the closure I'm looking for," Scheper said.

Despite his divorce from Sherry in 1977, Scheper said he had never lost touch with his former wife or children.

"We've had four children together, so we've always been in touch," he said.

Scheper still keeps good memories of his sons. Curtis was gentle, smiled easily and helped others often, Scheper said. When he had worked in food service at Southeast Missouri Hospital, he once was named employee of the month.

Scheper remembers Randy as "a smart kid, a fast learner." He would work alongside Scheper, who was a plumbing contractor, from time to time after school.

"He seemed to like it," said Scheper, who really didn't want another plumber in the family. "But I was always trying to teach him to work with his brains instead of his hands."

Scheper had quit plumbing in 1992 to open a barbecue restaurant on Morgan Oak Street. But the murders created too much stress for him to manage the restaurant. He closed it in December 1992.

"I've been through some other tragedies in life," Scheper said, recalling the death of his father when he was in his 20s. "But that was a one-on-one basis, not three deaths at the same time."

At one point during the three-month murder investigation, Scheper started doing his own detective work. He used his business contacts from years of plumbing and owning rental properties to find out information. Everything he learned, he told police. But he didn't feel that police investigators reciprocated.

"In my opinion, I was given misleading information from the police department," Scheper said.

Scheper continues to be angry, but mostly about what happened after Roll was convicted of murder.

It took a year for Circuit Court Judge Frank Conley to give a decision on whether a new trial should be granted, while Scheper had been told it would take six weeks.

He complains that the Cape Girardeau County prosecutor's office has never kept him informed about Roll's appeal status. Most of what Scheper knows about Roll's appeals has come from seeking court dockets and from the Internet, he said.

"I have been more traumatized by the judicial system than my loss," Scheper said.

Only lately has Scheper found assistance in getting information through to officials with the Missouri attorney general's office and the state Department of Corrections, he said.

Scheper has had trouble getting the idea across to those in the judicial system that he is a victim, too.

"They think that the only victims are dead," he said.

Scheper was particularly hurt by the use of crime scene photographs by prosecutor Morley Swingle in a class at Southeast Missouri State University, he said.

"If they're going to show them locally, at least they could blacken out the faces," Scheper said. "But he takes these close up photos and puts them on display."

More of the photos turned up in a true-crime tabloid two years after the murders, Scheper said. He first saw them at a supermarket in the checkout stand.

"I open it up, and there's my son's head in a pool of blood," Scheper said.

A few years after the murders a film crew for a crime-related television series came to Cape Girardeau to film a simulation of the murders, Scheper said. After pleading with the production company, they agreed not to let any scenes be broadcast locally, he said.

Another blow to Scheper came before Roll's trial. He still can't understand why accomplices David Rhodes and John Browne Jr. only got life in prison.

"When you have 100 percent of the physical evidence linking someone to a crime, what else do you need?" Scheper said. "All three should have got the death penalty."

Browne, who was best friends with Scheper's son, Curtis, helped plan the robbery that became murder, Scheper said. He recalls when Browne was growing up, he spent as much time at the Schepers' as at his own house.

Scheper also knew Roll, whose father operated a heating and cooling business.

"His mother and mine were neighbors for about 15 years," Scheper said.

One of the biggest fears of Scheper, 57, who has diabetes, has been that Roll could outlive him through appeals from death row.

But he still has sympathy for Roll's family.

"While I've been afraid through these years of Gary outliving me, they live in fear of running out of time," Scheper said.

Scheper plans to witness Roll's execution Wednesday. But whether Roll lives or dies around midnight, Scheper will still have a memory of Roll at home every summer: Roll installed Scheper's air conditioner.

"It still works," Scheper said.