The legal wrangling and delays anger and dumbfound Iberri. He says he is as disgusted with lawmakers and state officials who pay lip service to supporting the death penalty but do nothing to reinstate it as he is with the liberals who fight executions on moral grounds.
A man who stays fit from a physically demanding job as a house painter and daily potions from his juicer, Iberri still goes to gatherings of Parents of Murdered Children. He finds some solace in talking the newly bereaved through the hard parts, the early days when life doesn't feel worth living. He avoids telling them that for him, it often still doesn't.
Iberri and Vanessa's mother, Marsha, were divorced when Edwards, who'd spent 14 years as an adolescent and young adult at a Maryland correctional facility for sociopaths, shot Vanessa and Kelly.
Edwards' motivation in shooting the girls, who were complete strangers to him, never clearly emerged during his trial. Psychiatric records of a long-hair fetish that contributed to his landing in the Maryland mental facility -- both Vanessa and Kelly wore their hair below the shoulders -- weren't turned over by the prosecution at the time of the trials.
Iberri can't talk about Edwards without expletives and describes defense attorneys, death penalty opponents and human rights advocates as "sickening, disgusting scum" who don't understand what victims' families go through.
"They're going beyond the line of duty," he said of those fighting Edwards' legal battles. "That's the problem with this system -- everybody needs a paycheck. It makes me sick."
Joe Schlesinger, the public defender who has handled Edwards' case since 1990, blamed prosecution suppression of the Maryland psychiatric records for dragging out the appeals process. It took the defense 17 years to prove the state had withheld evidence of Edwards' mental condition that provided grounds for further appeals. Although unsuccessful, the appeals added years to the legal process.
"The fact that it takes time is often what allows the truth to come out" in capital cases, said Schlesinger, saying the government was obligated to address every challenge before a life can be taken.
Iberri worked as a cook in a seafood restaurant in Pacific Beach before the murder but lost that job and others because he took off a lot of time to attend legal proceedings and deal with his grief.
"I don't blame him," he said of the first restaurant manager to fire him.
