Long Wait Ends for Victims’ Kin : Death watch: It was a bizarre night of false alarms, mixed signals and glaring TV lights that ended with Harris’ death at dawn.

Word came, finally, at 6:21 a.m. It arrived, not through a telephone call from a relative, but from television--the “big-screen” droning on endlessly in the family room of the Mira Mesa home once occupied by one of the two teen-age victims of killer Robert Alton Harris.

For hours, Laura Mankins and Lisa ByBee, the stepsisters of Michael Baker; and Anton, Edwin and Bill Mayeski, the brothers of John Mayeski--had waited, waited, waited . . . through four stays of execution and tedious, often invasive media interviews.

Finally, when a “live” television hookup from San Quentin told them that their 14-year vigil was over, the families of victims John Mayeski and Michael Baker could feel relief, not just from a decade and four years of grief but from the turmoil around them.

Sixteen representatives of the local and national media had begun gathering at the home of Michael Baker’s mother and stepfather shortly after sundown Monday, and many were still there after daybreak Tuesday.

All had shared a sleepless night, tired eyes riveted to a television set and to the cruel game of legal Ping-Pong between the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Four stays within 24 hours by the former. Four rejections by the latter.

With sunlight peeping in the window of the room where Michael Baker once rested after skateboarding, or fishing or sharing stories with his best friend, John, it was John’s brother, Edwin Mayeski, who let the tears finally come when hearing of Harris’ final gesture.

The big-screen announcer, whose words became the word, told of Harris turning to the faces of the victims’ families, as if to say he was sorry. And then he died--the 195th person to be executed in the gas chamber at the California State Prison at San Quentin.

For the families, the night of false hope reached its cruelest point shortly after 4 a.m., when Lisa ByBee answered the telephone. A caller identifying himself as a reporter for the Associated Press told her Harris had died at 3:47 a.m.

“What?! He’s dead!” ByBee shouted into the mouthpiece, her hands and lips quivering.

No fewer than five minicams wheeled into position. Engineers alerted their trucks, which stood moored on Westonhill Drive, their satellite “uplinks” shooting skyward, like telephone poles with heads.

ByBee barely had room to breathe. The lenses of the cameras crept within inches of her face. One zeroed in on her T-shirt, which read: “Operation Desert Storm. A Thousand Points of Light over Baghdad.”

“He’s in the chair? Get out of here! He’s dead?” ByBee shouted. “Get out of here! Who’s your source? Who’s your source? What are you saying?”

Glasses of Chardonnay stood close by--glasses a television crew had requested but an image that a family member later rejected. The crew had requested Champagne, but the family didn’t have any. “Wouldn’t you want to celebrate with Champagne?” the family was asked.

Television did get to reposition the portraits of Michael and John and the candles that flickered by them to a better-lighted location in the living room. They were moved from the mantle above the fireplace to a stand near a hot-glare umbrella light.

Shaken, ByBee handed the phone to Edwin Mayeski, who asked detailed questions. Suddenly, a pall fell over Mayeski’s face, as he said, at 4:03 a.m.: “No confirmation. It just isn’t . . . true.”

Exactly five minutes later, Mayeski’s grimace turned bitter, when the big-screen announcer said simply, “Another stay.”

“Another stay !” ByBee shouted.

Soon, ByBee and her sister, Laura Mankins, were left sobbing on the couch, as they and the other family members began to digest the news that Harris had been strapped in the chair, with cyanide pellets being readied--when a phone call saved him.

“It’s very discouraging, very disheartening,” ByBee said tearfully. “I don’t know how people can equate this man’s just punishment with a killing. He’s the killer! I just need to calm down now. I just really need to calm down.”

Before long, one of the night’s more bizarre scenes began to unfold, with television crews from NBC’s “Today” show, Channels 13 and 3 in Sacramento and the ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates in San Diego doing live, in-kitchen, satellite-uplinked interviews with the family.

ByBee or Mankins or any of the Mayeski brothers would answer the same questions over and over, often with tears flowing down their faces and on the big-screen picture of themselves being carried simultaneously a few feet away.

Reporters took breaks from their interviews to eat the spread laid out hours earlier by Laura and Lisa--fresh strawberries and cantaloupe, ham, Swiss cheese, pretzels, tortilla chips and salsa, cookies and the $1 caramel bars being sold by one of Lisa’s three children.

At one point, a reporter for Channel 13 in Sacramento made sure his satellite uplink was ready--”Are we still on the bird?” he shouted frantically--then began to interview one of the Mayeski brothers.

“I don’t know what to say. I look into your eyes, and I see a lot of things, so many things,” the reporter said. “I see . . . Incredible. That’s the word! It’s incredible. It’s just incredible. Incredible is the only word for it. It’s really just incredible, isn’t it?”

At 5:07 a.m., Sharron Mankins, the mother of Michael Baker and the stepmother of Lisa and Laura, called to say that, although she was at San Quentin and had witnessed Harris’ first near-execution, she didn’t know what was going on.

“She asked me to tell her what was happening,” Lisa ByBee said.

Although outfitted with sophisticated, high-tech equipment and trucks that looked like self-contained fortresses of telecommunications, the TV reporters said they didn’t know what was going on either.

Everyone depended on the big-screen box in the center of the room--for every detail of information, every smidgen of confirmation. The only conflict seemed to be over which reporter got to watch which station.

Soon, the journalists in the room were watching journalists interviewing journalists on television. At a San Quentin press conference, those who had witnessed the near-killing were pressed for details by those who had not.

As Steve Fiorina, a reporter for KGTV (Channel 10), described “the same cocky” Harris smirking his way into the gas chamber, joking with guards and indulging in other kinds of “monkey business,” family members applauded Fiorina.

Valerie Giefer, who has lived across the street for 20 years, and who was with the family on its all-night vigil, said bitterly: “These protesters . . . they’re treating Harris like a god. He’s had so much leniency, so much mercy, so much time. . . . Why?”

Laura Mankins, in the midst of yet another live interview, said, “He deserves his punishment--and he’s just not getting it. You can’t get much closer than having acid poured into the chamber . . . “

Earlier in the long night, when word came that Harris was about to be executed, family members had cheered at the news. But, as 6 a.m. neared, and the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that there would be no more stays, the mood grew somber and still. And tearful.

The moment was near.

At 6:10 a.m., eyes glued to the big screen, Laura Mankins said wearily: “I’m not believing it until he’s been put to death, and I know it.”

Anton Mayeski told an interviewer: “The denials have been too frequent. It just hurts too much.”

At 6:13 a.m., the big screen informed the roomful of weary watchers: “The pellets have been dropped.”

“Thank God!” Laura Mankins shouted, bursting into tears and embracing Edwin Mayeski. “Right now, we’re all thinking of Michael and John--only of Michael and John. Although a man is dying, his punishment is just and fair.”

At 6:21 a.m., the news official, Edwin Mayeski said:

“There’s no joy in seeing a man die. But he justly deserves it. We applaud the U.S. Supreme Court for their tireless efforts on our behalf.”

“They brought this case to a close,” Laura Mankins said, “and for that, we are endlessly grateful.”

Moments later, minicams trailing behind them, the family retired to the living room and blew out the candles flickering beside the photographs of the two long-haired boys, John Mayeski and Michael Baker, whose lives were snuffed out when they were only 16.

“They were here with us tonight,” Laura Mankins said. “They maintained this vigil with us tonight, and for 14 years. And now, finally, they can rest in peace. . . . And so can we.”