DECATUR - Family members of Donald L. Bivens Sr., a Decatur bank guard killed in a 1978 robbery, are opposing the executive clemency petition of Cornelius Lewis, the man convicted for the crime.

Lewis, 63, is serving a prison sentence of life without parole for shooting Bivens on Dec. 14, 1978, as he, his sister Bernice, Willie Sangster and Maurice Farris took $62,061 from five Citizens National Bank tellers that Bivens was escorting.

Farris, driver of the getaway car, cooperated with prosecutors and testified at Lewis' trial that after the robbery, Lewis said the guard went for his gun and "I had to burn him." Lewis, his sister and Sangster were convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery and aggravated kidnapping.

Bivens' sons, Steve and Donald Jr., are opposing Lewis' request to Gov. Rod Blagojevich for clemency as is Macon County State's Attorney Jack Ahola and his first assistant, Richard Current, who prosecuted the case and won the convictions in 1979.

A hearing on Lewis' petition is scheduled before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board on Jan. 17 in Springfield. A review board spokesman said the board's recommendations are secret and the governor rules on those recommendations at his discretion.

"I intend to be there," said Steve Bivens, the late guard's youngest son. "My brother, Don, will try to be there, too. This (petition) came out of the blue. It's been 28 years and it seems like there is no end to it."

In a letter to the prisoner review board, Steve Bivens described his shock on Dec. 14, 1978, when his brother called to tell him their father had been killed. He said the call came as he was preparing to take fall semester exams at Illinois State University.

"I had listened to what he just told me but it seemed like a dream," Bivens wrote. "Thus a 28-year ordeal started for my family that continues to this day."

Bivens' letter continued, "Unlike Cornelius Lewis, my father was an outstanding citizen and a dedicated public servant. He was a police patrolman, a detective, a probation officer and a genuinely highly respected member of the community. He even had the local juvenile center named after him."

The letter concluded by asking the board to dismiss Lewis' request for clemency and allow him to remain imprisoned for the rest of his natural life.

Current also wrote the prisoner review board a letter opposing Lewis' request.

"The evidence (at trial) showed that the defendant was a criminal who was a mercenary," Current wrote. "He was a Minnesotan recruited (by Sangster) to commit a bank robbery in Illinois, a state to which he had no ties."

Lewis previously had been convicted of bank robbery in Minnesota and sentenced to 20 years in prison, Current said.

Early on Dec. 14, 1978, Lewis and his three accomplices drove to the parking lot of a Decatur day care center, kidnapped a woman who had just dropped off her child, taped her hands and eyes and placed her in the trunk of her car, Current said. That car was used in the robbery with the woman still trapped in the trunk, he said.

The quartet drove to the Citizens National Bank, exited the car and went into the bank's parking garage where Bivens was just starting a van holding five female tellers, each with a briefcase full of cash, Current said.

Lewis pulled the right hand van door open, leaned in, ordered the tellers to be silent and shot Bivens, who died within a few minutes, Current said. Lewis and his sister took three of the briefcases and fled, he said.

"The defendant executed Donald Bivens Sr. for $62,061.32," Current said.

Ron Ingram can be reached at ringram@herald-review.com or 421-7973.