SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) – As executions approach, loved ones of the condemned inmate and the victim’s family anxiously wait and wonder whether a judge or governor will intervene before the appointed hour.

But for Elijah Page, the drama likely will play out in his own heart and mind.

After a childhood of abuse and bouncing among foster homes, the 24-year-old from Athens, Texas, is where he wants to be: days away from dying by injection for his role in the hours-long torture slaying of Chester Allan Poage, 19, of Spearfish.

Page is in charge – and likely will be able to decide his own fate, because Gov. Mike Rounds has said he is not inclined to step in. There is no court route because Page has ended all appeals.

The phone in the execution chamber probably won’t ring, although the warden could use it if Page calls off the execution before the lethal drugs start flowing into his body.

Page has been housed in a newer wing of the South Dakota State Penitentiary but will be taken to a cell at the old death row in an older part, on a hill overlooking the state’s largest city.

The chamber has been remodeled since the last execution in the state, although there are still holes on the floor from where the electric chair was bolted down for George Sitts’ 1947 execution for killing two lawmen.

Besides being the first person executed in South Dakota in 59 years, Page would be among just eight inmates younger than 25 put to death since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. His case is also unusual because a judge, not a jury, imposed a death sentence – and he has asked to die.

State law does not allow the exact date and time of execution to be released until 48 hours beforehand, although the judge set it for the week of Aug. 28.

Page’s path to death row started March, 13, 2000, with a plan to steal from Poage, who thought he was with friends but was killed so there wasn’t a witness to the theft.

Page and Briley Piper, 25, of Anchorage, Alaska, were sentenced to death after they pleaded guilty. The third man, Darrell Hoadley, 26, of Lead, opted to stand trial. He was convicted, and a split jury sentenced him to life in prison without a chance of parole.

Judge Warren Johnson of Deadwood, who imposed the death sentences and granted Page’s request to die, called the killing vile and depraved.

Even Hoadley said he grew weary of all the blood.

Hoadley testified that Page and Piper planned to steal a stereo, a television and other property from the house of Poage’s mother in Spearfish.

The trio took Poage to a nearby gulch, and as he begged for his life, made him remove most of his clothing and forced him into the snow and an icy creek.

Piper stabbed Poage three times in the head and neck, and Page kicked Poage 30 to 40 times on the head, tearing his ears off, then hit him on the head with large rocks. He was also forced to drink hydrochloric acid.

Hoadley said he hit Poage with two large rocks near the end of the attack, which lasted at least two hours. He said he was afraid Piper and Page would kill him if he interfered or tried to leave.

The three then stole a Chevy Blazer, stereo system, television, coin collection, video game and other items from the Poage home. Poage’s battered body was found in the stream several weeks later.

Johnson granted Page’s request to die only after concluding he was mentally competent. Johnson earlier had acknowledged Page’s difficult childhood, which included physical and sexual abuse.

Page’s sister, Desiree Page, said friends and family knew him as “a big teddy bear with a huge heart” – one who is now remorseful.

“Elijah’s very, very sorry,” she told the Rapid City Journal. “He told me, ‘I see that poor boy’s (Poage’s) face every minute of every day, and I dream about him every night.”‘

Page is entitled to appeals that could last several more years but earlier this year wrote a letter to court indicating he wanted to die.

“I am writing this because I have decided to end my appeals and face execution,” said the handwritten letter.

His lawyer, Mike Butler of Sioux Falls, has said he thinks Page is so depressed that his decision to end his appeals might be equivalent to a suicide attempt.

South Dakota had the death penalty when it became a state in 1889 but abolished it in 1915. Capital punishment was reinstated in 1939 but abolished again from 1977 to 1979 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled existing death penalty laws unconstitutional.

Another death penalty statute has been in place since 1979, and two other men are on death row besides Page and Piper. Those cases are in various stages of appeal, as is Piper’s.

One of the people who plans to witness Page’s execution is Poage’s mother, Dottie Poage of Rapid City, but not out of bitterness or anger, she told The Associated Press.

“It’s just a peaceful feeling knowing that the consequence for committing such a crime is this severe, and it should be this severe for these types of crimes,” she said.

AP-ES-08-26-06 1414EDT