David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

That would be a problem. It made the job more difficult. It would be a nice, simple story for the jury to understand, without fancy terminology like psychosis and sociopathology. The guy thought the song was a call to him and he acted on it. He must be crazy. Could you imagine anyone doing this who wasn’t insane?

They worked on Albany for a while longer. But Paul was no longer listening. There was no doubt that Terry Burgos committed the crimes. The evidence, less than a day into it, was overwhelming, and he’d more or less admitted it. This was no longer about guilt. This was about insanity. If the state still used the modified ALI definition of insanity, then Burgos had to prove two things: that he was suffering from a mental defect at the time he committed the killings, and that he didn’t understand that he was committing a crime.

But Paul knew, already, that he could find discrepancies between these acts and the lyrics of the songs. That would be key to showing that, if Burgos thought he was following the word of God-or the word of the prophet Tyler Skye-he hadn’t done a very good job. He already had more than one discrepancy-Burgos had introduced a new biblical passage and he hadn’t killed himself, like he was supposed to. And Burgos had engaged in sexual intercourse with each of the women-the prostitutes before their death, the students postmortem-and there was nothing in the Bible about that. He had committed these crimes during summer break, before the start of summer school, understanding that once summer school started the bodies would be found. He knew, in other words, that what he was doing was a crime, so he was doing it quickly before someone would find the bodies. They also knew that the four prostitutes had worked different parts of the city, which suggested that Burgos was smart enough not to return to the same place. Again, this demonstrated his appreciation that he was breaking the law, and not wanting to get caught.

And Paul was just getting started. By the time this went to trial, he’d punch enough holes in Burgos’s conformity to the lyrics, and to the Bible, to sink a ship. And he’d have plenty of evidence to show that Burgos knew that what he was doing was illegal.

Professor Albany was in tears a half hour later. Paul didn’t blame the guy for what happened, but he didn’t have the time or energy to care. There was only one person he cared about now, only one person he would care about for the next nine months.

Terry Burgos, he was sure, didn’t stand a chance.

Deathwatch

Being parents was everything to us. Everything that was good and true in our life centered around Cassie. This man-this monster-has taken away our life. He has taken our daughter, our dreams, everything that a parent has.

– Harland Bentley, in a statement to the Daily Watch, June 29, 1989

This man deserves what his victims received. This man deserves death.

– First Assistant County Attorney Paul Riley, in closing arguments during the sentencing phase of the trial of People v. Terrance Demetrius Burgos, May 31, 1990

With the abandonment of his habeus petition before the circuit court of appeals today, Terry Burgos is poised to become the twelfth person to be executed in this state since the reinstatement of capital punishment.

– Daily Watch, October 19, 1996

MARYMOUNT PENITENTIARY, half an hour to midnight. The prison stands isolated in the countryside, ten acres of land bordered by cast-iron gates twenty feet high, topped with several coils of razor wire. The prison is monitored twenty-four hours a day by correctional officers from an access road that surrounds the facility. The manicured lawns, filled with weight-sensitive motion sensors, are swept with spotlights from watchtowers on each flank of the octagonal building in the center that houses the inmates. Someone tried to escape last year but didn’t even make it to the gate. A sharpshooter blew his knee off from two hundred yards.

A mile out, I pull up to the gate, which looks like something medieval, a thick door with the name of the prison etched in a Gothic font. I lower the car window and feel the thick, steamy air outside, filled with the faint shouts of protesters nearby.

“Okay, Mr. Riley” The guard hands me two passes for Building J, one to hang from my rearview mirror and one for my shirt. “Drive slow,” he adds, motioning to the long paved road ahead. “One of ‘em threw himself in front of a car.”

I drive slowly, as advised, on a narrow road made narrower by media trucks lined along one side. Up ahead, near the mammoth front gate of the facility, I see the two camps, neatly divided by the road and by two dozen county sheriff’s officers in full riot gear. The east side of the divide is for the abolitionists, about a hundred strong, people gathered in circles in candlelight vigil, ministers and priests praying, others marching in a large square carrying signs, like picketers at a labor rally. A young man with a ponytail stands on a makeshift platform of wooden crates, shouting through a bullhorn. “Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” he cries, to the excitement of his supporters.

The other side is a much smaller group, people who support capital punishment-especially for Terry Burgos. A banner, set up on poles, bears the names of all six victims of Burgos’s murder spree. The reason this group is smaller is that they’re winning the debate, nationwide, and especially here. We like to execute people in this state.

An officer checks my windshield for authorization, then makes me roll down the window and show him my credentials again. The noise from the protesters is almost deafening through the open window, dueling bullhorns and chants. The guard checks my name against his list on a clipboard. “Okay, Mr. Riley,” he says. “Get through this gate and they’ll direct you in.” The guard signals to someone and the gates slowly part.

A hand slaps against my car door. A couple of reporters try to see into my car, get a look at one of the official witnesses. I move the Cadillac forward slowly as the reporters jog alongside, shouting questions at me. I hear bits and pieces of what they’re saying. One of them asks me what I’m doing here, which seems silly, because I was the prosecutor, the one who asked the jury to impose death. But then I reconsider the question and don’t have an answer.

I drive through the entrance, leaving the reporters at the gate. Several buildings down, I’m directed to one of the visitors’ spaces. I move from the stifling heat to a guard-attended door, which a stocky correctional officer opens to a frigid reception area. A group of uniforms loiter, smoking cigarettes and chatting. One of them recognizes me and says hello. I do the Good to see you reserved for those whose names I can’t recall. I always hate doing that because they know, every one of them. And I know that because people used to do that to me.

I make it down to the basement, the last to arrive, as usual. All the other invited witnesses are there, all wearing name tags. Three or four parents of the runaways and prostitutes, dressed in formal, if ill-fitting, attire. I always treated them with courtesy because they had lost their daughters, but, the truth is, most of them had long before said good-bye to their kids. I stifle the urge to say to them now what I stifled the urge to say to them then: Maybe if they had spent a little more time with their girls when they were teenagers, their daughters wouldn’t have ended up walking the streets of this city for a living, ready-made prey for a mass murderer. There is a sense of gravity to their expressions but importance, too, a temporary respect bestowed upon them. They are official witnesses to the execution of the most notorious criminal in recent memory in this state. How exciting for them.