August 20 PENNSYLVANIA: The makings of a murder Aug. 4, 1981, was a cooker. It was hot enough to sear the soles of work boots in steel mills that once dotted Ambridge, the kind of heat that brought tempers to a boil. Shoppers on Merchant Street found relief in air-conditioned stores, and residents headed for shady back yards and cool swimming pools. At 1530 Duss Ave., pretty and petite Denise Lucic - she couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds, a cousin would later say - saw her husband off to a long day's work and prepared to spend the afternoon with good friend Paulette Battisti. The 2 moms always spent their days together, either at the Battistis' or the Lucics', with their young children while their husbands worked. They lived three doors apart. Their kids were close and played well together. On this day, 4-year-old John Jeffrey Lucic splashed in Battisti's wading pool with Battisti's daughters while 8-year-old Danielle Lucic went swimming with friends at nearby Walter Panek Park. The two mothers drank iced tea and talked while the kids played. 10 blocks across town, a six-man roofing crew from F.D. Strano Sales bent into a more grueling routine atop St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church at Duss Avenue and Fifth Street. The roofers toiled and grunted in the sun, striking chalk lines to mark rows of brown asphalt shingles: Lay them down and nail. Over and over. Row after row. Among them was Charles Eugene Cross, 34, a Center Township resident with a prison record and a penchant for violent outbursts. He was 6-foot-3, about 220 pounds, suntanned with curly dark hair tinged in gray, and wore glasses. His co-workers described his personality as "goofy." On this day, they would testify, he was angry. He had a problem with Denise Lucic's husband, John, former boss of the roofing crew and now supervising another Strano work gang. Cross was about to explode, and he had a plan. "He asked me if I would help him kill John Lucic's wife and two kids," said Raymond Ours, who was working with Cross that day. Cross' proposition was ignored, chalked up to the harmless rantings of a hot-headed roofer. Ours told co-workers what Cross had said, but nobody thought he meant it. Who would? But before the day was over, former Ambridge police officers Ronald Strauss and Robert Appel would find Denise Lucic, 27, and her children slaughtered in their home. Someone had cut the throats of mother and son. The little girl was stabbed through the heart and smothered. The cops held Charlie Cross responsible. He was convicted and sentenced to death. For the past 25 years, Cross has been appealing the sentence. Last year, a federal judge overturned his death sentence. If the ruling stands, a jury will again be asked to decide his fate. Prosecutors are appealing. The appeals and accompanying paperwork in a massive courthouse file contain numerous unpublished details about the crime and possible motives for Cross' murderous rage. SOMBER BEGINNINGS By all accounts, Charles Eugene Cross had a lousy childhood. He was the 3rd of 4 children born to Lillian and Eugene Cross and spent his first years in an Aliquippa neighborhood known as the Bricks and the rest of his childhood on Ambridge's Rice Avenue. His mother liked her beer. His father played guitar and beat his wife. They divorced when Charlie - Chuck, or Chuckie to his family - was 4. Afterward, Eugene Cross abandoned his kids. Years later, Cross' sister, Rose, would tell a private investigator working for her brother's defense that her father once stood up in a child custody hearing and said, "I don't want any of those little bastards. They are not mine." She also recalled a chance meeting on Merchant Street. The three oldest children were walking down the street when they spied their dad. Young Charlie ran up to him, calling "Daddy." "(Chuck) grabbed him by his legs and gave him a hug, and my father took his hand, the palm of his hand, and pushed it against my brother's face and says, 'Get away from me, you little bastard. Don't ever touch me. You are ruining my pants,' " she said. It didn't get any better when Lillian Cross married Arthur Hurley, a former boarder in the Cross home. Hurley liked to drink, and the 2 battled regularly. On more than one occasion, Hurley beat her in front of the kids and once threatened to cut out her tongue. The kids felt ostracized by their parents and the community, and Charlie Cross took it the worst. "He felt he was worse than scum," his sister said. "He felt like the rest of us. We were rejected. We weren't wanted, and weren't loved, and we were never, never accepted in anything." Cross was a chronic bed-wetter well into his teenage years. A former classmate remembered him in grade school always smelling of urine and appearing unkempt. He was a C-student, excelled in industrial arts, and flunked 4th and 6th grade. The school awarded him an A for citizenship his senior year. But as he grew older, he began running afoul of the law. TEEN TROUBLES Around age 8, Cross tied a young boy to a tree, lit matches, blew them out and touched the hot match heads to the boy's skin. He was never arrested, but it was the first time that he came into contact with the police. It wouldn't be the last. He was arrested 3 times between the ages of 14 and 16. One time, it was for shoplifting. Another time, he was arrested for stealing 3 pistols from his parents' landlord. He would later tell a psychologist hired for his murder trial that he only wanted to shoot the guns. The 3rd time, he was picked up for wrecking an Ambridge High School English classroom and smashing the teacher's guitar. It was "just something to do," he told the psychologist. He graduated from Ambridge High in 1966 and immediately joined the Marine Corps. His military service was short-lived. The Marines kicked him out after 18 months for going AWOL and stealing a garbage truck. He supposedly went AWOL so he could be home for Thanksgiving and his girlfriend's birthday. Cross claimed at the time that he stole the truck only to get away from kids who were trying to run him over as he walked along a road. He was convicted in a military court, sentenced to 5 years' probation and given (he said) a general discharge from the service. After that, he returned to Beaver County, where he married his 1st wife, Linda, in 1968. He worked several manufacturing jobs in the area before moving in 1971 with his wife to Fairfax County, Va., where he became a professional fireman. He also began an affair with his wife's 14- or 15-year-old sister. The relationship lasted about one year. In 1974, Cross was charged with raping a neighbor woman. Virginia destroys criminal records after 10 years, and details of the crime are not available, but Cross claimed that the sex was consensual. However, Cross' sister, Rose, told a private investigator that her brother reportedly held a knife to the woman's throat and raped her. In Virginia at that time, a rape conviction carried a possible life sentence. Cross was convicted of rape and sodomy. He was sentenced in 1975 to a total of 15 years, 5 years of which were suspended. He served a little more than 5 years before being paroled in 1979. But the conviction had cost him his marriage and 2 young daughters. His wife divorced him while he was in prison and remarried. Her husband adopted the kids. Cross, age 32, returned alone to Beaver County. MOUNTING ANGER By 1981, John and Denise Lucic had been married 8 years. They had 2 beautiful children and a loving relationship, according to friends. The year before, they bought an older house at 1530 Duss Ave. from the Strano family, which owned the construction business where John worked as a foreman. He had been with the company for years. Denise Lucic loved her house and had big plans for improving it. To friends, the family seemed happy. John Jeffrey loved to play with his large collection of Matchbox cars on the porch. Danielle took ballet lessons and twirled the baton. Denise collected ornamental milk glass. Battisti said she gave her friend an ornamental shoe made of milk glass on her birthday in July only a few weeks before she died. Before they moved in, the Stranos had remodeled the interior of the house. The Strano remodeling crew included Charlie Cross. Cross had been hired by the company in August 1979. A month later, Cross invited his co-workers to his second wedding. Among the guests were John and Denise Lucic. Not long after that, however, Cross and Lucic fell out. Lucic had been Cross' boss on the roofing crew, and he admonished Cross in front of a homeowner. It wasn't anything unusual. Other members of the crew had occasional run-ins with their boss, but Cross took it personally, and he held a grudge. He reportedly confronted Lucic afterward, warning him to never do that again. After that, Cross and Lucic regularly squared off. Lucic testified at Cross' trial that Cross often glared at him and harassed him on the job. Cross also threatened Lucic's life in conversations with co-workers. One day in 1980 while riding in a truck with David Cottrell, who also worked on the roofing crew, Cross suggested that they go to the Lucic home and rape Denise Lucic. They would have to kill John Lucic if he showed up, Cross said. Cottrell said he simply ignored Cross. Nobody took Cross' threats seriously until Aug. 4, 1981. 6:04 P.M. Paulette Battisti remembers the day distinctly. Denise and John Jeffrey Lucic spent the afternoon at her house. Around 3:30, Battisti realized that her husband would soon be home from work. She needed to get dinner ready and wanted to cut the grass. John Jeffrey wanted to stay and watch cartoons with the Battisti girls, Desiree and Amanda, but Battisti said she had work to do. She has never forgiven herself for that. At 4 p.m., Robin Mamay, another close friend of the Lucics and the Battistis, phoned Denise Lucic. She didn't have to look up the number: 266-8053. She dialed it right after "The Guiding Light" soap on TV. She and Denise talked about 45 minutes. The Strano roofing crew arrived at the company warehouse at 1025 Merchant St. between 4:30 and 5 p.m. They had finished early that day. The workers punched out and headed home. John Lucic was working with another crew in Allegheny County. He wouldn't be home for a few more hours. Around 5 p.m., Battisti sent his daughter Desiree to the Lucic residence to borrow 2 eggs for the meatballs she was making. She watched Desiree walk through an alley behind the houses to the Lucics' back door. "I could see Denise come out onto her back porch," Battisti said. "Denise waved to me and gave Desiree the eggs. That was the last time I saw Denise." She firmly believes Charles Cross was already in the house. Diane Woloshyn specifically remembered leaving the swimming pool at Walter Panek Park with her daughter, Tracey, and Danielle Lucic at 5:20 p.m. She remembered looking at the pool clock before they left. They arrived at the Lucic house about 10 minutes later. Woloshyn pulled up to the curb in front of 1530 Duss Ave. and watched Danielle go up her front walk and walk through the front door. "We stayed in the truck for a couple of seconds, thinking Denise would come to the door and wave or something. And then my daughter says, 'Mom, Danielle is in the house. Let's go,' and I pulled out," Woloshyn said at the Cross trial. Police believe Cross had already killed Denise and John Jeffrey and was preparing to leave when Danielle walked in the door. Just before 6 p.m., 2 Strano employees, Robert Piltz and Joseph Durbin, noticed Charlie Cross running across P.J. Caul Memorial Park at 11th and Merchant streets. He was coming from the direction of Duss toward the Strano warehouse where they were standing. He was disheveled, they would later testify, frantic and he had what appeared to be blood on his clothing. He didn't have his glasses on, the first time they had seen him without them. He had a cut on his nose and one hand wrapped in a white towel. He babbled something about being on a service call and falling off a ladder. He went inside the building to a bathroom and washed up, then bought a pop from a machine near the bathroom. Afterward, still visibly upset, he changed his story. He confided in Piltz that he had gone to the Lucics' home and found 3 bodies. "Please don't tell anybody," he begged. "You have no choice," Piltz replied. "You have to go to the police." The police station at that time was in the same block. Cross walked a few doors down and entered. Police officer Ronald Strauss was working the desk when Cross walked in and told him about the murders. Strauss immediately called his partner that day, Robert Appel. Even after 25 years, Appel can still remember the exact time: 6:04 p.m. 3 DEAD Not even 25 years can dull the horror that Strauss and Appel found in the Lucic home that day. They never got over it. Strauss was so affected by the scene that he retired from the police force not long after the Cross trial. For Appel, it took 15 years. It began with bad dreams and then depression. Finally, he too, quit the force. He now works for the state inspector general. "I do remember going home that night, and I told my wife and we cried," he said, noting that his son, Robert, was 2 at the time. "Then I went up and held my boy. I held him that whole night." Cross had accompanied Strauss to the house, where they met Appel. Cross remained in the living room while the officers went upstairs. They found Denise and John Jeffrey in the little boy's bedroom. Blood was splattered all over the walls, ceiling, bedding and floor. Danielle was dead in her bedroom. An Allegheny County medical examiner later determined someone had strangled Denise and then slashed her throat with a very sharp knife. The same person slashed John Jeffrey's throat from ear to ear. The person strangled Danielle, stabbed her in the neck and chest and smothered her with a pillow, stuffing the pillow into her mouth. The wounds were caused by a long thin object, possibly a screwdriver. Cross' story didn't make sense to the police. He said he had taken a call from Denise Lucic several weeks earlier at the Strano warehouse. Denise had called looking for her husband. While on the phone, she asked Cross to give her a bid on remodeling her bathroom. Cross never mentioned that to John Lucic. He said it was because they were not on good terms. That day, he said, he got off early and thought it was a perfect opportunity to look the job over. He walked to the Lucic house, a 10-minute hike from the warehouse, and found the front door open. Nobody answered his knock, so he walked in. He called out and nobody answered, so he decided to check upstairs. Afterward, he was so upset that he tripped coming down the stairs and broke his glasses. Then he went back to the warehouse and to the police. Police didn't believe him. They charged him with 3 counts of homicide. That night, he was arraigned before District Justice Hugo Iorfido, who 11 months earlier had married Cross and his 2nd wife. Cross has been in jail ever since. 3 DEATH SENTENCES The evidence against Charlie Cross was overwhelming, even his defense attorneys agreed with that. He had blood all over his clothing, including blood splatters on the back of his shirt. The blood matched all 3 victims. Police found a lens from his glasses in the Lucic house. They found his palm print on the cover of the pillow used to smother Danielle Lucic. They discovered his Stanley utility knife, which he used to cut shingles, in the Strano warehouse near the bathroom where he washed up that day. His name had been etched into the side. Underneath the name was a little flourish that Cross always drew after signing his name. The knife had Denise and John Jeffrey Lucic's blood on it. They also found a screwdriver that he had been using at work that day near a pop machine at the Strano warehouse. Cross had explanations for everything. The blood on his clothes got there when he bent down to check the bodies, he said. While doing that, he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face, and his utility knife and screwdriver fell into the blood. "But he never explained how that blood got on the back of his shirt," Appel said. Defense attorneys Bernard Rabik and Joseph Budicak said they wanted to pursue an insanity defense, but Cross refused to permit that. They tried to undermine prosecution witnesses and they consulted forensic experts. They had a psychologist testify during the sentencing hearing after the trial that Cross had a borderline personality disorder with sociopathic/passive-aggressive traits and was probably unable to control his actions. But the case was hopeless. "What defense could one have?" Rabik said. "It was my job as his lawyer to challenge the prosecution's positions, and the job of any good defense attorney is to show there's reasonable doubt. I thought the facts were overwhelmingly in the prosecution's favor." It took a jury picked from Montgomery County due to pretrial publicity about 4 hours to convict Cross. It took the same jury about 45 minutes to deliver his sentence: death by execution, 3 counts. WHY To this day, prosecutors and police alike are stumped when asked about a motive in the case. Was it because of the confrontation between Cross and Lucic in front of the homeowner? Did Cross hold Lucic accountable for the fact that he wasn't promoted as foreman of the roofing crew after Lucic left? Did he covet the house the Lucics bought from the Stranos? The Stranos gave all their employees a bonus on the day of the murders, and Cross received only half of what he could have gotten. Did he blame Lucic for that? Did he set out to rape Denise Lucic and then lose control? But all those things brought out during the trial taken together still don't add up to killing a mother and 2 young children, said Keith McMillen, the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Cross. "The only thing we were able to come up with is there may have been some tiff between Mr. Lucic and Cross at the job site," McMillen said. "Nobody really had a handle on a good motive. There was nothing at least that we were aware of that would translate into what he did." Appel thinks only one person can answer the question of motive. "And that's the guy who did it," he said. EPILOGUE Robert Appel will forever carry the memory of Denise, John Jeffrey and Danielle Lucic on that horrible day in August. His therapy used to be talking it over with his former boss, Ambridge Police Chief George Kyrargyros, who died 3 years ago. The pair spoke often about the Lucic case, and their conversations unfailingly ended in tears. "I always felt that the closure would come when Cross was executed, but there's never going to be any closure here," Appel said. "It's always going to be on everybody's mind." Paulette Battisti thinks about Denise Lucic every day, but not because of the way her friend died. She won't give Charles Cross that satisfaction, she said. What she prefers to remember is her petite friend with the good looks who would come to her house during the long hours that their husbands were working. She remembers long talks while watching the kids and how the kids would pile into the back of her car and sing the theme song to "The Greatest American Hero," a popular TV show that first aired in 1981. After the murders, a group of friends, including the Battistis, gathered at the Lucic house and packed up all of the family's belongings. The family couldn't bring themselves to enter the house. As years passed, friends and family would gather annually at the home of John Lucic's mother, where they could share the pain and grief felt by all. That continued until Anna Mae Lucic died several years ago. Battisti still tortures herself over John Jeffrey Lucic's request to watch cartoons on the day of the murders. "But I know there's a higher power than me, and I have good faith," she said. "I know I wasn't supposed to let him watch cartoons that day. I also know, because of my faith, that one day we'll all be together again." Battisti has the ornamental glass shoe that she gave Denise Lucic on her birthday in July 1981 and Denise's soup mug that says "World's Greatest Mom." She keeps the mementos safely packed away. Her daughter Desiree has Danielle Lucic's baton and plans to one day give it to her own daughter. As for Charles Cross, Battisti believes he will eventually pay for what he did. She prays that Cross one day feels the same pain and horror that he caused for so many people and that his life on earth will be a living hell. "No, I don't wish him dead," she said. "That would be the easy way out." --- The old Strano warehouse at 1025 Merchant St. was torn down several years ago. An Advance Auto Parts store stands in its place. Across the street, P.J. Caul Memorial Park with its tall trees, bandstand and war memorials still offers shade to idlers on a hot summer day. --- 6 blocks to the south, St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church, where Cross was working on the day of the murders, stands at Duss Avenue and Fifth Street with its three big domes reaching heavenward. On Aug. 4, the church was hosting a "Rusyn food festival," according to its marquee. --- The yellow brick house at 1530 Duss Ave. looks run-down and old. Gone are a backyard swing set and wading pool that once entertained the Lucic children. Directly across the street, a Circle K convenience store has replaced the Lawson's that was there in 1981. A new family has taken up residence in the house, and its rooms again resound with bantering young voices. A young boy who opened the door on a recent afternoon said his mother was sleeping and his grandmother was unable to come to the door. Visible behind him was the staircase leading to the 2nd-floor bedrooms. He smiled, nodded goodbye, closed the door and set the deadbolt with an authoritative click. --- On Dec. 1, 1982, Beaver County Judge Robert Reed formally sentenced Cross to death. His appeals began immediately and continue to this day. His case takes up reams of paperwork in a large musty box held by the Beaver County clerk of courts. Over the past 25 years, at least 10 defense attorneys, 4 Beaver County district attorneys and 5 judges in 3 courts have worked on the case; courts have stayed 2 execution dates; and the death penalty has changed from electrocution to lethal injection. Cross has served time in 2 state prisons. He currently spends his time in a 7-by-13-foot cell on death row at the State Correctional Institution at Greene, near Waynesburg. It costs the state about $31,000 per year for his confinement. His 2nd wife divorced him after his murder conviction. He has had no contact with either of his wives or his children for years. They and his siblings have endured numerous threats and much abuse over the years. They say his actions have made their lives "a living hell." Cross works as a custodian in prison. He is permitted television and radio, can have 1 hour of exercise each day and unlimited visits from his attorneys or the clergy. He is permitted 1 personal visit per week. He showers 3 times weekly, can make 4 calls each week to people on an approved phone list, has access to a library and can read in his cell. Cross turned 59 on June 22. He is the 5th-longest-serving inmate on Pennsylvania's death row. (source: Beaver County Times) COLORADO: Experts see red flags in confession----John Mark Karr's admission in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey has signs of being untrue, some scholars suggest It seemed a spontaneous admission, without any element of coercion. John Mark Karr faced the cameras and told the world he was with child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey the night she died. But was this a voluntary confession of complicity in the 6-year-old's murder as it first appeared? Or was it something else? The question is puzzling U.S. legal experts who have studied false confessions for years. They see signs that police interrogation may have helped shape the American schoolteacher's public statements. But they're not sure because so many details about Karr's arrest in Bangkok aren't available. "There's something going on here that's very strange ... and no reason on God's green earth to assume that this is a voluntary confession," said Richard Ofshe, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley. It's not clear how much questioning Karr was subjected to in the custody of Thai police, who said Saturday that he would be flown to the United States late Sunday. Nor is there any indication that he was forced to speak with reporters. Sometimes, people offer confessions without prompting because they're overcome by guilt over a crime; often, a religious conversion can motivate someone to admit culpability they had previously concealed. And sometimes, the prospect that someone else has been wrongly convicted serves as an incentive to set the record straight. The lure of attention or publicity associated with infamous cases has also inspired people to confess to crimes they never committed, among them the Lindbergh kidnapping in the 1930s. But consider: Most people who volunteer confessions offer their mea culpa to authorities, rather than evading law enforcement for years and fleeing overseas as Karr did after a 2001 arrest on child pornography charges in California. "What happens is, someone walks into a police station and turns himself in," said Steven Drizin, legal director of Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions and a clinical professor at the law school. "In this case, authorities had to go all the way across the world to bring this guy into custody." Indication of police influence The language of Karr's televised confession troubles Drizin and Ofshe. Both said a red flag was raised in their minds when the slight, intense-eyed 41-year-old insisted that JonBenet's death in Boulder, Colo., was "an accident" and "unintentional." "This is a classic example of the kind of language someone would use after a police interrogation," said Ofshe, one of the foremost experts on false confessions in the U.S. "Clearly, the killing of this girl was not an accident, so why would he say that?" Drizin asked. "Police officers are trained to suggest to a suspect that a crime was an accident ... a less heinous account ... in order to elicit a confession." And why would anyone proclaim that their involvement in a crime merited a charge of "2nd-degree murder" as Karr is reported to have told police in Thailand, without being told by police that a lesser charge might be possible? "Suspects just don't come forward and say 'I committed 2nd-degree murder.' It doesn't happen," Drizin said. Research shows that aggressive interrogation can cause people to admit to crimes they did not commit out of fear, anxiety, a desire to escape punishment, suggestibility and misunderstanding of the consequences, among other reasons. Of death row inmates later found to be innocent because of DNA evidence, as many as 15 % to 25 % had confessed without just cause, according to New York's Innocence Project. Despite these flags, it is possible that Karr's statements were voluntary, both experts said. Even if Karr didn't have a hand in JonBenet's death, his willingness to take responsibility may be entirely his own. False confessions are surprisingly common. Especially in high-profile cases, people are frequently more than ready to admit to crimes they didn't commit, said Saul Kassin, a professor at Williams College and an expert on false confessions. In one of the more famous examples, about 200 people claimed they had kidnapped and killed aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby son, Charles Jr., in 1932. Hundreds stepped forward with bogus accounts of murdering O.J. Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994. And a South Carolina janitor was one of many people who took responsibility, wrongly, for abducting Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City in 2002. Why do they do it? Some people are racked by guilt over other matters and want to punish themselves, Kassin said. Others are delusional or mentally ill. Still others have a pathological need for attention and want their 15 minutes in the spotlight. And some people are trying to protect someone else, such as a friend or a family member. Self-delusion a possibility With someone like Karr, who spent the last decade obsessing about JonBenet, self-delusion may be involved. "Under the influence of external or internal suggestions, people can come to believe they did things, saw things and experienced things that never really happened to them," said Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology, criminology and law at the University of California, Irvine. That may have been what was going on when Karr reportedly told his father that he was jailed in California in 2001 because of suspicions that he was involved in JonBenet's death. And it may have played into the numerous e-mails he sent to a Colorado journalism professor over 4 years professing his love for JonBenet. "It sounds like this guy was in a confessional mode long before any police were involved," said Kassin, the Williams College psychology professor. "My guess is that his confession was a product of his belief system. The real question I have is: Was this a public show or does he really believe it?" - - - Suspect's words on girls, JonBenet >From e-mails John Mark Karr sent to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey. "JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you." "My peer group has not changed since I was a little boy, and girls were the people I was with always." "Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives." (Rocky Mountain News) (source: Chicago Tribune) ***************** JonBenet and Judge John Wood: Linked by false confessions The way defense lawyer Alan Brown remembers it, the most notorious slaying in San Antonio history yielded a slew of crackpots. One even implicated him in the assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr. In court, Brown heard something that stunned. There had been 188 false confessions about the crime. U.S. Attorney Ray Jahn does not remember the precise figure. But he recalls that "a substantial number" of kooks claimed to be Wood's killer. These 2 recollections - never before made public - reveal a little-known truth. Lots of people wrongly confess to high-profile murders. In the case of Wood - slain in 1979 - some confessors were inmates who wanted to switch cells. That is, they wanted to swap state prison for federal prison. Jahn explains: "The old saying is that federal prison is a country club." Other self-confessed killers were delusional. They were outside the state when Wood was shot. More than 2 decades later, an echo sounds. John Mark Karr says he killed JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colo. Karr's ex-wife says, no, John was with her in Alabama. How would she know? JonBenet's body was found on Dec. 26, 1996. Lara Karr says John spent every Christmas holiday with her. A lawyer for Lara says the Karrs were "dirt poor." Neither John nor Lara could afford to travel out of state. Piece by piece, the Karr confession appears to be crumbling. That should not surprise. The only surprise is that no other confessors - however crazy - have made news. I called the Boulder County district attorney's office on Friday. Has anyone else confessed to killing JonBenet? Maybe someone the DA dismissed as an obvious loon? "We are not commenting on the case at all," a woman said. The Ramsey family attorney is speaking. On Friday, Lin Wood told ABC News, "There have been e-mail confessions in the case before." Wood did not elaborate. But no arrests were made. In the early 1930s, more than 200 people confessed to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. The man executed for the baby's death - Bruno Hauptmann - maintained his innocence until the end. The Lindbergh case received no small amount of attention. Journalist H.L. Mencken called it "the biggest story since the Resurrection." Then came the Kennedy assassination, and every wacko in America had an angle. An Illinois felon named James Files said he killed JFK. A psychotic drifter named Robert Easterling said, no, he took out Kennedy for Fidel Castro. Professional hit man Charles Harrelson said, "Wrong, I knocked off the president." Interesting guy, Harrelson. A jury convicted him in the death of Judge Wood. During the investigation, prosecutors monitored Harrelson's phone conversations. In one, Ray Jahn heard Harrelson say he was going to confess to killing JFK. "He wanted to get out of state prison and go to federal prison," Jahn recalls. Harrelson was a nut case. He also was a killer - the killer of a judge called "Maximum John" for his stiff sentences. Within hours of Wood's death, phony claims began pouring in. "I remember the judge was killed about 7:30 in the morning, and we got our 1st confession at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon," Jahn says. "It was from an inmate at the Bexar County Jail." The inmate, evidently, wanted prosecutors to believe he escaped from his cell, shot the judge, then hurried back in time for dinner. Another nut, Robert Riojas Jr., dragged Alan Brown into the case. A convicted murderer, Riojas accused Brown and others of conspiring to kill Wood. A Justice Department lawyer, among others, dismissed the claim as absurd. During a hearing, Brown learned of false confessions, 188 of them. Over 4 years, investigators checked every one of them. They also scrutinized every criminal sentenced by Wood. Harrelson became a suspect in 1980 after authorities arrested him on drug and weapons charges. Two years later, he was convicted in what was called "the trial of the century." Today, a lesson from San Antonio emerges for Boulder. Karr isn't the first person to say he killed JonBenet. He won't be the last. Not long ago a woman phoned U.S. District Judge Fred Biery. "I know who really killed John Wood," she began. (source: San Antonio Express-News) CALIFORNIA: L.A. THEN AND NOW----Notorious Cases for a `No-Nonsense' Judge; His court saw Chessman, Pantages, Sleepy Lagoon trials. He also meted out many death sentences. In 30 years on the bench, Judge Charles W. Fricke reputedly sentenced more criminals to death than any of his colleagues and presided over some of the flashiest cases in Los Angeles: Theater magnate Alexander Pantages' 1st rape trial in 1929. The 1948 rape and kidnapping trial of "Red Light Bandit" Caryl Chessman. And the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of 22 Latinos, which sullied his reputation, perhaps unfairly. Fricke was a leading authority on criminal law, a gruff, hard-nosed jurist with a secret passion for orchids, magic tricks and chocolate cake. He also lectured at Loyola Law School, and his textbooks are still read today. "He was a no-nonsense judge who followed procedure and was known for his fairness," said a Fricke admirer, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon. "He was assigned more capital cases by presiding judges than any of his contemporaries, because of his skill in trying complex cases and his knowledge on criminal law, evidence and procedure," Alarcon said in a recent interview. Fricke left a mark on the law and on Alarcon, 81, who became the 1st Mexican American on the 9th Circuit. Alarcon began his career as a young prosecutor more than half a century ago, often assigned to Fricke's courtroom. "He had a good sense of humor but never showed it on the bench," Alarcon said. "The only time I saw his humor was when a public defender asked me to go into Fricke's chambers with him. His client had been convicted of a drunken brawl and assault, and Fricke [had previously] sentenced him to 5 years' probation" in another case. "I have a client who thinks I can talk you into excusing his behavior simply because his name is Callahan," Alarcon quoted the lawyer as saying. "He violated probation by getting drunk on St. Patrick's Day. I don't know what to say to my client." "Why don't you tell him I'm going to modify his probation terms so that he can drink only on March 17," Fricke replied, according to Alarcon. If Callahan got drunk any other day, he'd find himself in the slammer. Born in Wisconsin, Fricke moved west in 1915, at age 33. As a deputy district attorney, he successfully prosecuted Clara Phillips, whose ferocious claw-hammer attack on her husband's lover in 1922 earned her the sobriquet Tiger Woman. In 1927, Gov. Clement C. Young appointed Fricke to the Superior Court. 2 years later, the judge presided over the great American sex trial of the era: Theater magnate Pantages was accused of raping a 17-year-old dancer. Pantages' attorney, Jerry Giesler, tried to argue that the victim was not the innocent she pretended to be. Fricke refused to allow it, ruling that the victim's character didn't matter, because Pantages could be guilty of statutory rape based solely on her age. Pantages was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He appealed and won a new trial, with the state Supreme Court agreeing that the victim's character was pertinent. Pantages was acquitted in a 2nd trial, presided over by a different judge. But he spent more than a year in jail during his appeal, because Fricke refused to grant bail. Fricke didn't shy away from controversy. In 1948, he imposed the death penalty on rapistkidnapper Caryl Whittier Chessman, even though Chessman had not killed anyone. Chessman was executed in 1960 after spending 12 years fighting for a new trial. Juvenile courts and the California Youth Authority rankled Fricke, who thought they coddled lawbreakers. He launched his own campaign, sending young recidivists to state prison rather than forestry camp. At a 1954 hearing, The Times reported, Fricke used 19-year-old Joseph W. Baptiste as an example. Baptiste had pleaded guilty to 2 counts of burglary, expecting leniency. But as Fricke summarized the case, Baptiste must have realized his mistake: "Baptiste's criminal career started in 1947, at age 12, with felony drunk driving and sex offense. He was permitted to go home, but within a month committed a theft and shortly after that burglarized a home and attempted to strangle a woman. But each time he was sent home." Baptiste's attorney interrupted with a plea that "I hope we can save him from . " "He's been saved too often; that's just the trouble," Fricke replied. Pounding his gavel, he sentenced Baptiste to 2 years in prison. Fricke also presided over the 1957 trial of L. Ewing Scott, the 1st person in the nation convicted of murder even though the body was never found. The victim was Scott's wealthy wife. Reputedly, Scott's defense attorney almost swayed the jury by saying Scott's wife "might walk through this courtroom door at any minute." Jurors supposedly glanced at the door, revealing doubt that she was dead. But Alarcon, who co-prosecuted Scott, debunks that. "It's pure urban legend," he said. "A colleague of mine, Aaron Stovitz, spread the rumor, using a B-movie that had invented that [theory]. He only did it to tease us and had no idea it would go down [in history] like it did." But Fricke's most famous case was the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon trial, in which 22 Mexican American youths were charged with the gang killing of Jose Diaz. During the five-month trial in a courtroom overflowing with defendants and lawyers, Fricke's patience wore thin. He found fault with defense attorneys and became exasperated as defendants fired spitballs. Because of the cramped conditions, his defenders say, he separated the defendants from their attorneys. In January 1943, a dozen defendants were convicted of 1st- and 2nd-degree murder. Five others were convicted of assault; the other 5 were acquitted. Some historians regard the trial as a product of overzealous prosecutors and a biased judge. The press described the defendants as "zoot suit gangsters," referring to their style of dress. "Public opinion was clearly on the side of the prosecution," historian Manuel G. Gonzales wrote in his 2000 book "Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States." "Nor did it help that the judge . had concluded that the gang was guilty beforehand and prejudiced the case in a number of ways." "This case wasn't about justice," social activist Alice McGrath said in a 1997 Times article. "It was about punishing these kids for being Mexican and for dressing the way they did. It was racist. There's no doubt about that." She helped win the appeal in 1944 by organizing and raising funds for the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. The Court of Appeal rebuked Fricke for separating defendants from their lawyers and for losing his temper with one attorney. The case was never retried. But Alarcon, who read the trial record, disagrees with Fricke's critics: "The case was reversed based largely on judicial error in ruling on the admission of evidence," he said. "No claim was made during trial or before the Court of Appeal that Fricke was biased against Mexicans or that he concluded before trial that the defendants were guilty. When he split up the courtroom, it was considered a practical solution to the largest mass trial in California history." Alarcon didn't see the trial; he was still in high school. But he can't believe Fricke was biased. "If Fricke ever criticized lawyers, litigants or witnesses who belonged to a minority group, it may well have been because of their violation of a court order or their improper courtroom demeanor, rather than their racial heritage," Alarcon said. The defendants' story was immortalized - with some fictional embellishments - in Luis Valdez's 1978 play "Zoot Suit" and the 1981 film. In 2002, filmmaker Joseph Tovares wrote and produced a documentary, "Zoot Suit Riots." Fricke had a life outside the courtroom too. Alarcon remembers the judge's wife arriving in court every Wednesday afternoon, catching the end of his trial, then taking his arm and going out to dinner. And every year, on Fricke's birthday, Judge Mildred L. Lillie would bake him chocolate cake. Fricke died in 1958. A Times article after his death said he had sentenced more killers to death than any other jurist in the history of California jurisprudence. "He left instructions with his daughter to ask me to edit his popular lawbooks," said Alarcon, who was flabbergasted. "He had never mentioned this desire to me during his lifetime." (source : Los Angeles Times) FLORIDA: Life isn't easy for convicted murderer Harold "Gene" Lucas has outlived a defense attorney, one of the lead detectives and 2 of the judges in his case while sitting on death row. Terri Rice, whom Lucas was convicted of shooting Aug. 14, 1976, married and became Terri Hitchcock. She has a 24-year-old son and a 5-year-old son. Richard "Ricky" Byrd Jr., who also was shot by Lucas that night, also has since married and has a 23-year-old daughter and 21-year-old son. Lucas, meanwhile, has spent almost 3 decades in a 1-man cell on death row. He is allowed to shower every other day. There is no air conditioning. "It's pretty dang-all raw," said Fort Myers resident Richard Fabbro, director of the Florida Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Some think death row inmates - with TVs, one hour of daily exercise and access to books - lead a cushy life. Fabbro says that's not true. "Are you willing to take your next 2-week vacation up there if you think it's so nice?" asked Fabbro, who also serves on the Capital Punishment Coalition for the Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. Victims' families suffer the loss of loved ones. But the families of inmates suffer too, Fabbro said. They wait while the death machine slowly cranks onward, to the day when the button is pushed or lever thrown. They can face lethal injection or the electric chair, their choice. Florida Department of Corrections visitor logs show nine relatives are on Lucas' visitors list. These list his father as Frank Lucas; brothers Thomas, James and Lee Lucas; sisters Betty Waldron, Karen Biemert and Judy Reeves; a relative named Vickey Lucas; and his mother as Carol I. Lucas. On jail transfer records, Lucas' parents are listed as Jessie and Bertie Lucas. 5 friends and a pen pal also are on the list. Messages were left for some of Lucas' friends and family, but none responded. The others could not be reached for comment. The Daily News wrote to Lucas in prison, but he has not responded to an interview request. Death Row inmates lead a life with few frills. A eath row cell is 6 feet by 9 feet by 912 feet high. Death row inmates' mealtimes aren't what some families would choose. Meals are served at 5 a.m., from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to the department. These meals are prepared by prison staff and taken in insulated carts to cells. Inmates are allowed plates but no knives or forks. Their utensil: a spoon. Life on death row is very structured, said Public Defender Robert R. Jacobs II. Jacobs handled a 2000 resentencing for Lucas. DOC staff testified at that hearing that "he was a good prisoner. He had adapted to prison life - that he could live out the rest of his life in prison without problem," Jacobs said. Prison disciplinary records show Lucas has had three violations, all between 1978 and 1999. While at Florida State Prison on July 20, 1978, Lucas lost 60 days of gain time from his prison term for disobeying an order. He had no penalty days as a result of a Feb. 8, 1983, disorderly conduct incident while in the central office. And for fighting on Jan. 6, 1999, at Union there were no days knocked off his gain time. The Daily News requested prison incident reports for these dates, but DOC staff did not provide them by press time. For the fashion-conscious, death row is not a Paris runway. Inmates wear orange T-shirts. Their pants are blue, like those worn by non-death row inmates. It's a spartan lifestyle, Jacobs said. "You're in this cube and that's about it. He's basically adapted to his situation," Jacobs said. Even their food intake may be monitored. "Inmates would get weighed once a week, so if you lost weight they'd do something about it," Jacobs said, adding that prison staff didn't want inmates going on hunger strikes. Lucas' is 1 of Jacobs' 3 death penalty cases still being appealed. Death row inmates are counted at least once every hour, according to DOC. They are escorted in handcuffs in the prisons, wearing them except in their cells, the exercise yard and in the shower. They stay in their cells except for medical trips, to exercise or during social or legal visits and interviews with reporters. They can have cigarettes, snacks from the commissary, radios and black and white televisions in their cells. They don't have cable TV but can watch church services on closed-circuit television. "Florida's death penalty takes a lot of time and a ton of money, and still too many mistakes are made," said Mark Elliott, spokesman for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. It costs approximately $72.39 per day to incarcerate a death row inmate. That equates to $26,422.35 a year to house 1 death row inmate. For the 376 inmates on Florida's death row, it costs $27,218.64 to house them all for 1 day. At that rate, it costs $9,934,803.55 to house all death row inmates for the year. According to a DOC budget summary for fiscal year 2004-05, the most recent figures available from the department, it cost $40.92 each day to house 1 non-death row adult male inmate. At that rate, the department spent $14,935.80 a year during that period to house one regular-population inmate for 1 year. Bonita Springs resident Tammy Heath, Terri Rice Hitchcock's sister, said an execution might offer some closure. But it won't bring Jill Piper back. Heath, 47, named her oldest daughter Jill Ann, after Jill. She's a stay-at-home mom. Lucas wrote letters to Rice from prison. "That he believes in the Lord and God and things," Heath said. "He shot her with a shotgun through the bathroom door. She pleaded with him not to shoot her." *************************************** Cheating death----After 30 years, 4 resentencings and countless appeals, Harold "Gene" Lucas has managed to keep himself alive on death row For 30 years, Richard Byrd Sr. waited for the man convicted of shooting his son to be put to death. After 4 resentencings and mounting appeals, former Bonita Springs resident Harold "Gene" Lucas remains on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. No death warrant has been signed. "He really was tore up by it," Richard Byrd Jr. said of his father's private death-watch on Lucas. But the elder Byrd died in March. Lucas remains on death row. "I really hate that nothing was resolved before that," Byrd said. Nineteen-year-old Ricky Byrd Jr. was shot in the abdomen shortly after midnight on Aug. 14, 1976. His friend, 16-year-old Jill Piper - whose grandparents at that time owned the Everglades Wonder Gardens attraction in Bonita Springs - was shot 5 times and died on her family's front lawn. Their friend Terri Rice, Piper's best friend, was shot once in a bathroom of the Piper home, where Jill's brother David now lives. Byrd and Rice testified in January 1977 at Lucas' trial that they had just finished moving Jill's car from where they parked it down the street and into the driveway when Lucas suddenly appeared, armed. Rice testified that Lucas came into the house and shot Byrd after killing Jill, then came after her in a bathroom where she had run to hide. She said they struggled over the gun, she thought she'd calmed Lucas down as he turned to leave, then she slammed the bathroom door as he swiveled around. He blew a hole through the door, destroying the doorknob and hitting Rice in the hip and abdomen. Byrd, 49, is married now and has two children. He moved to Lehigh Acres about 16 years ago, while Lucas, 54, still shuttled back and forth from death row to the Lee County Jail for resentencing hearings. The hole in his gut healed. Byrd hasn't suffered lasting health complications, and says he doesn't think about it often. "I don't let it bother me much," Byrd said of Lucas' time on death row. "The only reason I would testify is if I'm forced to, or in remembrance for Jill. It's been too many years to care much" about Lucas' lengthy court process. "It's a long, long process, I guess. I don't really understand it." That's because it's a broken system, said former State Attorney Joe D'Alessandro, who prosecuted Lucas' case. From Aug. 14, 1976, to Jan. 14, 1977, the death-penalty case went from arrest to trial to conviction. Lucas was sentenced to death Feb. 9, 1977, with two 30-year prison terms added for the shootings of Byrd and Rice. That's when the appeals started, and the case volleyed between the Florida Supreme Court and Lee County Circuit Court. Lucas' sentence was overturned on appeal each time, sending the case back to Fort Myers 4 times for resentencing. "I remember the case very well," D'Alessandro said. "She wore a shirt that said 'Extinct is Forever.' He'll be there when I'm gone." Death row inmates are entitled to appeals, D'Alessandro said. But "you should be able to go through the death system in 2 to 3 years." Lucas' defense attorney, Bill Jennings, declined comment on Lucas' case because it remains on appeal. "Knowing the notoriety of that case and the type of feelings it generated in that area, I think it would be counter-productive" to comment, said Jennings, who as Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Middle Region of Florida heads South Florida's death penalty defense. Mark Elliott, spokesman for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the appeals process for Death Row inmates should take longer than other criminal cases. The punishment is irreversible if they later learn an error was made. Florida has had 26 exonerations of death row inmates and it took an average of 8 years in each case before they were exonerated of wrongful convictions, he said. "Speeding up the process doesn't fix the problem," he said. "The risk of executing an innocent person is almost a given. We've had 60 executions in Florida and 26 exonerations. That gives you the error rate." It's difficult to determine how many innocent people have been executed, said Elliott, who also is the state death penalty abolitionist for Amnesty International. "A lot of times the evidence is destroyed," he said. "It's virtually impossible to prove." Any death sentence is automatically appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, Lee County Judge John W. Dommerich said. "I don't necessarily agree it should take as long as it does," said Dommerich, who was an assistant state attorney on a 1987 resentencing for Lucas. "Either give 'em a life sentence or carry out a death sentence. There ought to be finality to it one way or another at some point. Whether it is 10 years or 15 years, there should be finality." But these cases must progress painstakingly. "Death penalty cases are as serious as they get," said Dommerich, who handles misdemeanor cases as a judge. "It's like the brain surgery of criminal law." Lucas has served more time on death row than any other death row inmate convicted in the 5-county judicial circuit of Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades. He exhausted his state court appeals in 2003. He filed his federal appeal in April 2004 in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers. Little progress has been made on that appeal. "I don't know what the federal circuit will do. My hope is that his sentence is commuted to life," Public Defender Robert R. Jacobs II said. "But we'll see." Just so long as he's not released from prison, said Craig Humble, a former Lee County Sheriff's deputy who was the first man at the Piper house the night of the murder. Humble, 54, said he'd arrested Lucas before, and Lucas always fought him. Lucas was apprehended in Collier County seven days after the murder. "He told me if he ever got out he'd kill me, my family. He'd hunt me down. I really hope he don't get out," Humble said. Lucas wasn't right for Jill from the start, Humble said. "What's a 16-year-old girl doing with him? A rebel?" Humble asked, then gave his head a slight shake. "Girls go through that phase." It's almost as if the pain and loss is a ghost, haunting him. Humble calls it a bruise. "It damages you on the inside," he said quietly, in a molasses-rich Southern drawl. "It gets you when you're alone. You see something really beautiful. A flower, a seagull in the sunset - I'm sorry, I'm a romantic guy - and she didn't get to see that. "She was a tough girl. He probably shot her the way that he did because he knew she would have fought him," Humble said, sipping orange juice outside a small restaurant in downtown Fort Myers. "He couldn't stand up to anybody his size. "I would love for him to get the death penalty," Humble said. "I would have no problem pulling the switch myself. I believe it would be the right thing to do." He thinks in a way he owes it to Jill. He and his dad, Ellis Humble, had been to her house just 20 minutes earlier, called out for a disturbance. They were on the lookout for Lucas after the Pipers reported Lucas was harassing Jill that day. 30 years later, he thinks maybe Lucas was standing back in those dark woods. Waiting. When the Humbles came by, the house and yard were quiet and dark. Then he got the call at 12:48 a.m. Shots fired at the Piper house. He raced down the road, back to their home. "It would be my thing for Jill," Humble said of being the executioner. "'I'm sorry I wasn't there. I couldn't stop it.'" It shouldn't take as long for closure, Byrd said. He said Lucas' appeals have been a search for technicalities, like his drug use, for appeal. Witnesses testified at his trial that Lucas had been drinking and using various drugs, including hash, all day on Aug. 13. Lucas testified that he passed out and awoke in the woods a day later. He said he doesn't remember shooting anyone. In an Oct. 2, 1976, competency report, psychiatrist Mordecai Haber wrote that Lucas told him his father was a tomato picker and would drink every day. Lucas told him, he wrote, that he'd use cocaine, "usually stay drunk most of the time," snort heroin and take Valium. "I'm a mean drunk. I get crazy," Lucas told Haber, according to his report. "I had blackouts and didn't remember the fights until the next day, like when I had black eyes and a busted nose." An innocent man shouldn't be executed, Byrd said. But, he added, Lucas left 2 eyewitnesses and no doubts about his guilt. "There's no question as to who did this," he said. "But I'm a lineman, not a lawyer. They tried to use the drugs - less guilty because he was using drugs. The truth was, he handled himself too well." *********************** His life, her death----Inside the case of a slain teen and her killer who remains on death row It's been 30 years since she lay lifeless in the front yard of her parents' Riverside Drive home in Bonita Springs, her 16-year-old body riddled with bullets. She would have had kids by now, possibly grandkids. Maybe another Hans, the dachshund with whom she used to share her ice cream cones. Her mother still would make shepherd's pie, her favorite meal. Her younger brother still would eat doughnuts, thinking of how his sister filled their family home - the one he still lives in - with the sweet smell of pastries. She would be 47 this year. There are so many maybes. So many what-ifs. Her presence is close. Out of the corner of an eye, they see her in their little ones, in a smile or a laugh, in the way a body moves. For a moment, she's alive again. She's arm-wrestling her older brother, Buck, giving him hell. She's cruising the dusty streets of Bonita in her white Chrysler, a '61 push-button automatic. She's picking up an elderly neighbor caught in an afternoon storm. Anthia Jill Piper is in the ground. She's in the grave they dug for her teenage body 30 years ago. Her killer sits on Florida's death row, one of the 10 longest-surviving criminals there. "I can't even fathom him still being alive," says Jill's best friend, Terri Hitchcock, who was shot in the attack. "He sits back and he gets appeal after appeal after appeal and she begged for her life for 5 minutes and he snuffed it out." Answers are missing. Justice is missing. It's been 30 years. ... >From a back room more than 500 miles from Bonita Springs, a pet bird squawks the name Jill. The parrot is talking to Christian Cruz's 10-year-old daughter. Had one night gone differently, the bird might be talking to Cruz's sister. The sister who was murdered four years before Cruz was born. "It's almost like I do know her," Cruz says as she sinks into a chair at her parents' newly built home in Enterprise, Ala. "When I knew that I was pregnant with a girl, I knew I wanted to pass on her name." Cruz, 25, is brimming again, pregnant with her second child - a boy this time. Her mother, Eleanor Piper, beams with pride. "She looks cute, doesn't she?" Cruz scoffs and rolled her eyes. Her short brunette hair is highlighted with blonde streaks; a Coach purse sits beside her. She's a city girl. Nothing like her big sister. "She's not as tomboy," says Eleanor, 66. "She's just the opposite of what Jill was, which is good." Eleanor's hair is stark white now, her face plump and wrinkled. A large cross hangs loosely around her neck and swings when she walks. Her husband, David Piper Sr., 70, slouches in his favorite chair in the corner, gently cuddling his black teacup poodle, Pierre. The Pipers have grown old. They fear they won't outlive their daughter's murderer. Harold "Gene" Lucas has been sentenced to death 5 times. He continues to appeal. Court documents are mailed with every legal move he makes. The Pipers have moved twice since Lucas' first conviction; the paperwork follows them to each new address. Eleanor's stomach churns every time she sees a state-sealed envelope. 30 years later, she still mourns. "I don't think I'll ever have closure," she says. "He still has that smirky, arrogant look every time we see him. I guarantee you he's not a bit sorry." David Piper Sr., doesn't say a word about his daughter. He hasn't said much about the murder in 30 years. He lifts his eyes to stare at the ceiling when his wife begins to relive their nightmare. ... Friday, Aug. 13, 1976. "Whatever's going to happen, is going to happen tonight," Eleanor remembers telling her husband as they drove to their ranch off Immokalee Road. Lucas had made ominous threats to Jill a few days before, promising to "pay her back" for breaking up with him. They thought he'd vandalize something. Maybe run around their house yelling again. They didn't know what he was capable of. They didn't think Lucas would pump 5 shots into their daughter and leave her bloody body on their front lawn. They didn't think he'd blast 2 of her friends with a shotgun, leaving trails of blood on the walls of the master bedroom. Those things didn't happen in Bonita. Those things didn't happen in a town where everybody knew everyone else's name. Townspeople and law enforcement hunted for Lucas for 7 days. The Pipers waited in agony and terror while rumors of new threats streamed in. Someone - assumed to be Lucas, although he was never charged - broke into Bonita's funeral home across the street from the Pipers' Everglades Wonder Gardens attraction on Old 41 Road. "(Lucas) said he was going to cut up her body and throw it all over 41," Eleanor says. "That, of course, just makes us all sick. But I didn't want her there. I didn't want to look at that building and know that's where she was." Jill's body was kept at a funeral home in Naples, instead. Lucas was still at large when they buried her the Monday after the killing. "That was a horrible ordeal," Eleanor remembers. "We couldn't have a graveside burial. It was held in Naples in the mausoleum. You could look out through the woods and see numerous police running out there. We were surrounded." Their youngest son, 13-year-old David Piper Jr., was terrified. They sent him to stay with Patty Pass, a close family friend. Residents armed themselves as the manhunt continued. Doors that were never locked in the past were never left unlocked again. Officers checked the Pipers' home before family members entered. Deputies escorted them to work every morning. The town panicked. "You could go by the Everglades Wonder Gardens any time of day and see a pickup truck pull out of there with 8 or 10 guys with shotguns in the back just like we were at the OK Corral," says Joe Hogue, who was 21 at the time. "You knew Old Man Piper's going to put him in a gator pen." It was understood that if Lucas was found in Bonita, he would be killed. After 7 days, Lucas was captured in Naples. He was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death. He made 4 appeals that led to 4 resentencings, all of which carried the same penalty. Death. But 30 years later, he lives. "Here he is, he's fighting for his life at the expense of the taxpayer because you know what? He doesn't want to die," says Buck Piper, as he sits with his wife, Cindi, in their Bonita Springs home. "I just think it's an injustice to those who are still living and breathing." Buck was the 1st to get to his childhood house that night, after a telephone call from his father-in-law woke him. There were flashing lights on Riverside Drive. Buck grew up there, in that house by the Imperial River, but nothing was familiar about that place that night. Police swarmed the porch and driveway. An ambulance drove his sister's bloody friend away. A section of the lawn was taped off. Groggy with sleep, his 18-year-old mind strained to put the pieces together. Then he saw her in the grass. Her body wasn't covered. The police held him back. "That's her brother," one cop said. Thirty years later, the words still burn to repeat. They let him through. Her body was warm. "I sat down beside her, put her head in my arms and I told her that I loved her," he says. "She was already gone when I got there. I just said goodbye to her. Then I went to the corner of a patrol car and I vomited." Buck sobs. Loud sobs. "God, it hurts," he says as tears stream into his handlebar mustache. "To see your own, someone you loved, just dead. I mean, alive two days before and then they're gone, all because of a goddamn coward, who's still breathing our air, who's still spending our money, who's still fighting for his life because he doesn't want to die." He wants Lucas to die. Buck wants to see Lucas die. "I hate his guts," he says. "If I go to hell for doing so, I'll see him there." ... Terri Hitchcock sees light when she thinks of Jill. "I remember everything about her," says Hitchock, whose last name was Rice at the time of the murder. "Those are just things I keep to myself, that I keep in my heart. That's how I keep her alive." Her face flushes blotchy shades of red. Tears well in her eyes. She lives in a home in San Carlos Estates in northern Bonita Springs, just a few miles from where it all happened. She never wanted to leave Bonita, even after her best friend was murdered before her 17-year-old eyes. Even after she spent more than a month in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to her hip. "This is my home," she says in her first interview since the murders. She's married now, with two sons. "I've lived here since I was a baby. I wouldn't let that run me out." She's here, but a piece of her is dead, says Hitchcock's sister, Tammy Heath. She is hesitant to call her sister miserable, but there is no other word. "She's just in another world," says Heath, 46. "Once Jill got shot, she just became ... herself." Hitchcock knows. She knows what happened to her. "I lost a lot of trust in people," she says. "I don't know if that's the right word - trust. I'm wary of people, where before I never was wary of people." It doesn't go away. Like her scar. "I see it every day," says Hitchcock, 47. "Even after 30 years. You just see it every day." She remembers everything. A week before the murder, Jill broke things off with Lucas, wanting to see someone else. They weren't dating really, Hitchcock says. They certainly weren't serious. Lucas didn't see it that way. While the girls were hanging out at the Hess Gas Station on Old 41 Road, he told Jill: "You're one dead bitch and anybody with you." Hitchcock's eyes close as she remembers, as though the words are etched inside her eyelids. Three decades of tears can't wash those words away. "She was scared," she says. "She was scared to death." She and another friend of Jill's, Richard "Ricky" Byrd Jr., stayed with her that night. They parked her car in the woods across the street from her house to make the home look empty. They armed themselves with a .38 and a shotgun. Jill hadn't been scared before. She was a tomboy; she was tough. She wasn't going to hide. They decided to move the car back into the driveway. Lucas was waiting in the shadows when they got back. The last time Hitchcock saw Jill was when Lucas shot her. She remembers everything. She wants Lucas to remember is her. "It's just the frustration of it all, looking at him," Hitchcock says. "But I want him to see me there - that I haven't forgotten. He can change his stories and his ridiculous pleas, but I want him to know I'm there. That I know what happened." (source for all: Naples Daily News) NORTH CAROLINA: Judge went too far Your Aug. 17 article about a challenge by Sammy Flippen's family to a decision to let only two family members view his execution [which was carried out Friday morning] reported that in his ruling Wake County Superior Court Judge J.B Allen doubted the sincerity of the family members. The issue in the challenge, as reported, was the interpretation of state law saying "any relatives of such person, convict or felon...may be present if they so desire." It is my understanding that when a court is asked to interpret a law, the only relevant intent is the intent of the legislature when it passed the law. The intent of the plaintiff has nothing to do with what the legislature's words mean. Since the sincerity of the plaintiff is not an issue, the judge's reported view amounts to a gratuitous personal attack on a party to a case he just decided. Regardless of our views on the death penalty, we should expect unbiased rulings from our courts limited to the issue, not unseemly personal attacks on a party. John Edgerton----Durham (source: Leltter to the Editor, News & Observer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., COLO., CALIF., FLA., N.C.
Rick Halperin Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:54:22 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
