Voices from Death Row
by Kelly Banaski
Voices from Death Row
by Kelly Banaski
ISBN-13: 978-1987902365
ISBN-10: 198790236X
Copyright and Published (2017)
by
RJ PARKER PUBLISHING
http://RJParkerPublishing.com/
Published in the United States of America
Copyrights
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written authorization from RJ Parker Publishing. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.
Fair Use Statement
Interviews with inmates were conducted mainly by mail correspondence. Direct quotes are made sparingly with the intent of advancing public understanding of the dangers criminals pose. The work as a whole is offered as research material for criminal justice, mental health, and psychology students, researchers and professionals. All information is public record and no rights of privacy have been violated. Statements from inmates are used for purposes of commentary and criticism. The correspondence interviews are only a small part of the work, which is an entirely new creation.
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Table of Contents
Book Links 4
Dedication 7
Acknowledgments 7
Preface 9
Introduction 10
History of the Death Penalty 11
Voices 16
Joseph Edward Duncan, III 17
Joseph Naso 39
LeMaricus Devall Davidson 52
Kimberly Cargill 78
Pam Moss 89
Christian Longo 95
Vincent Brothers 109
Books by the Author 115
Taking Tori 115
Shirley Turner: Doctor, Stalker, Murderer 116
About the Author 118
Connect with Kelly 120
Acknowledgment 121
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire
“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.”
William S. Burroughs
“Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.” Gloria Steinem
“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”
Jim Morrison
“The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster.”
Patrick Ness A Monster Calls
Dedication
To all the little girls who have become grown women and are still looking for the monsters under their beds.
Acknowledgments
No writer writes alone and there have been many people who helped me along the way. I want everyone to know how much every little thing means to me.
My forever friend, Elena Nasios, is always a harsh critic and my biggest fan. She tells it like it is and I need that. Donna Faye Adams, who encouraged me when it would have been easy to quit and reminds me that there are always three sides to every story. Ray McCoy, my high school buddy who spends his weekends reading and rereading and fact-checking my many versions. Gary Jackson, who believed in me when no one else did and gave me the tools to move forward.
My brother, Richard Banaski, my main source of sarcasm, coffee, Grey Gardens quotes and 80’s trivia. Without him I would still be banging my head against my writers block and trying to remember what the secret sauce is at Bronco Burger.
My greatest accomplishment will always be my children; Cayla, Lucky, Hannah, Gabriel, Meadow and Tristan. My achievements are made greater with their love and encouragement. When the Universe gave me Arian, Einar and Ero Dean, my heart got bigger and my blessings grew stronger.
Steven Gosse - I have been fortunate enough to love one man my whole life. We just didn’t find our way to each other until later in life. Without him, there would be no writer to write.
Preface
In the face of the unfathomable atrocities human beings commit upon one another, those of us on the outside are left to wonder why. Why my daughter? Why my son? Why such carnage? Why such pain? We try to make sense of it but no answer is ever enough. Our only hope is to stop it from happening again.
The following pages contain stories and narrative from convicted killers. Use their words as a shield against the crimes they commit and arm yourself with the knowledge of their actions. Use the harrowing tales in these pages to protect yourself and your loved ones from falling victim to such crimes.
A portion of the proceeds from this book goes to funds benefiting the victims.
Introduction
My goal in writing this book and in every interaction with inmates is to learn. A fan of true crime since I stumbled upon In Cold Blood in junior high, I always want to know why. Not the assumed why of police and investigators, or the rehashed why of reporters, doctors and authors, but the real why straight from the killer’s mouth. While I don’t always get it, I do get a lot of other information that helps me reach my own conclusions. Knowing what they know helps me feel prepared in life. I know what can happen out in the big bad world. It helps me prepare my children, the people in my life and my readers.
I have interviewed many people on death row. Some admitting guilt, some pleading innocence. When you sit across the table, inches from someone who took human lives, you expect a certain demeanor. When they tell you their story, you look for an evil glint to the eye or a deadness of the soul. It is confusing when that doesn’t happen. Their normalness is off-putting. They are just human after all and confined to human reaction. Even the evilest among them stare back at you with human eyes and speak to you with human tongues. It is left to us to make final judgment on if we are seeing evil or just the darkest of human nature.
History of the Death Penalty
The history of the death penalty in America is a bizarre and fascinating tale dating back to the colonial days and the first settlers in Virginia. Captain George Kendall was thought to be a spy for the Spanish and was executed by firing squad in 1607. These first instances of use were modeled after what was happening in England, from where the settlers had arrived and followed their lead in public punishments.
After the Revolutionary War, the founding fathers were torn on the continued use. Some thought it a relic from the old ways they were fleeing from while others thought it even more important in a democracy where crimes were committed against the republic and not the kings and queens of their old home. Many believe a reference to capital punishment is in the constitution with the inclusion of the fifth amendment, stating no one will be deprived of their life or liberty without the due process of law. Nearly 16,000 people have been executed since the founding of the colonies.
Today, we see those fated to execution as monsters, identifiable as human only by their outward form. I
n the early days of capital punishment, the doomed were seen simply as unlucky citizens. The witnesses who attended the public executions were there out of pity and commiseration. They all saw each other as equally flawed and had sincere hope for atonement. As years passed, executions became more of a public spectacle, and everywhere they were held, raucous crowds would gather. Executions drew large, rowdy crowds of revelers, drinking and, paradoxically, committing crimes. It was the perfect time to commit burglaries and robberies because everyone was in the public square for the execution. Bands would play, a choir would sing. Schools released the students, and businesses all closed for the two to three hours it would take to complete the execution and hear the condemned person give their execution speech, which often explained why they felt they had ended up at the end of a rope. Usually, it was the demon alcohol, gambling and women that bore most of the blame.
Eventually, public executions became too much of a nuisance. The crowds were often unmanageable. Authorities were afraid that the often-sympathetic crowd could decide the convict should go free and topple the authority or even go the other way and dispense their own justice. States began to hold executions behind jail gates, but the general public would surround the walls by the hundreds and peer over. Hanging from trees and balancing on the walls, they would find a way to see. It wasn’t long before executions were no longer public affairs. It was at that moment the contemporary American death row was born.
Until the point that executions were no longer public, hanging had been the most popular method of state-sanctioned murder. It was cheap and there was no need for a doctor or any type of skill or education level. Criminals had a noose placed around their necks as they sat on horseback. The horse was given a swat and it ran off, leaving the criminal hanging from the tree. While hanging was cheap and simple, it was anything but easy. A noose must be exactly the right length to work correctly. Too short of a noose can cause the criminal to bounce and fight at the end of the rope. Onlookers, often the condemned’s family, would be horrified at the sight.
America has forever since been looking for the perfect way to murder its murderers in a way that is painless and does not appear gruesome so as not to give away how similar the punishment is to the crime. The righteous violence of the state cannot be confused with the anarchic violence of the criminal lest the public realize how similar they are at the core. The result is a parade of death machines concocted to keep the peace, each worse than the last despite the intellectual progress of the human race.
When the electricity exhibit took the world by storm at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, authorities soon had a new way to put the nation's criminals to death. The first person in the world to be executed in the electric chair was William Kemmler. He was tried and convicted of hatcheting his common-law wife, Tillie Ziegler, to death in May of 1889. New York had instituted the electric chair as a means of executing the death penalty in January of the same year. On the date of his execution, he told the 17 witnesses that he wished them well and felt he was on to a better place. As he was being prepared for the chair, he told the jailers to take it easy and do it properly as he was in no hurry. When the switch was thrown, it was evident they had not taken his advice. A thousand volts of electricity coursed through his body for 17 seconds and he was declared dead. Only moments later witnesses noticed him breathing and he was quickly electrocuted again, this time with 2000 volts. Witness accounts rival modern horror movies with descriptions of the foul stench of cooking flesh that permeated the cell. Blood vessels ruptured, causing ribbons of blood to run from beneath the mask as bits of flaming hair and flesh dropped to the ground. Witnesses were vomiting on the floor and scrambling around office furniture for the door. A reporter who was in the witness room is quoted as saying it was far worse than hanging and they would have done better with an ax.
In 1924, the first person was executed in a gas chamber. His name was Gee John, a notoriously cruel Chinese gangster who killed a rival in Chinatown. He was gassed in Nevada and stayed inside the chamber for almost an hour to ensure he was dead. It wasn’t until later that the chambers came with a way to tell if there was a living heartbeat inside.
Charles Brooks Jr. was the first person to be executed by lethal injection. He was convicted in the death of a Texas car mechanic he and an accomplice had kidnapped and kept bound and gagged in the trunk of a car. They eventually shot him in the face in a motel room. Brooks was given a lethal injection of the barbiturate sodium pentathol, which is the same drug known as a truth serum.
America has gotten progressively worse at finding a way to humanely kill its prisoners. Since the 1890s through the invention of the electric chair, approximately 3 percent of executions were botched. After the advent of the lethal injection death, around 8 percent have been botched.
More than 1,200 people have been executed by lethal injection. Some of the earliest targets are still considered some of the most notorious criminals in American history. Their criminal enterprises rival any modern-day sicko in gruesome violence.[i]
Voices
The following stories are of the lives and crimes of American death row prisoners. I attempted to contact all of them but could not connect with Christian Longo or Vincent Brothers for reasons of their own. Joseph Duncan, LeMaricus Davidson, Joseph Naso, Kimberly Cargill and Pam Moss all returned my correspondence. I explained to them I wanted to write a book including their stories. Responses ranged from happy to participate, to reluctant, to polite decline, to no response at all.
Joseph Edward Duncan, III
The kidnapping and murder of all but one of the Groene family in 2005 made national headlines when Joseph Edward Duncan was found with Groene's daughter, 8-year-old Shasta, in an Idaho restaurant. Duncan had murdered her mother, two brothers and her mom’s boyfriend before deciding to set her free. After his arrest, it was discovered Duncan had committed a lifetime of crimes and other murders. He sits on federal death row in Indiana today.[ii]
The Groene family lived in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Brenda Groene, 40, her son Slade, 13, Shasta, 8, Dylan, 9, and Brenda’s boyfriend Mark McKenzie, 37, all lived in the home. The day police found the house full of dead bodies on May 16, 2005, Shasta and Dylan were missing.
According to Shasta’s testimony,[iii] that horrific last day she spent with her family began early that morning when her mother called her into the living room. She walked in to find her mom, Mark, and her brother Slade bound with duct tape and plastic zip-ties by Joseph Duncan who lorded over them with a shotgun. He bound Shasta and Dylan but took them outside and left them while he went back in. The two youngest Groene children heard the screams and death throes of their family as they sat bound in the yard. At one point, Slade stumbled out, bleeding profusely from the head. He faltered, confused and disoriented into the yard where he fell. Shasta and Dylan yelled to him to come and untie them, but he could not help.
After the murders, Duncan took Shasta and Dylan away in a pick-up truck. He transferred them to a stolen red jeep and drove to a campground 90 miles away in Montana. He stayed there in three different Montana camp sites raping, torturing and abusing the young brother and sister for weeks. According to Shasta’s own record, Duncan molested both children and forced them to perform sex acts on each other. He repeatedly told both kids what he’d done to their family and showed them the hammer he had used to bash in the skulls of the three people he left back at the Idaho home. Eventually, he shot Dylan as he forced Shasta to watch, and then the two were alone. He videotaped much of his acts. [iv]
During her time with Duncan, Shasta somehow managed to elicit some tenderness and compassion from the murderer. She called him Jet, at his request, and tried to keep his rage from flying too far out of control. He continually molested her while telling her how he had found and killed her family. What sweet Shasta and her unsuspecting family could not have known was that they were simply accidental victims of a bizarre, pedophilic mind on a rampage against society.
Joseph Edward Dunc
an III has long been a troubled and sick soul. His family testified during his trial that he had suffered a variety of abuses during his childhood, including severe beatings. His first sexual crime occurred when he was 15 years old in the Tacoma, Washington, area. He held a 9-year-old boy at gun point and raped him, forcing him into several lascivious sexual acts. He recalled thinking of torture photos he’d seen years earlier when he raped this young boy. This first rape began a series of criminal activity and deviant sexual behavior.
He was arrested while driving a stolen car when he was 16. He was sentenced to a specified amount of time at Dyslin's Boys' Ranch in Tacoma, a place that has been sued for child abuse.[v] A therapist was assigned to his case. Duncan told him that he felt he had bound and assaulted a total of six boys and raped as many as 13 by the time he reached age 16.
By 1980, Duncan was on the loose and watching children. He stole some guns from a neighbor in Tacoma and used one to kidnap a 14-year-old boy. He forced the boy into the woods, burning him with a cigarette and beat his buttocks with a stick. He raped and sodomized the child at gun point but was caught later that night. Convicted and sentenced to 20 years, Duncan was released after 14 years only to return shortly on parole violations. He served another three years.
Authorities placed him in mental facilities and enrolled him in programs to treat pedophilic behavior but in early 1982, his therapist noted on his record that he had stopped attempting to get any better. They felt he had not been committing himself and cited two instances where he had escaped the facility and prowled the neighborhood, peeking in windows. He served the remainder of his time in a prison.
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