Eye of the Beholder

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

8

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.

I see David and Maureen Danzinger and feel something float through my stomach. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces after they identified their daughter, Ellie, who had been a sophomore at Mansbury. They had flown back from South Africa immediately upon hearing the news but seemed unable to comprehend the fact until they saw it firsthand, saw their daughter lying dead on a slab with a tremendous gash in her body where her heart used to be. They spent the entire year in town, waiting for the trial, which they attended every day.

Maureen Danzinger approaches and takes my arm. It’s been over seven years now. Seven years, waiting for this day, probably hoping that it would bring some semblance of closure, knowing in her heart that it would not. Her hair has grayed, her eyes sunk, her midsection widened, and she’s probably reconciled herself to the fact that her daughter’s killer was caught and convicted, would be dead in half an hour, and justice would be done. That will have to be enough. People are like that when dealing with such staggering pain. They need hope. They can’t bring their daughter back, so they focus on something that is attainable-justice for the murderer. It won’t untie the knot but hopefully loosens it.

I say hello to her husband, David, as well. He is dressed in a dark suit. That seems to be the attire of choice, funeral chic, which I find interesting, because when you get down to it, no one’s really mourning the loss of this guy, at least no one in this room.

Joel Lightner walks up to me and smirks. Retired police detective, the one who broke the case. Or caught the case that practically fell into his lap, he’d admit after one too many bourbons.

“Bentley’s not coming?” he asks me, a trace of disappointment in his tone.

He’s referring to one of the other victims’ families, the other student besides Ellie, who was murdered. Cassandra Bentley, daughter of Harland and Natalia Lake Bentley. I shake my head no. Harland’s my client now in private practice, we talk on a weekly basis, and we never so much as broached the subject of Terry Burgos’s execution.

“Jackals are in the next room.” Joel says it with disdain out of the corner of his mouth, his reference to the reporters who won the lottery and are inside the compound, but this is a marketing opportunity for his new business as a high-priced private eye. He’ll be sure to throw out some quotes to the media.

I look to my right through the Plexiglas window, where the reporters are sipping drinks or munching on cookies. The warden’s rule-reporters can come but can talk to the official witnesses only if the witnesses are willing. He even designated a separate room for the media until showtime. At the moment, no official witnesses are in there, but that’s probably because I’m late. They’ve probably gotten everything they wanted by now.

Joel nudges me. “Know what he had for his final meal?”

I shake my head, even though I know.

“Tacos,” he says, beaming.

We are led into the official witness room at 11:45. It’s a room no larger than a living room, entirely lacking decor, gray walls and two rows of seats, the second row raised a single step up. No one really knows where to sit, but people seem to be in a hurry to take the back row, as if that provides them with distance from the spectacle. I figure I’ll let the victims’ families make the decision, so I end up sitting front and center, next to Joel on one side and Carolyn Pendry, a television reporter from Newscenter 4, on the other. Looking forward from my seat, there is a floor-to-ceiling window into the neighboring room, currently covered by a pale green curtain.

I can’t shake the analogy, it’s like going to the movies, settling in and waiting for the curtain to part. There is a table with pitchers of water and coffee-as if anyone needs caffeine right now-but otherwise no refreshments. Joel Lightner asked me yesterday if he should bring popcorn.

“What’re you doing after?” Carolyn Pendry, the reporter, whispers, with a tremble in her voice. She’s one of the city’s many reporter babes, tall and blond, high cheekbones. She’s completely made up, like the other reporters who will be going on camera later. She’s making a joke, an attempt to seem cool. Joel and I are going to get a steak afterward, actually, but I’m not going to share that with her.

Carolyn leans into me. “What did he say to you yesterday?”

“No comment” The fine reporter she is, Carolyn learned that Terry Burgos requested that I visit him yesterday. In the last three days before an execution in this state, an inmate is placed in an area known as “Deathwatch,” a group of four cells in the building adjacent to the execution chamber, where he is under twenty-four-hour observation by a team of correctional officers who work twelve-hour shifts. Condemned inmates are allowed two visitors a day over each of the three days. I was the only person to visit. It lasted all of five minutes.

The next several minutes are weird. The Department of Corrections sets a rigorous protocol for executions-from the timing of the final consultations with clergy to the last meal to the “death march” from Deathwatch to Building J to the official phone call to the commissioner, seeing if there are any last-minute stays-but there are no regulations that explain how to watch a man die. People are antsy in their seats. The reporters especially-the ones who are here for their job-are not enjoying themselves. It’s guaranteed airtime for them, maybe a special afterward about the crimes or the death penalty, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to enjoy this.

At about ten to twelve, the curtain on the window parts, pulled manually by prison guards. Carolyn, next to me, jerks. Various noises from the witnesses, gasps and moans and even a sob. The people in the back row are looking at the man who killed their daughters.

It’s a large space, with a small circular room within a room, a pale green-painted octagonal metal box, about six feet wide and eight feet high. The entrance is through a rubber-sealed steel door that has been closed by a large locking wheel. There are windows on all seven other sides, so that each of us in the viewing room can see the condemned prisoner.

Terry Burgos is in white boxers only, sitting in a metal chair, with leather straps across his upper and lower legs, arms, thighs, chest, and forehead. A long Bowles stethoscope is affixed to his hairy chest and leads outside the gas chamber, where a doctor will be able to pronounce Burgos dead without having to enter the chamber.

The forehead restraint is a new thing, after a guy down south split his head open banging it against the steel pole behind the chair while he fought the air hunger. Leave it to our state to want to stop a man from knocking himself unconscious so we can execute him.

If Terry Burgos looks pathetic, a hairy, pudgy man sitting in his underwear, strapped into a chair, with an audience watching the spectacle, he doesn’t reveal any awareness of it whatsoever. He doesn’t show much of anything, moving his eyes from person to person with the wonderment of a child. He has lived almost entirely in isolation for the last seven years, and maybe there is something stimulating about this.

Beneath Burgos’s chair is a bowl filled with sulfuric acid mixed with distilled water. Suspended above the bowl, in a gauze bag, is a pound of sodium cyanide pellets. When the warden gives the signal, the guard outside the gas chamber will pull a lever that will release the cyanide into the liquid, causing a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide.

Actually, there are three levers that will be pulled simultaneously by three different guards. Two of the levers will not do a damn thing, while the third will lower the pellets into the acidic water. None of the three guards will go to bed tonight knowing that he was the one who killed a man. The state may lack compassion for its killers but not for the executioners.

“I hope to God he doesn’t hold his breath,” Carolyn says to me. She’s done her homework. If Burgos takes a deep breath of the gas, he’ll be unconscious in seconds and will die peacefully. If he holds his breath and fights it, he’ll likely go into convulsions, and this could last up to twenty minutes.

“Terrance Demetrius Burgos,” the prison guard begins, holding the clipboard away from his face. “You have been convicted by a court of law in this state of five separate violations of Article 4, Section 6-10(a), of the Criminal Code, to wit: the homicides of Elisha Danzinger, Angela Mornakowski, Jacqueline Davis…”

Carolyn Pendry makes a noise, leans forward, and, with a guttural groan, vomits on my shoe. I ignore the bile at my feet, offer her a handkerchief, and take her hand, lacing my fingers with hers. She attempts an apology, but there’s no need. She will not be the last one to react in such a way. There’s a doctor on call, in fact, for the witnesses.

“… Sarah Romanski, and Maureen Hollis.”

Terry Burgos has gained a good twenty pounds since his arrest, adding a second chin that covers his neck, his eyes reduced to tiny beads now. He has almost no hair on top; a few strands stick up over the leather restraint that covers his forehead. I look for it in those eyes, any sense of remorse or compassion. Or fear. I admit it, I want this to hurt.

“… jury has determined that these homicides were committed with premeditation and under special circumstances warranting the imposition of capital punishment…”

I feel the collective tension behind me, the mixed emotions of the people so angry and hurt, reliving the tragedy all over again over these last few weeks, now getting the justice that they clam ored for, begged the jury to impose.

“You have signed a written statement, notarized and validated by a court of law, indicating your choice of lethal gas.”

That, or electrocution. I’d have gone the other way. I can’t imagine anything worse than fighting for air.

I look at the two telephones on the wall, one black, one red, the latter connected directly to the governor’s mansion. Then I peek at the clock. Twelve on the dot.

When I look back at Burgos, he has settled his gaze on me. Now we have made eye contact, and I know he’s going to watch me as long as he can. I consider looking away, showing him the lack of respect he probably deserves, but I lock my stare on him. Maybe I owe him that much. Maybe every prosecutor should have to look in the eyes of the person he has condemned. Maybe that’s why I’m here, and why I agreed to visit him yesterday.

His tongue peeks out from between his thin lips. His eye winks but it seems involuntary. No human being, no matter how psychotic, could approach this punishment without some reaction. His fingers drum along the arm pads. His toes dance. His chest heaves. He is perspiring heavily, which is not an appealing sight on a man almost entirely naked.

“… are entitled to make any final statement at this time.”

Absolute silence. Terry Burgos has never apologized, never offered a single word of contrition. This is what the families are waiting for, I suspect-something, anything, to make this better.

His lips part but he says nothing. We are still staring at each other, so it seems that the families will not get what they wanted. Whatever he has to say, he will say to me.

The prison guard is unsure of his next move. Surely, he wants to give Burgos at least this much, the chance to make it right or find some peace. Maybe he likes the guy, in a weird way, having spent the last seven years with him on death row. Most of these guys, sitting in solitary confinement, turn to God or simply lose the will to fight, end up being pretty good inmates.

The guard finally looks at the warden, who holds up a finger, and we all wait.

Terry Burgos clears his throat with a struggle. One guy, out west somewhere, rambled on for almost twenty minutes when given the chance to have his last words.

Another agonizing minute passes, as the prisoner and I stare at each other. I look for a smirk, for an indignant scowl, for fear in his eyes. What I receive, instead, is nothing but childlike wonderment, a hypnotic gaze.

The warden moves closer to the glass cell. “Terry, do you have anything to say?”

Burgos shakes his head slowly, as much as he can with his restraints. His eyes still on me, his mouth parts again. He speaks to me silently, his lips moving in coordination with his tongue and teeth. I’m not much for lipreading but I know what he’s saying.

The warden, who is not facing Burgos, takes the silence as a negative answer and motions to the prison guard, who will now order the officials to begin the process.

“The prisoner has declined any final statement,” says the prison guard.

Sobbing, behind me. Some of the family members wanted to hear contrition. Others probably expected something self-serving and are relieved at the lack of a statement. But the guard is wrong. Terry Burgos didn’t decline a final statement. He mouthed it to me, the man who put him in that chair.

The same thing he said to me yesterday, in his cell.

I’m not the only one.