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.
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
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
“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.
