I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
---Poe, Tell Tale Heart
Life, Death and the Tabloids
for release 08-29-06
Washington D.C.
Human fascination with illicit sex and death is hardly a new development caused by global warming or any of the other myriad ills of modernity. It goes back at least to Isis and Osiris, the Garden of Eden and The Clan of the Cave Bears. A good rape-murder always sells papers. The mysterious tangle between sex and life and death is the subject of all great drama and poetry and tabloid news.
That's why the JonBenet story has taken on such mythic status. It is straight from Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama and twisted B-movie thriller mysteries. Did the effeminate substitute teacher with the shifty eyes do it with a candlestick in the basement, or is he just bragging?
Here are the possibilities:
1. He killed her like he says he did.
2. He's delusional and just thinks he did it. He wishes he did it.
3. He knows he didn't do it but is trying to steal his fifteen minutes.
I don't know which option is sicker or more depraved. The first option is the most tragic. The second is by far the creepiest and the third one I can almost....almost get my head around. When a petulant child is looking for attention, it doesn't matter to him if it is positive or negative attention. He would as soon be spatted as patted.
I knew a child once. I lived with his mother for several years.
I could never make eye contact with Karl. We just never connected. When I would try to meet his gaze, he would be looking slightly to the left.
His mother and I separated when he was five or six. I didn't see him again until many years later.
In 1991 a thirty year old single mother was raped and shot in the head in Dallas. The case went unsolved for five years.
Then, in 1996, they arrested Karl for the crime. He admitted that he did it and even gave them the murder weapon which he had kept for five years.
The first that I heard of any of this was when my brother, who was a prosecutor for the Dallas District Attorney's office, called me on the phone and summoned me to come visit him at his office. He had been appointed to prosecute Karl's case. The defense of course raised the issue of conflict of interest because of the quasi-familial connection between the defendant and the prosecutor.
My brother showed me the grisly details of the crime on 8 X 10 black and white glossy photographs depicting a dead young woman laying in a soup of blood and piss and brains. Duct tape on the wrists. It was horrible.
My brother told me that the State was going to offer Karl 3 life sentences instead of the death penalty if he copped a plea.
I told Karl's mother that if any jury in the world saw those photographs of the crime scene, Karl would have the needle in his arm as sure as death follows taxes. I relayed the message that he should take the deal. Life is better than death every time. Three life sentences would allow him to come up for parole in 45 years under Texas law.
I don't know what Karl was thinking. He didn't take the deal. Instead he used the 'I'm going to AA now' defense. It took the jury 30 minutes to convict him and seven minutes to give him the death penalty. For the past eight years, Karl has been on death row in Texas.
I'm only telling you this because I have recently learned that they have set an execution date for Karl. His appeals are exhausted and he goes to the crucifixion couch sometime this Fall.
I'm certainly not here to defend rape and brutal murder. I heartily believe that Karl should be isolated from society for the rest of his life. We deserve that protection. But State sanctioned murder is a little too pre-meditated for me. The State of Texas has been planning Karl's murder for eight years now.
There is a big difference between how we handle a high profile case and your everyday pedestrian case in our justice system. In a high profile case, like the JonBenet Ramsey murder, there is thorough over-investigation and excessive press coverage. The State is compelled by public scrutiny to dot all of the i's and cross all of the t's.
But if you are only a low profile case, or a no profile case, the justice system treats you with a different kind of respect. You become a simple victim of process and paperwork.
For every OJ trial with all the bells and whistles and mass press coverage and a battalion of high-priiced lawyers, you have thousands of trials with no press coverage and a dozing public defender representing an accused person that he met fifteen minutes before the trial.
The Poet's Eye sees that there is a vast difference between High Justice and High Drama. We secretly hate justice but we love a good show.
Hangman, hangman, hangman, slack your rope a while. Think I see my sweetheart, ridin' many a mile.
Well, sweetheart did you bring any silver? Sweetheart, did you bring a little gold
Or did you come to see me hangin' from the gallows pole?
Yes, I brought a little silver. Yes, I brought a little gold. I didn't come to see you hangin' from the gallows pole.
---Kingston Trio
