10
Monday: March 30, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Personal experiences divide Kansans over death penalty
Continued from p. 1
take to flip the switch?" Mooney asked.
Courtesy of Elbert Hales
Margaret Mooney answered, "I think I could, almost, on Rubeke. There's an empty spot there where was, and it will never be filled."
William Jackson Marion, far right, awaits execution on March 25, 1887, as a minister next to him prays. His hat rests on a post above him. "He wasn't going to need it anyway," said his grandson, Elbert Marion. "A man doesn't pray with his head covered." The man who William Jackson Marion was accused of killing turned up alive four years after Marion's execution.
She held her right hand in the air,
pressing her thumb to her index and
throat.
"I could give him an injection," she said. "I know how to do that."
The Mooneys keep a scrapbook with newspaper stories about their daughter's death, Rubeke's trial and capital punishment. They really don't know why, they said. Ellis Mooney was searching for a recent death penalty story, but his wife had gotten to the paper first. The story he wanted was on the back of coupons she needed for grocery shopping.
Pardoned but not free
Elbert Marion also saves stories from the newspaper. He has a stack of clips about his grandfather, William Jackson Marion, who was pardoned Wednesday in Nebraska for a murder conviction.
"Rubeke's got everything he needs," Stripin said, "and we spend all this time clipping coupons to make ends meet."
"He is freely and unconditionally absolved from all the legal consequences of the offense and of his conviction," the pardon reads.
But William Jackson Marion isn't a free man. He was hung for the murder. The man Marion was accusated of murder in four years after Marion's execution.
Elbert Marion, 74, never knew his grandfather. Despite the objection of some of his family who he said were jealous, he worked to get the pardon, which took effect on the 100th anniversary of the execution.
"I just felt this a 'way,' he said.
"He was buried in an unmarked grave in Potter's Field, though it looked like the same," he said, honor your father and your mother.
Marion's father was 14 when William Jackson Marion was hanged in Beatrice, Neb. Marion said his father never forgive the state of Nebraska for the execution.
"My father was a bitter man," he said, "I've heard him say if he'd go to South Dakota or North Dakota, he'd do it. You wouldn't he'd not put on, Nebraska soil."
Marion's home in lola, a southeast Kansas town, could use a new coat of paint. The floor of his front porch is a little warped. But the inner walls of his crowded living room are alive with pictures, proverbs and knikknacks
Marion seems more concerned
about what's on the inside than what the world sees. He spends his Sundays talking with the prisoners at the Allen County Jail. He's a preacher, he said, but he doesn't preach to them.
"I don't go up there with an open table," he said. "I go as their friend and I look around."
Then what does he talk about?
"I don't even try to remember their names. I want to meet them on the street and not remember, 'Oh, yeah. I saw you in jail.' "
"Sometimes, big fish stories." Marion said. "We kinda have lying contests, about fishing and things like that."
Marion wants to help the prisoners. He wants to clear out the jail. They've messed up their lives so far, he tells them, but they can still survive with the why he opposes the death penalty, even for the most heinous murders.
"There are people who don't believe that evil of a creature can be saved," he said. "My Bible says they can."
Marion's wife, Mildred, sat in their living room crocheting a bedspread as he told old family stories on an evening a few weeks ago. His father didn't have an easy life, he said. Marion's had his share of hardships, too.
A baseball cap collection hangs on their wall, below a sign proclaiming "Politicians and drunks not allowed," with an emphasis on politicians. Craft projects cover their well-worn furniture.
Behind Mildred Marion, pictures of some of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren hang on the wall. The couple also has had 27 foster children.
And that's why he visits prisoners and speaks out against the death penalty.
"A minister is a people helper," Ellis Marion said. "It's sure a lot more than preaching."
"I feel like I'm my brother's keeper," he said. "And something else that kind of gets to my heart — I'm a kept brother. Where would I be if I didn't have somebody else looking out for me?"
Bevond reform
Kelly Clark looks out for the citizens of Gray County on the plains of western Kansas. Clark, a deputy sheriff, lives in Cimarron in a ranch-style home, several blocks from Main Street.
His cousin Alan Watson lived on Main Street until 1980, when two men broke into his home at night. One raped Watson's wife, Patty, and the other shot him. Clark was one of the
first people to arrive at the home.
"Anyone that has the misfortune or obligation to work scenes like this, he's going to sit there and say, 'Whoever committed this crime damn sure needs to die,' " he said one afternoon.
Richard Salem is serving two life sentences for the crimes, and Rudy Barron Jr. is serving three 15-years-to-life sentences. They are both from the Gray County area. Clark said they never had met his cousin. They just wanted to kill someone to prove they could, he said.
Watson didn't die immediately. He was taken to a Wichita hospital, where he survived on life support systems for a week.
"He didn't even know this boy, and yet he tied his hands behind him, and made him beg for his life and shot him. He was the killer." "He don't deserve to live."
"You'd have just thought he was asleep, other than the big bulge by his right eye where the bullet didn't quite exit," he said.
Clark made the decision to disconnect Watson's life support systems, but Watson died a few hours before doctors were going to turn off the machines. Watson's wife has remarried and still lives in Cimarron.
Watson's parents couldn't bring themselves to order doctors to turn off the machines, Clark said. They are in poor health and still are awaiting a doctor who will be son's killer was executed, he said; they would be able to rest easier.
"Alan and I were like brothers."
Clark said, "We grow up together."
ple," he said. "They respect the right to life. I know if you asked them (about the death penalty), they would say yes."
"They love life, and they love peo-
But Clark said he couldn't be the executioner, unless no one else in the world would do it. Yet, he knows that death is sometimes part of his job.
"There might be a time when I would have to take someone's life," he said. "I've already made that decision."
Clark said he always had supported the death penalty because it was a deterrent and because some criminals were beyond reform.
"I've seen a lot of people go through the system," he said. "Some it helps, but the violent criminals — many of them are repeat offenders. The penal system doesn't have a very good track record."
Linda Eckelman gets along better with violent criminals. It's her job.
Legal opposition
"People that commit violent crimes, when you defend them, are not like people. she said in her Dodge City City Hall that the thieves we've gota worry about."
But now Eckelman is concerned with John Goss, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend in September while on probation for burglary and other felony convictions. His case gained attention in the November elections for governor.
Eckelman, who is defending Goss, subpoenaed Hayden about the brochure the day before the election. But a judge quashed the subpoena, and Hayden went on to win by a narrow margin. Hayden said that his support for the death penalty had helped him win the election but that it was not the difference between victory and defeat.
Gov. Mike Hayden, a strong capital punishment supporter, was running against former Lt. Gov. Tom Docking, who promised to veto any death penalty bill. Near the end of the campaign, a Hayden campaign brochure
declared Goss guilty and blamed the murder on the courts under former Gov. John Carlin and Docking.
Goss' trial is still in the preliminary stages.
Eckelman opposes capital punishment because of the chance of making a mistake and because it removes the possibility of reform.
"Most of the time, a person will only explode once," she said. "Most of them have a good possibility of reformation."
If the state studied criminals instead of executing them, she said, it might find a mental disorder that corrected with drugs or treatment.
"If John Goss is guilty, I think it would be a boon to mankind to find out what makes him tick and maybe stop some of it," she said.
Eckelman doesn't know whether Goss is guilty, she said. But she's glad to have his case.
"I thought it would be interesting for my career," she said. "I just thought it would be very interesting from a legal point of view."
Bill Brown was editor of the Garden City Telegram in 1959 when Richard Hickock and Perry Smith killed four members of the Clutter family near Holcomb, a small town just west of Garden City. The murders of teen-agers Kenyon and Nancy Clutter and their parents, Herbert and Bonnie, were dramatized in Truman Capote's novel "In Cold Blood" and the subsequent movie.
A film fantasy
Brown, who teaches journalism at the University of Kansas, knew the Clutters as a fellow church member. He covered the trial of their killers as a journalist, and he watched their killers' execution as an official witness of the state.
On a Sunday in November 1959, Brown said, he was waiting for one of the Clutter children at their church, but the child didn't show up. Then he got a phone call. Something was wrong at the Clutter farm.
"I walked in, and I didn't see anyone," he said. "I went upstairs and found Mrs. Clutter and Nancy both shot to death in their beds."
Police already had been to the scene. Brown said. All had left for help except a detective, who Brown
found as he went through the house
"The detective had on a wrist cap," he said. "It seemed unreal. He was whistling as he was taking fingernrprints."
On an April night in 1965, Brown stood in a warehouse flanked by reporters, law officers, lumber, crates and a railways.
It was cold in the warehouse, Brown said, and he didn't talk much as he waited for Hickock.
The executioner. Brown said, was professional. Kansas brought him to the stage.
"I had this vision — a film fantasy— that this thing was not for real," he said. "If you were writing a script for a film, this is a way you might do it. I remember it was a rainy night which seemed to add a bit to it."
"He was a really small guy. Brown said, "not much over five feet tall, dressed in a zoot suit. They were out of style even then — a double breasted zoot suit and a broad brimmed hat. He had on dark glasses. You couldn't distinguish his features."
The warehouse was outside the prison walls. Prison guards drove in with Hickock.
"When he got out of the car, he kept glaring at the gatts. Brown said
Hickock said a few words to the observers. He said it wouldn't do any good to apologize. Hickock then headed toward the gallows.
"When he walked up the steps, I think he hesitated maybe once near the top." Brown said.
Then guards put a black bag on his head and a rope around his neck.
"The chaplain said a few words," Brown said, "and then they sprung the trap."
Smith's execution was a repeat performance, Brown said, and he just wanted to get it over with.
“It’s unpleasant to see someone die, I think, regardless of your views on capital punishment.” he said, “not a good way to spend a night.”
Brown is a combat veteran of
Warbler War II. He'd seen men die
before.
"Combat leaves little time for reflection," he said. "The execution is on your mind, in the hours that pass before you can die to death. This is entirely different."
Brown remembers some of the guards waiting before the execution
"One of them was sitting on a pile of lumber smoking a cigarette, as if this was a routine nightly affair." he said. "The whole thing was unreal. There's certainly no pomp and circumstance to an execution."
Officials seek cause of fatal car-train wreck
Continued from p. 1
was stopped about 30 yards north of the crossing on the west tracks, while a 27-car northbound train was crossing on the east tracks. Hall said.
The northbound train struck the car broadside and cut it in two. The impact threw the students clear of the wreckage and into a ditch on the west side of the two tracks, Hall said. The bodies were found from about 20 yards to 50 yards north of the crossing
Members of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority and friends comfort one another while entering Danforth Chapel to attend Saturday's memorial services for Jenifer Jones, St. Louis freshman. Jones was one of four KU students killed when a train hit the car they were riding in Friday night.
The car's two parts flipped over end and burst into flames, Hall
The front half bounced off the stopped train's engine and came to rest between the tracks about 40 yards north of the crossing, Hall said. The back half landed in the ditch about 50 yards north of the crossing.
Hall said he could not determine who was driving the car.
He said that three witnesses told him they were northbound on highway 24-50 when a car passed them traveling about 70 mph. They said the car turned west onto the county road and proceeded rapidly onto the tracks, never slowing, Hall said.
Chad DeShazo/KANSAN
"There was no whistle, no nothing," said Parkison, a Lawrence high school student. "I was on the floor. I kicked it in reverse and bucked off."
Mike Parkinson, the driver of an eastbound car stopped on the west side of the tracks, said he had driven too quickly before he saw the northbound train.
"It was really weird. I thought he was going to stop, and it was like he stopped right on the tracks, and a half-second the train hit him. His lights went out, and it just cut the car in half. I saw two streaks of fire," he said.
Then, he said, he saw the Plymouth coming from the other side of the tracks.
Chris Crawford, a passenger in Parkinson's car, said, "It happened so fast. I don't think they knew what hit them."
Hall said other witnesses and the southbound train's engineer told him that they had heard a whistle. He said the northbound train's engineer told him he had blown the whistle before the collision.
John Bromley, Union Pacific Railroad spokesman, said the northbound train was traveling about 65 mph. The speed limit for trains on that stretch of track is 70 mph.
The engineer of the northbound train, in his statement to the highway patrol, said he had begun to brake as soon as he saw the car turn onto the county road, because he knew from the car's speed that it would not stop.
Hall said his investigation had been hindered by changes in two witnesses' stories from Friday night to Saturday morning.
He said that the driver of the northbound car had told him Friday night that he thought the Plymouth's tied to race the train to the crossing.
Hall said Parkison also had changed his story. Friday night Parkison said the car had been moving when it was struck by the train, and Saturday he said the car had been stopped when the train
Then, Saturday morning, the witness told Hall that the Plymouth had not been the car that had passed him.
struck it. Hall said.
But he said Parkison's discrepancy would not matter much. And the northbound car's driver was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, Hall said, so he thought the driver was trying to protect the dead students.
"I need to get back with these guys and see what I can straighten out with them."
"The only thing we're checking into right now is the fact that the one boy (Parkison) states that he didn't hear a whistle." Hall said. Hall said he did not know if Parkinson's radio was playing at the time.
The two passengers in the north-bound car did not change their story.
The owner of the barn where the Chi Omega party was held said other accidents had occurred at the train crossing but none within the last
year.
Chris McKenzie, county administrator, said the volume of traffic at a train crossing determined whether it should have a signal light. He said that today he would look into whether the crossing at the county road should have a signal light.
But the barn's owner, who asked not to be identified, said that not many people used the road, other than for barn parties.
Two barns on the county road are commonly rented to University groups for parties, he said.
But he said he would not allow his barn to be used for parties anymore
"What few that were already scheduled for this spring will be canceled," he said.
---
NO COUPONS ON TWO-FERS
1601 W.23rd
---
Use these Coupons or ask for our TWO-FER Special
PIZZA SHUTTLE
TWO-FER Special
$2.00 OFF Any 3 or more pizzas 842-1212
NAME
ADDRESS
DATE
Expires: 6/3/1
---
$100 OFF
Any 2 or more pizzas
842-1212
NAME
ADDRESS
DATE
---
$1 00 OFF
Any Pizza Ordered
1 a.m. to 4 p.m.
842-1212
NAME
ADDRESS
DATE
50¢ OFF
Any 1 pizza
842-1212
NAME ___
ADDRESS
DATE
Expres 6/3/87