When the Supreme Court handed down their decision on September 29th, one could almost detect an audible sigh of relief ripple through the nation. An unidentified man, standing on the steps of the Justice Department building, relayed the word seconds after Chief Justice Rehnquist finished speaking. Women cried. Men hooted. Car horns honked like angry Canadian geese.
Charlie Overland would die by lethal injection at Massachusetts' Varrick Federal Prison at one minute after midnight on October 28th.
In upholding the lower 5th Federal Appellate court's ruling, the Supreme Court had applied the first dressing on a country wounded by presidential and congressional scandal, corruption in the IOC, Waco and Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, and the not guilty verdict of O.J. Simpson.
In three words, it was the Court's collective way of saying, "Enough is enough."
In a nation rife with "beyond a shadow of doubt", "incontrovertible evidence", and other catchphrases of the Technicality, it is sad to consider how easily overjoyed we become when justice is truly served by condemning to death a child rapist/murderer like Charlie Overland.
Yet some would say that the sentence isn't harsh enough for the man who'd abducted, raped, killed, and sometimes dismembered up to 60 little girls across four, perhaps five states, making Ted Bundy look like a man with a grudge. Others say the "No mas" attitude of our top nine justices will open the floodgates of hatred and vengeance, manifesting itself in acts of "cruel and unusual punishment."
The Supreme Court's decision had attracted and polarized its opponents before court even convened. Protestors shouldering and jabbing into the air placards reading "Don't make examples at the expense of the insane" and "Charlie is God's child- Killing him is killing a bit of God" surrounded the Justice Department building in Washington D.C. It was the largest protest gathering in SC history since Roe vs. Wade in 1972. Others were more cynical of the turnout.
"It's really scary when you look at all the different groups here," exclaimed one Capitol policeman who asked not to be identified. "It's not as if it's just NOW or the Christian Coalition or Greenpeace making a show of strength. I've counted at least four or five organizations represented here."
The grassroots support of Overland is sneered at by some, dismissed as mere partisan politics without any regard for the rights of Overland's victims (aged 3-13). One man who understands bipartisan politics very well is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, always an ardent apologist for the death penalty.
"These organizations, when they begin to lose ground," began the former Georgia congressman in a telephone interview from his office at Kennesaw State College, "are under that much more pressure to justify their existence. They root out and find causes, symbols. To the anti capital punishment faction, Overland's the flavor of the day. Personally, if I were looking for a symbol for the reverence of life, I'd have enough taste not to choose an animal like Charlie Overland. His young and innocent victims would be more appropriate symbols."
Yet the relatively small but very vocal groundswell of opposition to the Sept. 29th ruling is not without its own persuasive arguments.
"Capital punishment," states Dr. Marvin Carruthers, a Nobel Prize-nominated psychiatrist who consults with several prisons in capital crimes cases, "was a miserable failure from the git go. The Bible itself even says, 'Violence begets violence.' Yet, despite the countless number of people who have been executed for offenses ranging from political and religious belief to murder, crime still happens. Texas is a prime example of this. Look at how many people have been put to death there since the Supreme Court brought back capital punishment. Has murder stopped? No, and the hundreds that the Texas penal system has either executed or condemned to death is in itself a testimony to capital punishment's failure as a deterrent.
"As a punitive measure, it's an even bigger failure. You put the inmate out of their misery and always painlessly. Where's the punishment? No matter how you cut it, the death penalty just doesn't work."
So what's the answer?
"There are no hard and fast answers, obviously. But the death penalty is and always has been a stopgap solution to crime that the police and social service agencies have been at a loss to prevent. Killing off a murderer is not going to get to the root of the problem. It's almost like cutting off the Hydra's head- You execute one and there are nine more still roaming the streets. We need to make even more social service organizations available to the general public and bolster the efforts of the ones that already exist."
But that costs money and that seems to be the root of the problem to more pragmatic individuals. It's been estimated that it costs the US taxpayer approximately $60,000 dollars a year to support a correctional inmate. And the US taxpayer is sending a clearcut signal to their elected officials- "No mas."
Says one outraged parent who'd lost a child to Overland, "I could take that sixty thousand and send my kid to college for a year. Of course, I can't. My baby's dead. So I'm spending the money to feed and protect the filthy child molester and killer who took her from me."
The legal costs incurred by Overland's defense team is staggering in itself, making insignificant the amount already spent to feed, shelter, and clothe him. Unable to afford private legal counsel, Overland has gotten great use out of the legal team assigned to him by the court, the cost of which to John Q. Public has been estimated at an additional 1.2 million dollars.
So, Charles Overland sits in his death row cell at Varrick Federal Prison in the small hamlet of Eastbridge, Massachusetts, refusing interviews even in the last weeks and days of his life. However, in his statement to federal authorities after his capture, Overland reportedly said,
"Think of me as King Herod only in reverse. The Lord had said unto me, 'Go and smite the little Jezebels who will cause misery unto men of all races.' The last one I smote (13 year old Amanda Merchant of Haverhill, Massachusetts), the cheerleader with her perfect ponytail and perfect teeth and long legs and snooty Holier Than Thou attitude, making it apparent to all who gazed on her that she was already on her way only to the very best and that there were already those beneath her brainless attention. Yeah, I enjoyed doing that pampered little c--t most of all. I masturbated imagining her on a slab, with her perfect mouth open in a grimace and her perfect ponytail taken out and spread on that cold table. If anyone deserved it, it was that little bitch."
Such statements only fueled his defense team's assertion that Overland was clearly an insane man and called in their own panel of experts to corroborate this. Dr. Carruthers was part of the panel.
"When you look at the psychopathology of a man like Overland, you get not only the inner workings of a twisted mind obviously traumatized by childhood events but also an invaluable front row seat to the serial killer mentality. We could learn much from Overland and see what makes others like him tick before they go off."
Yet other professionals in psychiatry, law, and law enforcement shrug off such assertions.
"We already know what makes guys like Overland tick," said FBI Special Agent Bill Wainwright, who's credited with catching the man dubbed by the Washington Post as "The Taker". "We had our own panel of experts interview him. He had a rather unremarkable history as far as serial killers went. Mother who molested him, father who abused him before taking off. He wet the bed, killed small animals, set fires. Pretty routine stuff. He's got nothing to teach us. Why should we spend 60 grand a year supporting a redundant lab rat? He's already cost the taxpayers millions."
The blood that Charlie Overland spilled will be nothing compared to the ink that will also be spilled on both sides long after Overland's body will be put into the Middlesex County coroner's wagon at approximately 12:30 October 28th.
(Varrick Federal Prison, Eastbridge, Massachusetts, October 27th)
Driving west on Route 62 and coming up on Varrick Federal Prison is, for most Eastbridgers, like approaching an alien stronghold in the heartland of America. The eighty-odd year-old penitentiary squats on rural land dotted with nurseries, farms, and farm stands. It is the landscape of "American Gothic" or of Millet's farming peasants.
It appears, innocuously enough, as it pokes its majestic semi-circular turrets over the crest of 62. But, as the road bends and briefly tricks the unwary motorist into thinking that one is approaching it head-on, the truth comes into merciless focus.
Only then does one see the hazy double swirls of razor wire limning the tops of walls high and thick enough to, literally, repel an army; the layers of chain link fences defining No Man's Land; a rifle-toting correctional officer pacing inside a glassed-in watchtower that looks more like an air traffic control tower.
Actually, in its semi-rural venue, Varrick shares a casual similarity to the remoter parts of MCI-Framingham, the womens' maximum security prison, or MCI-Concord, aka the Farm, a state correctional facility on the West Concord/Acton line where inmates can actually care for farm animals, work the land. But there, the bucolic resemblance stops.
Because a hush then descends like gray road silt in the cars of those who pass it, as if the federal prison was a charnel house or the remains of some Eastern European concentration camp. Unless one knows firsthand what it feels like to be on either side of its bars, one can't help but speculate on the bizarrely dangerous life forms trapped within its four massive outer walls. What sort of human beings would require such elaborate and Herculean security?
Those who have patrolled its metallic tiers of cages would respond with,
"Who said they were human?"
Built over a four year period between 1915-1919 (male labor was scarce during the Great War), Varrick State Penitentiary was Eastbridge's economic pillar between the time of the shoe industry's collapse and the promise of high tech development.
The ugly, sprawling hulk of brick, mortar, and concrete built by now-dead Portuguese laborers was called, at the time of its completion, "Varrick's Folly." It was erected during the exact same time that Judge Varrick's career in jurisprudence was winding down and his interest in penology grew. In 1919, a newspaper wag had written in his editorial, "And so, the big game hunter finally hangs his rifle in the case and has built for himself a trophy room."
Indeed, some had said that Ezekiel Varrick, after having put away hundreds of criminals, wanted merely to see the harvest of his labor on the bench. He was the only living warden to have his own prison named after him. His detractors sneered that the Commonwealth had spent the then kingly sum of $5,000,000 to build a prison for him. Hence the disparaging nickname "Varrick's Folly."
However, the fact that the maximum security facility was his namesake summoned for Varrick much of the awe and respect that his severe and baleful presence hadn't already earned for him. Taking a cue from his old friend Teddy Roosevelt, who'd patrolled the streets of 19th century New York alongside his men while Commissioner of Police, Warden Varrick had walked the stark metal grates high above ground with his guards, carrying a nightstick not unlike the former president's. Some said he'd actually lived there, his presence was so strong. It lingered to this day like a prodigal spirit.
It was even still rumored that once in 1920 the old hanging judge had pushed the executioner aside and personally sent a particularly irksome inmate to his Great Reward by opening the trap door beneath him. Such a heavy-handed attitude today was impossible to imagine.
But today even the six foot three inch man with the iron-gray eyes and steel wool hair wouldn't have commanded enough respect to have been given the choice between a shiv between the ribs, a heaveho from the top tier, or a 300 pound barbell on the neck.
That was why its current warden, Odell Seels, wasn't too thin-skinned about being treated like dog shit by the inmates. He was realistic enough to know that his fearsome first predecessor wouldn't have fared any better. After all, the inmates' greatest desire was freedom and it was the warden's job to deny them that. In the end, it all came around, anyway. That was one of the beauties of the penal system- Payback. The house always collected.
Warden Seels was now doing his damnedest to hide from the aptly-named press, hoping against hope that the dignity of the warden's office would be invulnerable to the pressing of the newshounds outside. Seels couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.
In the interests of his sanity and blood pressure, he tended to take the cosmic view of things- This was just another execution of yet another carbon-based life form that was only given special significance through the dubious virtue of television, penal history, and Forrest's reelection campaign. Overland was the first Massachusetts inmate to be put to death since 1947. To make it a proper clusterfuck, NBC had been given exclusive rights to broadcast the execution live on t.v. and on the Internet on MSNBC's website. Other than that, it was just another day in the death chamber.
The only notable difference to Seels was the fact that he would enjoy this one.
However, the media jackals packed in the hallway outside his crumbling oasis of serenity were intent on ensuring that the rest of the nation would enjoy it with him.
To Odell Seels, this feeling of emotional encroachment was akin to buying a bag of his favorite cookies only to have his neighbors discover the stash.
Charlie Overland was the bag of Pepperidge Farms Ultimate Fudge Milanos that Seels wanted all to himself.
Of course, that was a no-no. He wasn't Zeke Varrick and it wasn't 1920 anymore. It was a more sensitive, politically-conscious age where Humanity's needs had to be addressed individually.
Bull… shit.
If this was an age of tenderness and sympathy then someone forgot to tell Charlie Overland and Odell Seels.
Just as the warden was serenely fantasizing about shoving the doctor aside a la Varrick and jabbing the needle in Overland's arm, the inevitable knock on the door came. After almost two years on the job, the Texas-born warden knew whose it was.
"C'mon in, Darryl," he called to his assistant warden.
Darryl O'Reilly stuck in his red head and left shoulder, as if unsure whether there was a man or a hungry lion behind the door.
"Odell," he began, entering only at his boss's motion to do so, "Odell, the feeding frenzy's already well underway. They've got everyone from me down to the guy who mops the johns." He nervously looked back to the closed door. "They're circling your office now."
"Yeah, I been lissenin' to 'em," he grunted. Then his face, appealing in the way New Hampshire granite is to out-of-towners, brightened. "How 'bout our man of the hour? He say anything, yet?"
"Nothing, boss. He's still holding out."
"Heh." Overland had made it a point to give no interviews to journalists or anyone with a book deal. This was perhaps at the behest of his attorneys who were afraid that their clearly insane client would open his big mouth and queer any miraculous, last second leniency from the Governor and the Governor's Council. Either way, in an increasingly-ambivalent world, it was nice to know that there were a few capstans to which one could cling, even if one of them was a scumbag like The Taker. "It's like Goddamned election night, huh, with both candidates refusing to give their concession speech." Odell looked intently at a fixed point just above and behind O'Reilly's left shoulder. Finally he broke the train of thought with another "Heh" and got up.
"How many fins you see out there?" Seels loved to compare the media to sharks.
"Twenty, twenty five," replied the 30-something, freckled-faced kid before him. O'Reilly had briefly been a Billerica cop almost ten years ago until realizing that his real gifts would be better utilized in penology. "Most of them are CNN and NBC."
Varrick's assistant warden was typical for his age group- a big believer in rehabilitation, staunchly opposed to the death penalty. Odell didn't know whether to envy or pity the kid for his idealism. The warden looked at Darryl and saw himself twenty five-thirty years and about forty pounds ago- the Texas penal system, mid-late sixties, a time and a place in which idealists were the misfits.
In the balance, especially after tonight, Seels decided to pity him and silently pronounce him wrong. Let's see how big a fan of rehab you'll be, kid, after having a shank pressed against your carotid during a long prison riot. Odell subconsciously touched a tiny scar near his Adam's apple as he tightened his graystone tie.
Still, the world would be a bleak and cynical place without Goddamned idealists to keep us honest, he concluded to himself. Plus, the inmates more or less liked him. They sensed he was on their side.
"All right," he said, rubbing his scratchy face with his hands, "Go on out, stoke 'em for a few, then I'll be along to take out you out of the limelight."
The kid left to sacrifice himself to the feeding frenzy once again and Seels visibly sagged, despite his show of psyching himself up. Neither man had the charisma to be a media darling. The kid was too shy and tongue-tied and his boss was just a semi-misanthropic S.O.B. who hated reporters almost as much as violent offenders.
However, Seels was older, and a lot more media-savvy. And, most inescapably, he was the warden.
Thinking of the reporters outside as he shrugged into his blazer, Odell Seels wished for not the first time that the Federal Bureau of Prisons permitted him to carry a gun.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@Juno.com
TIME cover story, October 2nd