A Murder Most Foul: The Execution of Brian Steckel

I protested the execution of Brian Steckel by the State of Delaware on Nov. 4, 2005. I worry, and greatly, that my words will neither do justice to, nor adequately convey, the horror of that night, one which will forever be seared into my memory. Paradoxically, because it is a traumatic memory, I worry too that I will not be able to access all I heard and saw that cold moonless evening in a provincial backwater.

I am not quite sure why we have a death penalty in any state in this country. It seems to be a throwback to some darker time in the evolution of humans. The twisted, sickly logic of the death penalty evades me.

We don’t sentence someone convicted, say, of assault to have his or her nose broken shortly after midnight on a predetermined date. Although it is true that prison rape plagues the nations jails, never in the history of U.S. jurisprudence has a rape conviction resulted in the meting out, as revenge, a rape against the assailant to be administered by an agent of the state, scheduled for a designated time and date with witnesses from the media, the victims family and perhaps, depending upon the state, the offender’s family too. Never, not once, have I read or been aware of a case in which a driver who was found guilty of carelessness in hitting a pedestrian being sentenced, by judicial decree, to be run down. And yet we have, in thirty eight states, this primitive form of retribution that is capital punishment.

In a moment of candor, an activist once said to a friend of mine, “Who gives a fuck?” regarding a lengthy and disproportionate prison sentence meted out to an American political dissident as a result of direct action that involved only property damage. I can imagine therefore that many reading this might similarly ask the same question regarding the execution of Brian Steckel. It is a very fair question. Indeed, his case involved unimaginable cruelty, though it is not clear with what degree, if any, premeditation factored into his depraved act of madness.

The answer to the hypothetical question is, in my opinion, that we should all should care and deeply. The measure of a society, it has been said, is how it treats its least desirable. Elementary human rights are at issue. Nearly all of the people on death row are poor. As most already know, in addition to economics, there are powerful factors of race and ethnicity which determine who disproportionately, in this country, is given the death penalty.

The basic facts of Brian Steckel’s crime are indeed very horrific. He murdered a woman and did so in an extremely brutal fashion. He attacked his neighbor, Sandra Lee Long, with a screwdriver, raped and strangled her. He then set her on fire. He was arrested within hours of the murder after making several telephone calls to a newspaper to brag about the killing. In prison, he wrote taunting letters to the mother of the victim, one in which he admonishing her “not to cry over burnt flesh.”

A Catholic priest who knew him said, “Brian does not always have the ability to think clearly.” Indeed, the actions of Brian would seem to be consistent with someone who is deranged, not in their right mind, and who is suffering from a profound mental illness.
He does seem to conform to the legal standard of someone who is criminally insane.

There are other basic facts concerning Brian Steckel himself that are less reported. Things that seem puzzling and contradictory in light of the nature of his heinous crime. He was a father to a twelve year old girl. In addition to being a father, he was the son of a mother who, by her own account, wrote several thousand letters to her son in the decade he was incarcerated. Brian was also a brother to his many siblings, some of whom loved him dearly to the bitter end. In addition, he had a girlfriend. None of these people in his life committed any crime, but none-the-less were made to suffer when his initially botched execution by lethal injection was eventually carried out after what we now know was 15 minutes of trying by the State of Delaware, under the cover of darkness, at 12:21 a.m. on November 4, 2005.

AN INTERFAITH SERVICE

On the evening of November 3rd, 2005, I drove down to Delaware with Vasti to attend a planned interfaith service in Newark, Delaware and a vigil outside of the jail in the rural prison in Smyrna, Delaware.

Vasti is a college student at City College and a fellow a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Harlem Chapter. Her brother is incarcerated and that has spurred her interest in prison solidarity including, more recently, her work as a death penalty abolitionist. In retrospect, I don’t think I could have gotten through that disturbing evening without the aid of Vasti. We certainly supported each other and helped each other to make sense, as best we could, of the senselessness of events of that dark still night.

Driving down, Vasti related to me some of the brutal conditions her brother has had to endure since being incarcerated for a drug offense in the state of New Jersey. If I hadn’t witnessed firsthand the effects of torture at the hands NJ jailers, the contusions and bruises that covered the neck of the late Farouk Abdel-Muhti still visible six weeks after his release in the summer of 2004, I might have been inclined to disbelieve Vasti. Not so now, and I listened keenly to her testimony regarding yet another prisoner, in this case her brother, who has had to endure life threatening torture that has become all too routine in our prison industrial complex.

We arrived an hour early for the interfaith service at the Thomas More Oratory in Newark Delaware. There was a group of young people already seated in the pews. We asked if they too had come to attend the service for Brian Steckel. They hadn’t. They would be praying the rosary shortly. I felt slightly disappointed.

I spoke briefly with a psychiatric nurse who was also attending the service for Brian. She said that she works with defense attorney’s doing mitigation as an expert witness. She said that there are nearly always psychosocial factors at play in capital offenses such as a background of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse, mental illness, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. In the next few hours, I would learn that Brian had all of the above.

A priest came in and introduced himself. He said there were cookies downstairs in the hall and that we could help ourselves to. We went downstairs. The brand name sodas in the vending machine were only twenty five cents each, reminding me, for the first time in what would be many that evening, that I wasn’t in New York anymore.

When we arrived back upstairs, the group of the young faithful could be heard saying
the rosary in unison from behind a screen partition to the right of the altar in the chapel. We sat quietly reading our copies of the New Abolitionist, so as not to disturb the faithful while we waited for the service to begin.

JUDY HEFFNER - BRIAN’S GIRLFRIEND

Despite the emptiness of the sanctuary, the next person to enter the room sat closely to the right of Vasti, who herself was seated to the right of me. She seemed to be in her thirties. She introduced herself as “Judy, Brian’s girlfriend.” She also asked if we could drive her down to Smyrna after the service if we ourselves were going.

My first thought was not an entirely kind one. I found myself wanting to ask something crass such as, “Did you know him before he went to jail, or are you some sort of lunatic who read of his case in the paper and decided to fall in love with him?” I refrained and instead introduced myself. Vasti and I agreed to drive her down to the rest area where the demonstrators would congregate before being escorted, around 10:30 p.m. or so, by state troopers to the permitted demonstration on the grounds of the Delaware Correctional Facility near Smyrna. The answer to my unspoken question would have to wait.

When we mentioned that we had driven down from New York City to protest the execution, Judy’s speechless reaction spoke volumes: it mattered to her that somebody actually cared enough to actually drive three hours. Judy was friendly and warm. When she smiled, she did so broadly enough for me to see that she was missing a molar.
I would later conclude two things: there is not a bad bone in Judy’s body and that it is a privilege to have met her. I’m thankful that she felt comfortable enough with me and Vasti to share freely over the next few hours that we would spend together.

The interfaith service, as far as faith based services go, itself seemed appropriate. A man from the Delaware Citizens Against the Death Penalty spoke, as well as the priest who officiated. The Catholic Father read scripture from Ezekial 18:21-23.

Unlike the secular progressive Campaign to End the Death Penalty, many abolition groups are religiously based. In fact, later that evening something related to religiosity would startle me a bit. I am used to being in New York and North Jersey protest crowds, which are composed of an admixture of progressives of every stripe, socialists, and/or anarchists. I was therefore unused to hearing fellow demonstrators declaring proudly and emphatically to intrusive mainstream media reporters, “I am against the death penalty, just like I’m against abortion!.”

As I drove on the rural state highway that leads from Newark Delaware to Smyrna, Judy spoke fondly of Brian. She mentioned that Brian was not as the media portrayed him. For example, the thick prison issued glasses made Brian look crazy and ugly. When she was seeing him, she stated that he was good-looking and wore nice frames (the answer to my unasked question).

For the first five years of his incarceration, she visited Brian weekly, usually dragging her son along. The visits took a toll, and her son resented being dragged along. She discontinued the weekly visits, but stayed in contact, and had in the last year or two, as the execution date neared, resumed visitation.

At one point, Vasti asked if there was physical contact permitted during the visits, and the answer was in the negative. She visited Brian separated by a glass partition and talked to him via a telephone intercom.

I mentioned to Judy that some would pathologize her relationship. Vasti suggested that while she was with Brian, she suffered from battered woman’s syndrome.

Judy responded unequivocally that she very easily could have been, and at times almost was, the murder victim herself. She went on to say that Brian was the victim of childhood physical and sexual abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father and that he had a rage that sometimes surfaced. He had stolen from her in the past. He had, in her assessment, a low threshold for frustration. At the time of the murders, he was doing drugs and alcohol. She also mentioned that Brian came from a very large family of eleven. I thought to myself what the psychiatric nurse had said to me in the chapel about psychosocial factors.

Most of all it seemed, that Judy wanted me, or perhaps by extension the world, to know that there was many sides to Brian. “The media dehumanized Brian” she said, but she went on to explain that there were many parts and aspects that were healthy, loving and multidimensional. She loved the healthy aspects of his persona, not the diseased.

Judy was away, vacationing, at the time of the murder. Subsequently, she had to leave her job as an administrative assistant. There was ugly office gossip. “The media was fueling hysteria” as she retold it. “It was guilt by association.”

REST AREA - SMYRNA

When we arrived at the rest area off the highway in Smyrna, we got out of the car to stretch our legs and to get soda. I did not notice that Judy left one of her bags in my car.
I wished she hadn’t. God, do I wish she hadn’t.

We returned to the car, as the air was chilly. I started the car for heat. Judy had a tape player with her, and asked if she could play a CD of Native American peace songs she had brought along. Instead of playing it on her boom box, I played the tape in the car’s cassette player. Maybe it was just the diversion from oppressive feeling that waiting for an execution can foster, or maybe it was the comfortable feeling that the warmth from the car’s engine offers on a bone chilling night, but at that moment, I found the songs amazingly beautiful and transcendent. We remained silent for several songs. The media was showing up, as were other demonstrators. We continued to listen to the enchanting voices of the Native American singers even when cameramen recognized Judy, and started shining their lights into the interior of the car while videotaping us. As we got out of the car, Judy cautioned that media are not our friends.

For the second time that evening, unbeknownst to all us, Judy repeated the same fateful mistake. Again, she left her other bag in the car. It was a momentary decision that on any other evening of her life would have taken on meaningless insignificance, but in a sad irony that was not to be the case that evening.

Although I didn’t get a chance to speak to him myself, among those who gathered in opposition to the death penalty was Michael Berg, the father of Nick Berg, the young man who was beheaded in Iraq in May of 2004. He feels that execution is always wrong, in any place, at any time.

I did get a chance to speak to the Reverend Walt Everett. He had driven down with his wife from Pennsylvania where he has recently moved. He told me that his son was murdered 18 years ago. He said that at the time his anger was destroying him. After he heard his son’s murderer, Mike Carlucci, apologize in court, his anger began to slowly subside. In the intervening years, he has befriended his son’s killer. After Carlucci’s release from jail, the Reverend presided over his marriage, and they appear on speaking commitments together. Mr. Everett is also one of the founding members of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, a death penalty abolitionist group.

At 10:45 p.m., or so, the state troopers indicated to all, media and demonstrators, that it was time to drive to the prison grounds and the pre-cordoned off, permitted, demonstration area. As we were leaving the rest area, we passed a white SUV in which several men were wildly waving placards. “Look, Vince!” Judy grabbed my arm. “Those are pictures of Sandra Lee Long. They want Brian to be executed.”

On the drive over to the prison, Judy said that they had had the vigil area set up even before the last hearing to determine Brian’s fate. “It was a sham” she said. “Family, friends, lawyers and witnesses spoke on behalf of Brian, but they had already decided.”

PITCH BLACK HATE ON HELL HILL

We followed the troopers in a caravan to the state prison. A mainstream reporter would later deem the scene outside the Delaware prison as “ghastly”. I’m inclined to agree, strongly in fact.

We all arrived at the same time, demonstrators and counter demonstrators. We were told to remain in our cars. The animated guys in the white SUV, now parked immediately to our left, were now shouting. I did not want to focus on what they were saying and instead I tried to block them out and concentrate on speaking with Judy.

There were actually two demonstration areas separated from each other by ten feet of dirt road, on a small hill, in an open field, a hundred yards or so in front of the jail. We were told police officers, as we filed in, that we would not be allowed to leave until after the execution. Anti-Death Penalty were asked to go to the penned in area on the left, and pro-death penalty people to the right.

There were perhaps about sixty of us protesting our opposition to the death penalty, though I admit that I am notoriously bad at crowd size estimates. On the other side, there were about twenty, at best, who in favor of the execution of Brian.

Judy brought with her both bags, as she would be riding back with someone else. At this point, she reached in her bag and checked to make sure she had her cell phone. It was then that she learned that Brian had tried to call her three times while we were outside of my car at the rest area in Smyrna. I breathed an expletive. She immediately called the prison. They were polite and made a concerted effort to connect her to Brian, but at that late hour they were unable to do so.

Our solemn anti death penalty vigil included the lighting of candles, and the ringing of a large bell, which was mounted on a two wheeled trailer just for these unpleasant eventualities. I imagined that that trailer, which actually looked a bit small considering the size of the shiny brass bell it carried, has wracked up a lot of miles on its way to routine and seemingly countless domestic executions. It was rung that night by anyone who steeped forward and pulled the black sash. In total, the bell tolled 50 times, the same the number as matched the number people executed by the State of Delaware. For a brief time, an open microphone was made available where people were encouraged to stated where they were from and to which abolitionist groups they belonged.

Adding to the surreal events surrounding that evening were the fact that strapping young cameramen were prowling around the inside of the demonstration area. The tools of their trade, large video cameras, held erect, chest level, in front of them. Without asking, they would point these directly into, stopping mere inches, from the various faces of anti-death penalty opponents who stood silently holding placards. It was a strangely weird and bizarre vibe.

I don’t know exactly how to phrase my disdain for the counter demonstrators without being misconstrued. I do want to people to know that I am specifically criticizing those in attendance for their behavior that evening rather than proponents of capital punishment in general.

I know that some across the tiny road from us had a personal connection to the victim. One had been a passerby who had pulled Sandra Lee Long, still alive, from her burning apartment. Another was the stepson of Ms. Long. That they are marred and angry is entirely understandable, but there were about twenty of them in total, surely some of them may have had a more tenuous connection to the victim. All however, gave themselves freely over, with abandon, to baser emotions

I felt myself wanting to protect Judy from the unrestrained bloodlust, the unbridled and ignorant calls for revenge, that among other things included calls of “Burn Brian too” and “Kill him too” that constantly emanated, and seemed to grow louder by the minute, from the counter demonstrators. If someone had had a magic wand, waved it and deposited the local yokels on a theater stage somewhere, it actually probably would have made for pretty good comedy, reminiscent of a medieval Monty Python sketch. Such obviously was not the case, and with the impending real life execution a human being, however horribly flawed, moments away, it was jarring, to say the least. The worst I’d say that human nature has to offer.

At one point, as I walked around holding a placard, Judy sought Vasti and myself out to eagerly introduce me to Brian’s sister. She, the sister, however could not, compose herself, or stop crying, long enough to talk. She nodded to acknowledge that she heard when Judy informed her that we had driven down from New York City. In the hour or so were on that berm, under a torrent of verbal abuse, not once did Brian’s sister stop crying. We did not take a picture of her, not wanting to intrude on her intensely heart wrenching grief, but in a way, I wish we had. If ever there were a case to be made that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, it would have been made by the picture I have of Brian’s inconsolable sister, and that dear reader, I will never forget (if you will forgive the second direct address in this report back).

Anger covers up many things including fear. The yelling, cheering, jeering and redundant hollering by the clamoring pro-death penalty people continued the entire time we were at the vigil. One person on the scene mentioned that he had protested many executions, but had never seen anything like these particular counter demonstrators.

Judy’s tape of Native American peace songs could not drown them out. I may have left at this point, but as it was I was now trapped now, a captive. I remembered that officer clearly stating several times, “No one can leave until after the execution.”

I felt some degree of annoyance and anger. I shared my opinion with Judy, pointing to the hecklers across the way, “I don’t think that that they were tapping into anything higher or positive in the universe.” If in fact, I thought further, there is something higher. Indeed, some of these plain country folk had raised on one hand an index finger and pinky finger, which is the sign the universal sign for the evil eye. These images themselves are clearly visible in some of the mainstream media accounts.

In recounting the unfortunate lack of grace that was on exhibition by the death penalty proponents that creepy night, one of my friend’s offered the analysis that they were probably poorly educated and lacking in any sense of class consciousness. Indeed, she may have been right. In addition, I wondered if some had left neighborhood bars prior to showing up engage in a collective show of unbridled bloodlust and calls for vengeance, which seemed totally unnecessary as the thing would have gone according to court order even if they hadn‘t been there to stir things up.

I mentioned to a Catholic Sister the obvious difference between Brian’s being killed by the state and the murder of Sandra Lee Long by Brian. In the later, the family did not have to be subjected to hearing taunts while their loved one was being murdered. On the other hand, Brian’s sister and Judy did have to hear and be subject to an unending barrage of verbal cruelty, neither one of whom did a thing wrong.

Again I want to make it clear that I specifically directing my criticism at those who cheered inappropriately in person that evening . Common decency would seem to dictate that peaceful protestors demonstrating against capital punishment should be kept out of earshot of its proponents, especially considering that some family members of the condemned will be likely be in attendance.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Brian Steckel’s last words were, "I would like to tell all the people who supported me all these years and sacrificed for me," Steckel said. "I am sorry for the cruel things I did. I am not the same man. I am a better person now. Those that can’t see that, it’s their loss. That’s all. I love you. Good-bye."

After the word came down that Brian was executed I didn’t see Judy or Brian’s sister again. Vasti said that upon hearing confirmation of the execution, Brian’s sister nearly collapsed. She and Judy propped each other up, ran to the sister’s car and drove off past the lovelies who were now cheering wildly.

On the way home, I got lost on the rural lonely back roads of Delaware. I almost hit two deer that eerily bolted in front of me from seemingly out of nowhere.

After crossing over to New Jersey, Vasti and I saw the largest shooting star that either one of us had ever seen. Not sure what that means, probably nothing, except for the fact that the Earth was passing through the spray and dust of an ancient comet, an annual event known as the Taurid meteor shower.

The End. Oh yeah, Delaware sucks.