Taking the Time to Make a Difference

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What does a killer look like? Many years ago, as a schoolboy, I went on a tour of a state prison. Our small group of students walked past a man operating a machine in the prison industry area. Outside the shop, our tour guide told us that man had killed two people. If I had known ahead of time, I surely would have paid more attention. I really couldn’t say I knew what a killer looked like. Years later, as a news reporter, I covered my first murder trial and conviction. The details were sensational and sickening. I often found it impossible to look at the face of the man on trial, to believe he could have done to a child what witnesses described. In recent days, I have viewed some video clips from the Oprah Winfrey show, involving an Evansville man and the family members of his victims. Eric Wrinkles admits breaking into the home of his brother-in-law, killing him and his wife, Tony and Natalie, and his own wife, Debbie, in July 1994. Four children were in the home at the time, two in the Wrinkles family, two in the family of the inlaws; none was physically harmed. A 19-year old woman, Debbie’s niece, was also in the home, but Natalie pushed her out of the door to safety just before she herself was shot and killed. A conversation was engineered after the televised program, linking by satellite feed the family in the Chicago studio and the man on death row in the Michigan City, Ind., prison. One clip shows Kim, one of the children in the house, now on a couch in the TV studio. Her uncle is seated in front of a large window made up of many small panes separated by heavy bars. She says, “I hurt . . . but I don’t hate.” She says, “I don’t want you to die because I don’t believe that someone should just take your life. God gave you that life and only he should take it. You took something huge from me but its not right to kill you.” He asks her to “remember the good stuff that you had with your mom and dad, and when we were together too.” Without the audio, a viewer would only see a serious conversation — nothing to indicate the topic included murder and execution. But this is what a killer looks like.

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The Catholic Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty but says “if, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety . . . these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” Article 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church concludes with this judgment: Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm — without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself — the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

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Relatives of Eric Wrinkles’ victims have encouraged him to ask God for forgiveness. His possibility of redeeming himself runs out Dec. 11, the scheduled date of his execution. Opponents of the death penalty continue to write to the governor and to state lawmakers, hoping to make a difference. Some others will join in the opposition, many others will not. But no matter what the belief or the position of a person in a death penalty state, it is important to accept this ultimate reality. Executions are carried out in the name of the people, in your name and mine. Accept it or deny it, oppose it or support it, execution by the state means that a person is put to death on your behalf and on my behalf. What does a killer look like? Like you and me.

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