Executions: Are they really necessary?

Between August 25th, and September 5th in 1980, the United Nations held its Sixth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Caracas, Venezuela. One of the topics to be discussed by the several thousand attendees from around the world attending the conference was capital punishment. This issue wasn’t new to the UN. It had been dealing with this issue on and off since the formation of the UN in 1945. However, in 1980, this was the last time this topic was brought up at UN Congresses (at least up to 2010).

Nine of the many countries that were represented at that Congress brought forth a resolution and asked all the nations attending the Congress to vote in favour of their resolution that would place in each country, a moratorium on capital punishment for the next five years.

Since I had been invited by the United Nations to fly to Caracas and address the Congress, I chose two subjects to speak about. The first one was on the need to create a bill of rights for young offenders. As a direct result of that speech, a bill of rights for young offenders was created by the UN over the next five years and in November 1985, the General Assembly made it happen.

My second speech was on the subject of capital punishment. Let me say right from the beginning that I am part abolitionist and part retentionist. My greatest fear is that innocent persons condemned to death will be executed. I wrote a paper on that very subject many years ago and it was discussed at length by members of the Canadian Parliament who all had copies of my paper. They abolished capital punishment in Canada in 1976. In the United States alone, since 1973, as many as 130 people who were on death row were found to be innocent of the murders they were convicted of and subsequently released from prison. This is proof positive that innocent people can be executed in error.

When I was at the Congress in Caracas, I knew that a moratorium on capital punishment was not the way to get capital punishment abolished. It was my belief that as long as capital punishment was in force, abolitionists would work harder to get it abolished.

For this reason, I decided to change my role as an abolitionist and instead for the purpose of the Congress, I become a retentionist if only temporarily. I knew that that would be an uphill battle considering that the UN’s covenant on Civil and Political Rights specifically spells out in Article 6 that every human being has the inherent right to life.

Of course as far as I was and still am concerned, that shouldn’t apply to terrorists, torturers who killed their victims, war criminals who murdered many innocent people, serial, multiple and mass killers and murderers that kill a child. Speaking in favour of capital punishment as an abolitionist was not unlike the times when I was a child and was fed caster oil and telling my mom that I liked it when in fact, I hated it.

While at the Congress in Caracas, I asked the chairman of the session dealing with capital punishment and the proposed moratorium if I could be placed at the end of the speaker’s list. This meant that I would get the last word in on the subject. He agreed although I knew I was taking a risk because if six in the evening was finally reached and I hadn’t yet spoken, I would not be called upon to address the delegates because the UN is very firm about ending sessions at six o’clock sharp. Fortunately there was time for me to give my speech in its entirety.

In my speech, I said about killers being released from prison; “Ronald Reagan, the presidential candidate exposed the fallacy of rehabilitated killers when as governor; he was forced to free convicted murderers after they had spent a number of years in prison. He went on record as saying that 12 of these so-called reformed killers went out into society and collectively killed another 28 people. The government of Canada has confirmed that from 1961 to 1978, eleven people were killed by convicted killers who were released from prison.” unquote

My speech was extremely damming with respect to releasing convicted murderers back into society. I said that there was only two ways we could protect society from convicted murderers and that was either to execute them or alternatively, send them to prison for the rest of their natural lives. It was my hope that sending murderers to prison without any hope of parole would be the accepted alternative to capital punishment.

The nine countries withdrew their resolution the day after I gave my speech. They stated that because very few countries were willing to support their resolution, it was better to withdraw the resolution than put it to a vote. As of today, there are only 56 countries in the world that execute murderers.

When Canada abolished capital punishment (because of the fear of executing innocent people) the parliamentarian’s idea of the alternative was life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years had been served. Now obviously there are murderers in Canadian prisons who will never be released from prison and rightly so.

Clifford Olsen is one of them. He is a convicted Canadian serial killer who confessed to murdering two children and nine youths (8 females and 3 males) in the early 1980s. In August 1981 he was arrested and in January 1982, he was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life. He has been in prison for the past 30 years. He will die in custody since he is now dying of cancer. Even if he was in good health, he would never be released until he is dead.

The National Parole Board in Canada made a terrible mistake many years ago with respect to a child killer. The child killer in Quebec was sentenced to hang for killing two small boys. His sentence was committed to life in prison but years later the parole board released him. He then killed two more boys and again he was sent to prison for life. This time he died in prison because some inmates killed him.

Sixteen of the states in the USA don’t have capital punishment and they sentence their murderers to natural life in prison without any hope of parole. The remaining 34 states have capital punishment on their books but they don’t necessarily sentence all of their convicted murderers to death. Some of them in those states are sentenced to life without parole.

Within days of my return to Toronto from Caracas, I was a guest of the Morning Show that was televised by CBC. The topic was capital punishment. Actually there were two guests on that show. The other guest was a very active abolitionist whereas I played the role of the retentionist. The audience comprised of social workers, parole officers and police officers who would ask us questions. Strangely enough, a number of the studio audience told me later that they accepted my position on capital punishment over that of the abolitionist. That is strange when you consider that I really am an abolitionist, at least part abolitionist and part retentionist.

It is at this juncture of this article that I am going to tell you about five murderers who were sentenced to die in the United States and why I feel that four of them deserved to be sentenced to death and why the third one may not have deserved to die.

Steven Hayes & Joshua Komisarjevsky

The town of Cheshire in western Connecticut is only 40 miles or so from the New York border. Cheshire was the site in 2007 of one of the most horrific crime sprees in modern American memory. It was there that Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky inflicted torture and murder on a family chosen at random—the Petit family living on Sorghum Mill Drive.

In July of 2007, these two career criminals while on parole, broke into the Petit family home. They had chosen the home at random after they had stumbled across the Petit family at a shopping center, followed them home and invaded their house.

They were accused of horrific crimes. They beat William Petit, a doctor, half to death and tied him to a support pole in the basement. They forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to draw $15,000 out of a bank before returning to the house to rape and strangle her. One of the criminals raped 11-year-old Michaela. They bound Michaela and her 17-year-old sister Hayley, poured gasoline around the home and set the house on fire. The girls died of smoke inhalation.

Dr Petit was the sole survivor of the home invasion and was semi-conscious and bleeding profusely from blows to the head as he was tied to the support pole in his basement. He was able to escape and alerted the police from his neighbour’s house.

Soon after, the police captured the two burglars. Hayes and Komisarjevsky faced numerous charges between them, including multiple murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary and arson. Both defendants had offered to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences. But their prosecutors refused their requests and sought the death penalty for both men.

Hayes went on trial first with William Petit testifying to the gruesome events of that day. Concluding the first of the career felons' trials, a jury sentenced Hayes to death for his part in so gleefully ending the lives of two girls and their mother in a relentless crescendo of savagery.

At the time of this writing, Komisarjevsky is still undergoing his trial. The prosecutor has proposed the death penalty in his case also.

Evidence presented at court showed that Jennifer Hawke-Petit was raped and strangled. Komisarjevsky was accused of sexually assaulting 11-year-old Michaela Petit by admitting that he had performed oral sex on her.

The girls had pillowcases placed over their heads, were tied to their beds although the oldest girl’s body was later found at the top of the stairs.

Had Hayes and Komisarjevsky traveled less than an hour west on Route 84 to randomly choose another family for attack such as New Yorkers this time, no jury would have been given the option of choosing capital punishment for these two convicted criminals. That's because the death penalty has been abolished in New York, thanks to a decision of that state’s Court of Appeals, the state's highest court and the states’ Legislature. On the New York side of the border, Hayes and Komisarjevsky would have faced life without parole instead of the death penalty.

Some recoil from capital punishment on moral grounds. Those concerns are given my full respect. That is because many people including me also, worry about executing people who turn out to have been wrongly convicted. What, then, do they say regarding Hayes and Komisarjevsky, about whom there has been no mistake?

No one claims they are the wrong men. In fact, after the jury voted the sentence, Hayes' lawyer said, “Hayes was smiling. That's what he's wanted all along, suicide by state.”

Hayes, who has been held in custody since the day of the crimes, was found guilty of each of the three murders and the kidnapping of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters. He was also found guilty of the first-degree sexual assault of Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

Hayes was found not guilty on only one charge—the arson of the Petit family home. Jurors had raised questions about the details of the charge of first-degree arson and had questions of whether Hayes had actually set the fire.

Komisarjevsky said he “lost control” while beating Dr. William Petit with a bat before going on to murder Petit’s wife and two daughters and admitted he started to “enjoy it,” according to his journal entries read in court during his trial.

The 43 pages written by Joshua Komisarjevsky were presented in the penalty phase of Steven Hayes’ murder trial. “I’m not an angel,” Komisarjevsky wrote. “I’ve never claimed to be. The scars on my soul have forever defined me as different than others.”

Komisarjevsky said that he “resented” the implication that he raped Michaela and wrote that he had “spared her that degree of demoralization.” Admitting that he did in fact sexually assault her, Komisarjevsky wrote, “In a vulgar display of power, I ejaculated onto her.” He also wrote; “As for why? It was the accumulation of years of pent up aggression.”

The composition notebooks that contained Komisarjevsky’s writings were discovered by Rafael Medina, a detective for the Connecticut State Police, who testified that he was alerted in July 2008 that Komisarjevsky was corresponding with author Brian McDonald, who wrote “In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood” about the Petit murders.

Four journals were seized from Komisarjevsky’s prison cell. McDonald deposited $100 into Komisarjevsky’s prison bank account at least three times and the two men exchanged as many as 11 letters. The evidence presented to the jury was as follows;

Komisarjevsky spotted Hawke-Petit and Michaela at a supermarket, followed them home and later returned to the house with Hayes to break in to get money.

Komisarjevsky beat Petit with a baseball bat and tied up the family and that Komisarjevsky masturbated in Michaela's presence.

Komisarjevsky said that he did not intend to kill the three. The evidence, he insisted, shows Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit, got the gas, poured it around the house and lit the fire. He said that Hayes was worried about his DNA at the scene and told Komisarjevsky they would have to burn the house down and kill the family. The mother and daughters died of smoke inhalation after the house was doused with gas and set ablaze.

According to Komisarjevsky, he was 'stunned' and quoted from his confession to police that he told Hayes: 'I'm not killing anyone. No one is dying by my hand today.'

Komisarjevsky also said that after fleeing from the house, he noticed that Hayes wasn't with him. Komisarjevsky then re-entered the house and saw Hayes coming out of the master bedroom with two empty jugs that had contained gasoline. He laughed at a few points, such as when he's described Hayes going out to get gas and struggling to find a gas station.

During his confession to police, Komisarjevsky had said; “I can't imagine being burned alive. They did what they were supposed to do. There was no reason for them to die.”

Komisarjevsky was portrayed as panicked and indecisive, claiming he suffers from 'cognitive difficulties' which make him unable to make quick decisions in stressful situations.

During Hayes's trial, the defence blamed Komisarjevsky for escalating the violence and portrayed Komisarjevsky as the mastermind of the crime. They said Komisarjevsky had a long history of residential break-ins, attacked Petit with a bat, molested
Michaela and pressured Hayes to sexually assault Hawke-Petit. Prosecutors have repeatedly said both men were equally responsible for the crime.

Speaking matter-of-factly and laughing occasionally, Komisarjevsky told police in a recorded confession played for jurors how he Hayes terrorized a family during a brutal home invasion that left a woman and her two daughters dead.

Komisarjevsky mostly sounded subdued and called the crime "a home invasion gone terribly wrong." He detailed how he beat a sleeping Dr. William Petit with a bat, tied up him and his family, and molested his 11-year-old daughter, Michaela.

But Komisarjevsky blamed his co-defendant, Steven Hayes, for turning a home robbery into a triple murder by strangling Petit's wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and dousing the house with gas and setting it on fire. Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, died of smoke inhalation.

Komisarjevsky admitted to molesting Michaela. His attorney said during opening arguments Monday that Komisarjevsky also masturbated in the girl's presence. Komisarjevsky said the girl was sweating profusely when he entered her room. He repeatedly refers to her by her nickname, "KK."

Earlier in the trial, jurors got their first look at graphic photos from inside the home. Most of the jurors gazed downward after seeing the photos. A few appeared close to tears, and one man gripped his face. Jurors were shown the photos after firefighters and a police lieutenant testified about their grim discovery in the house.

Michaela, 11, was found on her bed with her hands tied over her head and her lower body hanging off the bed. Hayley, 17, was found at the top of the stairs. Their mother, Hawke-Petit was in the family room.

In my opinion, Komisarjevsky is just as guilty as Hayes for the rape, murder, beating and arson they committed on their victims and their home. He could have stopped Hayes from killing the girl’s mother; he could also have stopped Hayes from setting fire to the house. He also could have tried to save the girls once the fire was set. Instead, he did nothing. I would be very surprised if his jury doesn’t condemn Komisarjevsky to death. If I was a member of that jury, that would be my decision.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, Shawn Allen Berry & John William King

James Byrd, Jr., 49, was an African-American who on June 7, 1998, accepted a ride from Shawn Berry (age 24), Lawrence Brewer (age 31), and John King (age 23). Berry, who was driving, was acquainted with Byrd from around town. Instead of taking Byrd home, the three men took Byrd to a remote county road out of town, beat him with anything they could find, urinated on him while he was temporarily unconscious, chained him by his ankles to their pickup truck and dragged him behind the pick-up truck along an asphalt road for about two miles as the truck swerved from side to side.

Byrd remained conscious throughout most of the ordeal. Forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up while being dragged. Finally he died when his body hit the edge of a culvert severing his right arm and head. The murderers drove on for another mile before dumping his mutilated torso in front of an African-American cemetery. The three men then went to a barbecue.

The following morning, Byrd's other limbs were found scattered across the seldom-used road. The police found 75 places on the road that were littered with Byrd's remains.

This crime took place in a part of Texas mostly tied to the American South and its history of lynching. The crime sickened the people of the United States and everywhere else where decent people became apprised of the savage murder of this unfortunate black man.

Two of the killers were described as white supremacists. When KHOU-TV of Houston interviewed Brewer, “He displayed racist tattoos and explained how race fights he'd experienced during a prior prison term changed his 'mentality.” King had several tattoos considered to be racist: a black man hanging from a tree, Nazi symbols, the words ‘Aryan Pride’ and the patch for a gang of white supremacist inmates known as the Confederate Knights of America. In a jailhouse letter to Brewer that was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in the crime and said he realized in committing the murder he might have to die. “Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history. Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!”

For the murder of Byrd, Brewer was executed in the Huntsville Unit on September 21, 2011 by lethal injection at 6 p.m., Central time despite 11th hour appeals for clemency. The day before his execution, Brewer told KHOU 11 News in Houston; “As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. No, I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth.” That statement is evidence that substantiates the theory that some murderers never repent and as such are a continued danger to society.

Byrd's son Ross Byrd, meantime, told Reuters that he hoped the state would show clemency to the man that murdered his father. "You can't fight murder with murder," Byrd, 32, told Reuters on September 20th 2011. "Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."

But he would still have been a danger to society, albeit a society in prison. There have been instances where murderers have killed other inmates while serving their sentences in prison.

The driver of the truck, Shawn Allen Berry was the most difficult to convict of the three defendants because there was a lack of evidence to suggest that he was a racist. Berry had also claimed that Brewer and King were entirely responsible for the crime. Brewer, however, testified that it was Berry who cut Byrd's throat before he was tied to the truck. The jury decided that there was little evidence to support this claim especially since Byrd was conscious most of the time he was being dragged behind the pickup.

In any case, Berry was spared the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison. His parole eligibility date is June 7, 2038. He will have been in prison for at least 40 years and he will be 64 years of age if he is released then. As of 2003 Berry is in protective custody; he spends 23 hours per day in an 8-foot (2.4 m) by 6-foot (1.8 m) cell, with one hour a day for exercise. I believe that he should have been sentenced to death. Who cares whether or not he was a racist? It was he who was driving the pickup while his victim was slowly and painfully dying while he was being dragged behind Berry’s vehicle.

John William King was accused of beating Byrd with a bat and then dragging him behind the truck until he died. King had previously claimed that he had been gang-raped in prison by black inmates. Although he had no previous record of racism, King had joined a white supremacist prison gang, allegedly for self-protection. He was found guilty and sentenced to death for his role in Byrd's kidnapping and murder. King is currently on death row at the Polunsky Unit in Texas awaiting his execution.

Byrd's lynching-by-dragging gave impetus to passage of a Texas hate crimes law. It later led to the Federal October 22, 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, commonly known as the Matthew Shepard Act. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009. Mathew Sheppard was a young gay man who was murdered for being gay.

Troy Anthony Davis

On August 19, 1989 police officer, Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia, was working part-time as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he intervened to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. Another man approached him and shot him dead. It was alleged that the shooter was Troy Davis. He was subsequently arrested for the crime but not at the scene of the crime.

During Davis’s 1991 trial, several witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified that Davis had confessed to them. Although the murder weapon was never recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene of MacPhail’s murder to those at another shooting in which Davis had also been charged and later convicted.

Let me say from the get go that eye witness testimony is often very shaky at best and can’t always be considered as valid. Many innocent people in the past were convicted on eye witness testimony that was later determined to be mistaken.

Further, I am always skeptical about so-called confessions made to other people. Often snitches in prisons make such allegations in hopes that they will get some benefit from their testimony in court. It has often turned out that their testimony was false. Why would anyone with any semblance of common sense confessed to having committed a murder to another person?

However, what in my opinion is damming against Davis was the ballistic evidence that tied Davis to both the shooting of Mark MacPhail and another shooting in which Davis was also charged and later convicted. The implication is that the same gun was used in both shootings and that gun belonged to Davis.

After a trial before a jury of seven blacks and five whites, in which 34 witnesses were called for the prosecution and six for the defense (including Davis), he was convicted of the murder of Officer MacPhail and various lesser charges, including the earlier shooting, and was sentenced to death in August 1991.

Davis pleaded not guilty at his trial and maintained his innocence right up to his moment of execution. In the twenty years between his conviction and execution, Davis and his defenders secured support from the public, from celebrities, and human rights groups. Amnesty International and other groups such as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People took up Davis' cause. Prominent politicians and leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. Congressman and one-time presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing.

It didn’t surprise me at all that human rights groups such Amnesty International and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People took up Davis' cause. They have for years fought the fight for the abolition of capital punishment and what better cause than to fight for a condemned man who claims that he is innocent. They certainly wouldn’t fight for the previous murderers I have written about in this article even though some of them were facing death for their crimes.

Former President Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. Congressman and one-time presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions including the pope sought a reprieve for Davis. All have the same goal—abolish capital punishment.

This didn’t mean that they all believed in Davis’ innocence but since there was some doubt about his guilt, his cause was one that they could take up as a case for the abolition of capital punishment.

Following the original trial, seven witnesses changed or recanted all or part of their testimony; others, including an Air Force enlisted man who identified Davis as the killer, did not.

It is not unusual that some witnesses at a capital case; have what is commonly referred to as buyer’s remorse. They feel guilty after having given their testimony, because they finally come to the realization that the defendant really is going to die because of their testimony.

Some of them claimed that they were threatened by the investigating detectives if they didn’t say that they saw Davis shoot the police officer. Quite frankly, I have a hard time believing those allegations. Admittedly there are crooked cops that are capable of threatening witnesses but they know that they risk having the witnesses turn on them when they are giving their testimony in court.

In any case, the one witness, the Air Force enlisted man stated under oath that he saw Davis fire the gun towards MacPhail and saw MacPhail fall to the ground. His testimony alone was sufficient enough to convict Davis of the police officer’s murder. It didn’t matter whether or not the other witnesses recanted their testimony.

Should he have been executed? That is a difficult question to answer. The law in Georgia at present is still the enforcement of capital punishment if the defendant is convicted of committing murder. But a greater question is raised when doubt enters the picture. The picture becomes muddy and hard to fathom its meaning. The question was put to his jurors during the sentencing phase of his trial. They decided that he must die for his crime. They had the opportunity to send him to prison without hope of parole but instead they decided to sentence him to death. They were the people who heard all the witnesses and were in the best position to decide his fate.

In 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States, voting 7 to 2, ordered the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to consider whether new evidence ‘that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes ‘Davis'’ innocence’. The evidentiary hearing was held in June 2010, during which affidavits from several prosecution witnesses from the trial changing or recanting their previous testimony were presented.

Some of the affidavits implicated one of the original prosecution witnesses, Sylvester ‘Redd’ Coles, in the crime. Evidence that Coles had confessed to the killing was excluded as hearsay because Coles was not subpoenaed by the defense to rebut it. Other affidavits of the witnesses asserted they had been coerced by police. The State presented witnesses, including the police investigators and original prosecutors, denying coercion.

In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld, and the court described defense efforts to upset the conviction as “largely smoke and mirrors”. Subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, were rejected, and a fourth execution date was set for September 21, 2011. Nearly one million people signed petitions urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency. The Board denied the petition and, on September 21, it refused to reconsider its decision after spending four hours mulling over it. After the last minute appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied, the sentence was immediately carried out on September 21, 2011 at 11:08 p.m. Eastern Time.

I will leave it to my readers to decide in their own minds as to whether a really innocent man was executed when Davis was put to death.

The United States is executing far less murderers than before. For example, in the year 1990, ninety-eight murderers were put to death where as twenty years later, only 46 murderers were put to death. Two thirds of Americans believe in capital punishment but fifty percent of them also believe that life in prison without hope of parole is a good alternative.

The last execution in the United Kingdom, by hanging, took place in 1964. It turned out that the man that was hanged was really innocent. It was that hanging of an innocent man that resulted in the UK abolishing capital punishment permanently.

In 1962, I had an opportunity to speak briefly to a condemned man who was one of the two last men hanged in Canada. He told me that he only shot the cop after the cop shot him first. I don’t know if he was telling me the truth but years later, I uncovered a case in which a man was hanged in Canada for allegedly murdering a child. Later, the police discovered that the man who was hanged was not the really killer of the child.

It’s my personal opinion that the only persons who should be executed for murder are terrorists, torturers who killed their victims, war criminals who murdered many innocent people, serial and mass killers and multiple killers (who kill more than one person but are not serial killers or mass killers) and murderers who kill a child. The other murderers who kill for gain or participate in gang killings, murderers who kill prominent people such as politicians, government officials and celebrities should be sent to prison for the rest of their lives. All other murderers should serve a minimum of twenty-five years to life in prison.

The real difficulty lies in capital cases with trying to decide whether or not a person accused of murder is really guilty or not. In some cases, the evidence of guilt is obvious. But in some cases, the guilt of the defendant isn’t as clear as it should be. That being the case, perhaps capital punishment should be completely abolished so that no more mistakes will ever occur again. To paraphrase an often hackneyed phrase, “It is better to send nine innocent men to prison for natural life than to hang one innocent man.”

In Canada, if we send an innocent man to prison, we can compensate him. One innocent man who spent 24 years in a Canadian prison received $10 million dollars tax free as compensation. If he had been hanged, no amount of compensation would have brought him back to life.

UPDATE

Serial killer, Clifford Olsen died of cancer on September 30th 2011.