Sept. 27 OKLAHOMA: The 2 sides of Brenda Andrew No one seems to know exactly when it happened -- that moment when the line was crossed, the button was pushed and Brenda Andrew changed in her heart from a typical American housewife into a murderer. The moment of the kill -- that can be measured. Prosecutors said it is known, within a fairly narrow time frame, when Brenda, 40, watched as her lover shot her husband, Rob Andrew, then took the 16-gauge shotgun into her own small hands and delivered the final bitter shot. What isn't known is what happened to push her over the edge, to fill her with so much anger and hatred that divorce was no longer a satisfactory option. "She was just a typical, sort of small-town girl," said Cheryl Byford, a childhood friend. "I mean, nothing out of the ordinary." Now, prosecutors said, Brenda is far from typical. She is, they said, "a cold-blooded, heartless killer." She is also the only woman on Oklahoma's death row. Careful and guarded----Brenda Andrew grew up in whitebread normalcy, living a life so vanilla it was as if she'd stepped right out of a 1950s sitcom. Born Brenda Evers on Dec. 10, 1963, she was raised in Enid in a conservative Christian household where the family gathered at the table for prayers and homecooked meals, said Ilene Zander-Littlefield, one of Brenda's closest school chums. That was exactly the type of home Rob Andrew -- writing in his prayer journal as an adult -- said he wished to build. "I remember them (the Evers) being really quiet," Byford said. "The whole family was. They weren't very outspoken or anything." In part, the reticence may have been born of caution. During Brenda's murder trial, her sister, Kim Bowlin, said she and Brenda learned to be private growing up with their mentally disabled brother. "Because of my brother, we've both been very strong individuals," Bowlin said. "Very careful and guarded." Zander-Littlefield said she enjoyed spending time with Brenda and respected her parents. "They were a lot like my family," she said. 'Real conservative' In 7th grade, Brenda enrolled in baton classes at Enid Twirling Academy, joining 8 to 10 other girls her age each Wednesday at 6 p.m. "For her to take baton twirling in junior high, that's kind of a wholesome sport," said instructor Kim Akers. "She and Rob were both from wholesome families." Brenda was, at best, an "average baton twirler," said Belva Lamb, senior twirling coach. But she excelled at schoolwork, Zander-Littlefield said -- and at being a friend. "She was one of our little group of students who all got straight As," she said. "She played the trumpet and twirled for the band. ... She didn't talk about boys much. "She was interested in school, studying, going to church and helping others. She was always the first one to offer help." Like her mother, Brenda was gifted in home economics, cooking and sewing, Zander-Littlefield said -- quiet avocations that did little to enhance her social status. Some considered her "odd." "There wasn't much associating with her," classmate Brad Robinett said. "She was so quiet and shy. She went to the football games, of course, but she never went out to the parties with us afterward." Zander-Littlefield agreed. "She never drank or smoked or anything like that. ... She was always real meticulous in how she dressed. Real conservative. ... She always buttoned her clothes all the way up." Growing up, growing apart Even so, Rob Andrew saw something in the pretty young woman that appealed to him. In 1982, Brenda, then a senior in high school, set her sights on Rob. Her shyness seemed to be wearing off. Andrew was more than a year older and an advertising student at Oklahoma State University. His younger brother frequented the same Enid swimming pool as Brenda. "She always asked me about him," Tom Andrew previously told The Oklahoman. "I went back and told him, 'This chick at the pool's been asking about you.' That's how they met." They began seeing each other. "I'm not surprised he fell for Brenda," Akers said. "She was so kind and so sweet and so soft-spoken. But he was a catch." After graduation, Brenda spent a year at a Lutheran college in Winfield, Kan., before moving to OSU to be closer to Rob, her attorney, Greg McCracken, said. On June 2, 1984, they married in a ceremony at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Enid. The Andrews lived and worked in Oklahoma City, then relocated to south Texas, where Rob had landed a job. Brenda stayed behind as he settled in, then quit her bank job in Oklahoma and followed. She found work at a Texas bank and settled in, making friends and forming new relationships, McCracken said. By 1988, though, Rob was ready to come home to Oklahoma. Brenda wasn't. The couple fought repeatedly about the move, McCracken said in court, and Rob -- who had a new job at Jordan Associates, the Oklahoma City ad agency where he would work until his death -- returned alone, leaving his wife behind for a few months. Eventually Brenda rejoined him and returned to her old job. She made friends with the wife of Rick Nunley, with whom she would later have an affair. As early as February 1988, four years into the marriage, Rob sought marital counseling from a pastor, Bobby McDaniel. When the couple's first child, Tricity, was born Dec. 23, 1990, McCracken said, the couple decided Brenda should stay at home. The 1990s weren't a good decade for the couple, despite the birth of a 2nd child, Parker, on Sept. 27, 1994. Rob tried to make the marriage work, but the couple seemed to grow further apart. David Ostrowe, the president of a headhunting and consulting firm who worked with Rob on hiring for Jordan Associates, testified about meeting Brenda for the 1st time. He and his wife had arrived at the restaurant first and were waiting in the bar when Rob and Brenda showed up. "The comment that was made was, 'Who's the hootchie?'" Ostrowe said. "Her dress was very tight, very short, with a lot of cleavage exposed." He said he pictured Rob, who was openly religious, with someone more conservative. By October 1997, Brenda had begun an affair with Nunley, a reservoir engineering technician who testified he continued to see her until the spring of 1998. Jennifer Jones, now a mental health therapist, was a college student and nanny that year. She baby-sat for Brenda and recalled 2 occasions when she sensed something odd was going on. Jones testified that once Brenda told her she was going out to get groceries, but she left wearing a tight leather skirt and top. When Brenda returned, she had no groceries and wasn't wearing her wedding ring. Another time Brenda left wearing a "provocative" dress. "I felt like something was going on," Jones said in court, "and I did not want to be a part of it." Rod Lott, a freelance writer and graphic designer who used to work for Rob at Jordan Associates, offered even more telling details. Lott, who often accompanied Rob on business trips to Tulsa, testified he asked Rob once why he never told Brenda he loved her when they ended phone calls. "He said he tried to do that when they first got married," Lott said. "But she said it made her feel uncomfortable and told him not to do it." The couple's home life had disintegrated, he said. "They hadn't had sex in years," he told the court. "He would come home and see lingerie that was bought and he'd get his hopes up. He would get his feelings hurt in the end." Rumors spreading James Higgins may have been the next man to cuckold Rob. In early 2000, Higgins admitted in court, he commenced a 16-month affair with Brenda. The grocer said Brenda used to come into the store, flirting with him and wearing "low-cut tops and short skirts." One day she brought him a motel key, and the fling was flung. In September 2000, even as the two continued to meet, Brenda's father died. The affair continued. She broke things off with Higgins in May 2001, but soon rumors spread through North Pointe Baptist Church that she'd taken up with another churchgoer, James Pavatt, a Prudential Life Co. insurance salesman. As a result of the affair, both were asked to step down as Sunday school teachers. That Brenda had accepted Pavatt as her lover was a turning point of sorts. Now she'd partnered with someone Rob had considered a friend -- or at least, enough of a friend to bring along on a family hunting expedition. Moreover, Pavatt, then 48, had sold Rob his $800,000 life insurance policy. The same policy Brenda wanted to cash in. The tragedy was nearing its final act. Murder plot unfolds About 6:15 p.m. on Nov. 20, 2001, Rob pulled up outside his old house at 6112 Shaftsbury Drive. He'd come there expecting to pick up the children for the Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, he encountered Brenda, then 37. She'd booted him from the house a couple of months back, then filed for divorce Oct. 3. Rob didn't want a divorce. He wanted to get back together. But if it was God's will that it didn't work out, he'd do his best to accept it. One thing was certain. Brenda could have the house, money, whatever -- but they would share custody of the children they both loved. He wasn't going to disappear from their lives. Not if he could help it. In the days since his eviction, Rob had learned to fear Brenda. She'd flooded him with accusatory calls and phone messages and openly told others she hated him. Twice he'd told police he thought Brenda and Pavatt were plotting to kill him. His brake lines were cut Oct. 26, he told them, the same day mysterious callers tried to lure him onto the highway with false reports that Brenda was in the hospital. He'd survived, but as he told a friend later, he felt as if he was wearing a target on his back. Now, Brenda said she was having trouble with a pilot light in the garage. Could he help? Rob was agreeable. He followed her and squatted beside the troublesome furnace. Prosecutors said that's when Pavatt pulled the trigger. Gravely injured, Rob grabbed a trash bag filled with empty soda cans and held it before him -- an instinctive and ineffective shield. Soon his children would be gone, disappearing before his funeral, dragged on a three-month fugitive journey through Mexico. His wife and Pavatt would be captured, convicted, sentenced to death. His family would mourn. But in those final moments of life, what did he think, watching his wife take the shotgun from her lover? Did he wonder who she was, this changeling, this monster who used to be his life? Did his graying vision see the girl who'd stolen his heart so many years ago -- or the siren who was about to stop it? A second, final shot rang out. Rob was dead. And Brenda's transformation was complete. (source: The Oklahoman, Sept. 26) OREGON: Killers' deals to avoid death put Oregon's system on trial----The outcomes of 2 high-profile cases frustrate both critics and supporters of the capital punishment process Jesse Lee Johnson is far from a household name. Outside Salem, few people noticed last March when a Marion County jury convicted Johnson of aggravated murder for stabbing a woman to death in her apartment during a robbery. But it was big news last week when Ward Weaver and Edward Morris pleaded guilty -- Weaver to sexually assaulting and killing two Oregon City girls, and Morris to murdering his wife and 3 children in the Tillamook State Forest. Yet it is Johnson, a relatively obscure murderer, who is the newest resident of Oregon's death row while 2 of the most notorious killers in recent state history got plea bargains that spared their lives. The disparate outcomes of the cases stem in large part from the fact that Johnson maintained his innocence while Weaver and Morris were willing to admit their guilt. But there is more to it. Capital punishment opponents say the three cases demonstrate that Oregon's death penalty system is arbitrary and unfair. "I just don't see how there's any way within human ability to fairly and rationally separate who should live from who should die in a fair, consistent and appropriate manner," said Richard L. Wolf, a Portland criminal defense lawyer who has handled several death cases. Supporters of capital punishment are unhappy that the system has been ineffective. Since voters reinstated the death penalty nearly 20 years ago, the state has executed 2 of the 51 men who have been sentenced to death. And those 2 are considered "volunteers" because they abandoned their appeals. More than 1/2 of the men sentenced to death have had their sentences reversed on appeal, several more than once. Of the 28 men who remain on death row, 4 were originally sentenced more than 16 years ago, yet none has an execution date. "I think anybody who supports the death penalty for people like Weaver, people like Morris -- I think you should be frustrated and angry with government and the judiciary in this state for not carrying out the will of the people in a timely manner," said Steve Doell, a crime victims advocate. Killer's appeals continue No one has lived on Oregon's death row longer than Jesse Clarence Pratt. More than 18 years after the former Seattle trucking company owner sexually assaulted, maimed and killed Carrie L. Love near Klamath Falls, Pratt, now 70, continues to appeal his aggravated murder conviction and death sentence. "I think it's a travesty," said Love's mother, Connie. "It's just a matter of legal mumbo jumbo. He did it. And all it's doing is keeping a worthless piece of humanity alive while what he did to Carrie is there every day." For capital punishment supporters, Pratt's case illustrates the frustrating pace of death penalty appeals. A Klamath County jury sentenced him to death in 1988. But the Oregon Supreme Court in 1990 ordered a new trial, saying prosecutors had improperly introduced evidence of his criminal history. Pratt was resentenced to death in 1991. 2 years later, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Pratt's case really slowed down in the next phase of the appeals process, post-conviction relief. This is where inmates argue that their lawyers' inadequate defense denied them their constitutional right to a fair trial. It took nearly 6 years before a Marion County judge rejected Pratt's petition for post-conviction relief in 1999. Pratt appealed. His attorney said he needed to file a 260-page appellate brief. The state Court of Appeals balked, saying 150 pages were more than enough. Pratt appealed that decision. The Oregon Supreme Court agreed to review his appeal although it eventually rejected his claim in 2002. Still, that detour added about two years to his appeal, which is still pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals. Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote said the likelihood of lengthy appeals weighed heavily on the relatives of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, Weaver's victims. "I don't believe they wanted to deal with this case 20 years from now," Foote said. "And it's not fair that they should have to deal with it 20 years from now." Court addresses delays Oregon Supreme Court Justice Michael Gillette, the court's point man on the death penalty, said he and his colleagues have taken steps to speed up the time between presiding over oral arguments and issuing opinions. In addition, Gillette said that about a year ago he told lawyers who handle death penalty appeals that they had to make them a bigger priority. Still, Gillette said it makes no sense to rush appeals if it causes errors that lead to reversals in the federal courts. "Doing it slowly once appears to be the right thing to do," Gillette said. "Doing it slowly but faster than we've been doing it is what we're trying to accomplish." As much as supporters assail the pace of appeals and the reversal rate, opponents bemoan what they see as a fundamentally unfair system in which prosecutors use the threat of a death sentence to force plea bargains. Noel Grefenson, who represented Jesse Lee Johnson, said his client refused a plea bargain because he maintained his innocence. In effect, the system in Oregon favors some of the worst killers if they are willing to deal. "You can end up with a Green River Killer who kills 40 people who gets life, and a grocery robber who kills the clerk and won't take a plea and gets a death sentence," Grefenson said. In addition, similarly horrific crimes receive different treatment: While Christian Longo is on death row for killing his wife and family, Edward Morris isn't. Professor, prosecutors divided William Long, a professor at Willamette Law School, said the disparate treatment of cases is absurd. "Oregon has shown for all of us to see, through the plea bargains of Edward Morris and Ward Weaver, that the administration of the death penalty in Oregon is now capricious," Long wrote in an article published this week on his Web site. "As such, the only responsible civil action at this point is for the citizens of Oregon to abolish the death penalty." Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, the state's most outspoken death penalty supporter, said abolishing the death penalty would be a mistake. "The only reason that Morris and Weaver pleaded guilty is because the death penalty hung over their heads," Marquis said. "And they knew that both of the prosecutors were willing to seek it." Stephen Dingle, the Marion County deputy district attorney who prosecuted Jesse Lee Johnson, agrees. Although he does not know prosecutors' thinking behind the Weaver and Morris deals, he cautions against resorting to plea bargains because the appeals process is taking too long. Dingle, who prosecutes inmates who commit crimes at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, said many inmates serving life sentences figure they have nothing to lose. Dingle won a death sentence in 2000 against David Cox, an inmate who was serving what amounted to a life sentence when he killed another convict. "I think that what is perhaps lost on some of the people around the state is that, unfortunately because of where we are, we see the result of these plea bargains," Dingle said. "In many of these cases you create very dangerous inmates." (source: The Oregonian, Sept. 26, 2004: IOWA: The real cost of death penalty A historic trial is now underway in Sioux City, one that media outlets are consistently referring to as Iowa's 1st death-penalty case in 40 years. It involves 35-year-old Dustin Honkin, a convicted drug dealer, who's accused of murdering three adults and two children in northern Iowa in 1993. Prosecutors claim that he tortured and shot them execution-style, burying their remains in shallow graves in a wooded area near Mason City. Honkin has pleaded not guilty to the charges. These crimes were allegedly committed because the victims acted as informants against Honkin's interstate drug ring, and without their testimony, authorities were unable to prove his guilt in that case. Because these were drug-related homicides involving an operation that crossed state lines, capital punishment was an option under federal law. That's an important distinction the media have failed to make clear. Should Honkin be convicted and sentenced to die, it's because this is a federal case, not a state case. The assertion that this is Iowa's 1st capital-punishment case in 40 years is misleading. Iowa is 1 of the 12 states that does not have the death penalty. And that's all for the best. Indeed, these were murders of a particularly heinous nature: Prosecutors contend that they were planned well in advance and that the victims were beaten before their deaths. If Honkin is guilty as charged, he should spend the rest of his life behind bars. But this trial - which is expected to last for at least 3 months and cost more than $2.5 million, making it the most expensive case ever argued in this state - represents what is typical of capital-murder trials in the United States and just 1 reason that the death penalty is an inherently bad idea. Capital punishment almost always costs more than life imprisonment in the long run - counterintuitive, perhaps, but true nonetheless. That's because death penalty cases are so poorly handled. Certainly, if Honkin were arrested for murder on Thursday and executed on Friday, the death penalty would be a far more swift and efficient form of justice. But that doesn't happen. The average time that a prisoner spends on death row in the United States is 10.43 years, and that costs taxpayers an average of $61 per day, per inmate. That's time spent actually on death row after conviction and sentencing, not including the trial. Yet most Americans still support the death penalty, including our current president, former governor of the state that is America's cheerleader for executions. Dubya himself had more inmates killed during his tenure than any other governor in U.S. history. He says that it's a deterrent to violent crime and an ultimate punishment for those who do kill. So what did he say in June 2000 when questioned on National Public Radio about the risk of innocent people being executed? "Every case I have reviewed, I have been comfortable with the innocence or guilt of the person I've looked at. I do not believe we've put a guilty - I mean innocent - person to death in the state of Texas." Wow. That's comforting to know. Despite Bush's reassuring words, however, that very question remains one of the most troubling aspects of the death penalty. If a prisoner is executed and new evidence surfaces a few years later that suggests her or his innocence, it's too late. The person is dead and can be exonerated only as a polite gesture to family members and friends. And the risk of a convicted murderer escaping from prison is far outweighed by the risk of killing a person who did no wrong. But then what about deterrence? Doesn't the thought of execution make criminals think twice? Not exactly. There's the obvious point that people who have reached a level of desperation that causes them to consider taking the life of another person are likely not very concerned about the consequences. Then there's the less obvious (but more concrete) point: States that don't have capital punishment almost all boast homicide rates significantly lower than those that do. Iowa should take pride in being a minority state that has banned capital punishment. It's a vengeful, costly practice that cannot undo heinous deeds that have already been done, nor make the nation's streets safer. (source: Opinions, Pete Warski, The Daily Iowan)
