Jan. 30
CONNECTICUT:
Bitter Town Exasperated By New Delay - Many Expected Conclusion Saturday
And Now Wearily Await Monday
This does not look like a town that wants someone to die.
On a bright, perfect winter day Saturday, the ice floes along the
Quinebaug River glittered like silver under the sun, and the school
parking lots were filled with cars driven by festive parents attending
their children's weekend basketball games.
But Griswold has seen its share of killing, and now it wants just one more
dead.
The murderous spree of serial killer Michael Ross took the lives of 4
young women and girls here more than 20 years ago, and the early Saturday
postponement of his execution to Monday at 9 p.m. has left this town
embittered and weary.
Many residents and workers in town stayed up late waiting word that Ross
would finally be put to death, only to have their hopes dashed at 12:45
a.m. Saturday when the state Department of Correction announced its
surprise decision to delay Ross' execution.
"I stayed up until midnight because I finally thought they were going to
do it," said Cheryl DuBois-Olsen, 45, who has spent the past 10 years
waiting tables at the Green Onion restaurant, a popular Lisbon eatery just
across the bridge from Griswold. "When I woke up this morning my
17-year-old son told me, 'Mom, you're not going to like this - they put it
off.' He was as frustrated as I was by the delay."
Griswold has changed dramatically since Ross' crimes in the early 1980s,
its textile factory jobs and agricultural base giving way to the
high-paying corporate and government jobs a 45-minute commute away in
Groton and New London. The town is growing fast as a commuter suburb along
I-395, and has 318 approved building permits for new houses, condos and
additions. But it remains very family-oriented, with a devoted core of
long-settled families who all know each other and have intermarried over
the years, many of whom knew the victims of Ross.
Griswold Selectman Bill Stetson, a large, bear-like man with a tufted
white beard, blew into the Green Onion at 2 p.m. Stetson retired in 1997
after a 40-year career with Electric Boat in Groton and has been a
Griswold selectman for 30 years. He has 8 grandchildren and generally
spends his weekend attending their back-to-back sports events.
"I'm a little tired myself because my wife and I stayed up until 1:15
waiting word on the Ross execution," Stetson said, sighing as he ordered a
Coke. "It wasn't a good idea, I guess, because one granddaughter was
playing basketball at 9:30 this morning, and then I had my grandson's game
at 10:30. Tonight my older grandson plays against Bacon Academy in
Colchester. I wish I could be saving my energy for that."
After his grandchildren's games, Stetson ran errands and spoke with
everyone he met at the Better Value supermarket, Wal-Mart and the JC
Spirit Shop.
"No one, absolutely no one, said to me that they were in favor of delaying
[the execution] any longer. They want it done," Stetson said. "We're all
very frustrated by the execution being delayed again, and of course
concerned that a federal judge is virtually threatening Ross' attorney
with disbarment and everything else for trying to act on his wish to die.
There's just huge concern in town that the execution will never be done."
In a nearby booth at the Green Onion, Bill Andrzeicik of Woodstock, a
native of Griswold who returns frequently to visit with his family, was
finishing lunch with his brother.
"It just seems that what gets lost in this never-ending saga over Michael
Ross is the impact on the families of the girls that were murdered - they
never get closure," Andrzeicik said. "This town just wants this to be
over. I don't know anyone who wants clemency for [Ross]. So what's the
point of delay?"
Griswold is a heavily Catholic town, and many residents also expressed
frustration that the Catholic dioceses joined in the effort to oppose
execution for Ross by circulating petitions urging the state legislature
to abolish capital punishment.
"There are a lot of things about the Catholic Church that are
anachronistic in this society -birth control and opposition to the death
penalty, for instance," Andrzeicik said. "You can still be religious
without following every tenet that the Catholic Church authorizes."
Later in the afternoon, a group of friends was talking in an aisle just
beyond the cash registers at the Ocean State Job Lot store on Route 138
just east of Jewett City, the populated hub of Griswold. Older residents
of Griswold have often said that younger people in town don't share their
condemnation of Ross, because they didn't live through the harrowing
events of the early 1980s.
But this did not seem to be the case with one couple, Michael Theriault,
22, of Voluntown, and his girlfriend, Alicia Eastwood, 20. They both
stayed up late Friday night watching television too, to see if Ross would
be put to death.
"My aunt, Jeanette Reynolds, was 17 when she was killed and her skeletal
remains were later found underneath the Gold Star Bridge in Groton,"
Theriault said. "Michael Ross never confessed to her death, but it's
always been assumed that she was one of his victims. Aunt Jeanette's death
had a huge impact on my family. I could go either way on deciding whether
Ross should be killed for these crimes, but if they are going to do it
they should make it happen right away. I don't want to pay taxes to keep
him alive."
Laura Fontenot of Moosup, 34, was also shopping at Ocean State Job Lot.
She grew up on December Drive in Griswold, near the homes of Leslie
Shelley and April Brunais, both 14, who were abducted and murdered by Ross
on Easter Sunday, 1984.
"I knew Leslie and April at Griswold Elementary and around the
neighborhood, and their deaths had a huge impact on all of us as
teenagers," Fontenot said. "But I don't mind that the state postponed
Ross' execution. Maybe it's a good thing to make him teeter on the edge
and suffer until he dies. But he deserves to die, and another side of me
is sick of the state putting it off."
(source: Hartford Courant)
