On the outside Randy Kraft was a normal fellow, a succesful computer programmer operating in sunny Southern California. On the inside Kraft was a lethal sexual sadist that may have committed at least as many as fifty or sixty murders.
His killings are believed to have begun in the early 1970's and stretched until his arrest in 1983. His victims were all male, mostly homosexuals, who Kraft would torture and mutilate, sometimes while his victim was still alive. Apparently Kraft had a great deal of problems coming to grips with his own homosexuality, to say the least.
Kraft was arrested when police officers who pulled him over for erratic driving discovered his latest victim dead in the vehicle from a drug overdose. He was subsequently convicted of sixteen counts of murder in November 1989 and sentenced to death.
Unlike many Serial Killers, Kraft has denied involvment to this day and has has shunned the spotlight his crimes placed on him. He has never offered any explanation or shown any interest in clearing any unsolved slayings he may have committed. As a result of his tubborness authorites may never know for sure just how many men Kraft has actually murdered, though because of his extensive traveling it is suspected that the total could be as high as seventy.
The State of California put "Freeway Killer" William Bonin to sleep on February 23, and the media haven't stopped complaining about it since. Were reporters appalled by the execution? Oh no. Reporters were upset because they weren't sure whether they had seen an execution or not. As Sam Stanton from the Sacramento Bee said, "I'm not sure what we witnessed."
What did they see? Witnesses seem to agree that curtains were opened, revealing William Bonin, eyes closed, lying on a gurney. His chest heaved once, maybe twice. A few minutes later officials came out, announced he was dead, and thanked everybody for coming. Maybe they handed out some little mints.
S.F. Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan said it was "less involving than watching a vet put down a dog" and that Bonin looked like he "was being anesthetized for surgery." An editorial called the execution "clinically antiseptic" and "coldly efficient." In a television interview, I heard public radio reporter Jason Beaubien express disappointment in what he rather tellingly called a "show."
The consensus of witnesses: total rip-off. They paid for a carnival and didn't even see a freak. The Department of Corrections, in response to these bizarre criticisms, said they weren't trying to hide the process from the public, but to protect the identity of department employees who led the killer into the chamber.
In other words, the private sector wants more bang for its buck, death penaltywise. To accommodate them, the public sector wants to give us more bangs, but to muffle them so we can't identify them as bangs, thus maximizing their potential per tax dollar.
Face it: the death penalty is just an opportunity to create another faceless bureaucracy. One drone takes bids for the toxins to be used, another draws up the purchase orders, one distributes them to the designated carriers, three carry the syringes, ten strap the killer down... Who knows how many civil servants it takes to put a murderer on ice?
Marv agreed, and I was assigned full time to the story. Alger would cover developments at the police departments and help develop features. It wasn’t half the staff, but it would edure, which would include witnessing the condemned entering the death chamber, being strapped in, watching the injection apparatus being applied -- the whole works.
It was also discovered that Bonin was receiving Social Security benefits while he was on death row. This revelation led to a nationwide effort to get convicts off the Social Security rolls.
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