Starke. The name says it all. Starke, Florida. A geographical oxymoron. A scattering of trailerlike one-story houses blossoms on the otherwise barren landscape. Along the highway into town, in ever increasing numbers, signs beseech the motorist to visit Reptile Land, Starke’s second most popular tourist attraction. Nobody does.
Starke can be cold even in late spring. Once, in April, when Jonathan and I came to death row to examine some adult inmates, it snowed. We watched as a few lazy snowflakes floated to the ground and melted on the concrete, surrounding the empty swimming pool in the center of our Econo Lodge. The first time I stayed there, this rectangle of cubicles was a Ramada Inn. But by the time we came to see the younger inmates, the condemned juveniles, the management and name had been changed to reflect an increasing austerity.
And yet Starke survives, its economy fed by a steady trickle of visitors all year long. No one comes to Starke for the fun of it, nor did we. Neither weather nor scenery accounts for its desultory stream of transients. It is the prison, the Florida State Penitentiary, that draws folks to Starke.
Prisoners are, in fact, the town’s main industry; without them there would probably be no Starke at all. The penitentiary is its major employer, and continuous movement of friends, families, and public defenders in and out of Starke provides a modest income for the motels and cheap restaurants that line the main drag.
Every so often something happens to break the monotony of the otherwise routine flow of people to and from the prison. The pace of life quickens, and for a few days, sometimes even a week or two, the economy picks up. Just when it looks as though it’s going to be a dead season, just when it seems that another motel or a couple of dives will fold, the governor signs a death warrant and Starke gets a new lease on life.
The chance that Starke’s first and foremost tourist attraction, Old Sparky, will be put to use generates the kind of nervous excitement needed to attract dozens, occasionally hundreds, of reporters and cameramen. The windfall from such an event, like a good apple harvest in New England or a bountiful wheat crop in the Middle West, can sustain the town for four or five, maybe six dormant months.
Old Sparky is the fond name given by the townsfolk to Starke’s antiquated but refurbished and, over the past few years, exceptionally active electric chair. Occasionally Old Sparky shows his age; he can’t quite generate the voltage needed to dispatch the customer in the chair. Like an aging geezer with a young broad on his lap, Old Sparky just can’t get up the energy to perform the act. They say that in 1979, when the death penalty was reinstated, it took two or three jolts to shock the life out of John Spenkalink, Sparky’s first customer in over a decade. When this sort of thing happens, the presses roll. The local newspapers cluck their disapproval on a back page, while providing a minute-by-minute account of the miscreant’s lingering death on pages one through five. Old Sparky sells more papers when he’s impotent than when he scores. I suspect that this is why Florida has never chosen to amend its form of execution: lethal injections are boring. It is easy to see why, in Starke, Reptile Land comes in a poor second.
Ted Bundy’s four or five execution dates alone kept several greasy spoons from bankruptcy. Periodically his impending death breathed life into the moribund town. In fact, when Bundy’s final appeal failed, and he was executed, many of the townsfolk were secretly sorry to see him go. Bundy put bread on their table.
Our first visit together to Starke coincided with one of Bundy’s several scheduled execution dates. Brightly colored signs outside motels, service stations, and restaurants sang out the sentiments of the people within, and gave the usually drab community a festival air. The diner down the highway from our motel, an establishment destined to sustain us during that stay and our many future visits, registered its enthusiasm with a large sign out front, “BURN, BUNDY, BURN!”
Jonathan and I paused to consider the message.
“Is he one of ours?” Jonathan asked. I pulled out the paper Dick Burr, the public defender, had given me and scanned the list. It contained the names of ten condemned men we were scheduled to evaluate over the next four days. The name Bundy did not appear. We would not be seeing him—nor would we ever, if the authors of the billboard’s message had anything to say about it.
“Nope. He’s not one of ours.”
“Fine, let’s eat.”
I could count on Jonathan to be decisive. I was the idealist on the team; Jonathan, the realist. We needed food. The politics of the chef were irrelevant. Besides, in those days Jonathan had no problem with the death penalty. We ate.
* * *
Just as inmates in prison learn survival skills—how to make booze, how to make a shiv out of a toothbrush, how to wangle a conjugal visit with a woman one has never met before (readers will recall that Ted Bundy fathered a child while awaiting execution)—so doctors who evaluate prison inmates (like Metro North commuters) develop their own survival tactics. Food, safe, good food is hard to come by for inmates and doctors alike. I have met death row inmates who would not dream of putting into their mouths a forkful of the food served to them by the prison. They survive, as do I, on Snickers bars, but they get theirs from machines in the prison commissary. One of Dick Burr’s clients, James Adams, (may he rest in peace), destroyed his esophagus with a couple of bites of beef stew laced with lye—someone in the kitchen did not like James. It cost the state of Florida a pretty penny to reconstruct his gastrointestinal tract. They saved his life so that he could have the distinction of being the first black man put to death in Florida in twenty years.
Because food, safe, good food is so hard to come by in the prison, and because getting in and out of the prison is so time-consuming, breakfast is an important meal for anyone planning to spend a day behind bars. It has to keep you going for eight hours or more—unless, of course, you’re up for Snickers and packaged enchiladas.
Orthodox Judaism and Starke cuisine do not go together. It was, therefore, almost impossible for Jonathan to find sustenance at the greasy spoon with the Bundy message out front. Jonathan marveled at the number of dishes that could be made from pig. My own brand of Judaism permitted me to eat whatever I found on the menu that seemed safe, which I took to be anything heated above 180 degrees for five minutes. I passed on the chicken fried steak and selected the one fried meat that could also be found up north—chicken. Jonathan settled for an enormous salad.
The next morning, before leaving for prison, Jonathan was delighted to discover that our Econo Lodge breakfast provided him with skim milk, cornflakes, sugar, coffee, and fresh orange juice. Back in New Haven, he described this meal as “hidden culinary treasures in a barnyard of fried eggs and ham, fried eggs and sausage, fried eggs and bacon, and biscuits made with lard and covered with butter.” The biscuits could also be served covered with sausage gravy, a Southern treat composed of fried bits of pork sausage, flour, and heavy cream.
We eyed each other’s breakfast trays critically. I was certain that Jonathan’s bowl of cornflakes would never sustain him through the examination of four murderers. He surveyed my collection of plates and was aghast. “I can’t believe you’re eating that stuff.” My breakfast included two fried eggs, several sausages, a rasher of bacon, a heap of grits with some melted butter on top, and two biscuits, one with butter and jam, the other smothered in sausage gravy.
“I can’t help it, Jonathan. If I don’t eat fat, by eleven o’clock I get hypoglycemic and I can’t think straight. My stomach starts to make terrible sounds.” Jonathan could not conceal his disgust, but I was not intimidated. “You’ll be sorry you only ate cornflakes,” I warned. After several excursions to death row in the South, I learned that Jonathan would choose starvation over biscuits and sausage gravy.
Breakfast over, we were off to prison, driven by a public defender who was supposed to smooth the way once we got there. Shortly before entering the prison grounds, I spotted a lonely, all-night convenience store of the variety many of Starke’s inmates had seen fit to relieve of cash. It was our last chance to buy a packaged sandwich and secure calories for the long day ahead. When I broached this idea to the attorney, he assured me that the chance of smuggling in a tuna sandwich was slightly less than the chance of smuggling out Ted Bundy.
As we approached the prison, the scenery improved, the flat, trailer-pocked land giving way to expanses of cultivated fields. We had entered a farm. Hundreds of acres surrounded the prison walls, providing food for the prison tables. Here and there we glimpsed the light blue uniforms of prisoners working the land. In the distance grazed a herd of black and white cows, the prison’s source of fresh milk and meat, so we were told.
This bucolic scene soon gave way to a grimmer picture: a mass of high, rectangular, pale green structures connected by occasional towers and surrounded by a high metal fence. “See that block there,” the public defender pointed to the first visible building complex. “That’s the death house. That’s where they keep the condemned prisoners.” Then, as if to enhance the macabre scene, he added, “That’s where they keep Old Sparky.”
Over the years, attorneys have provided Jonathan and me not only with fascinating information about the legal system and how it works, or fails to, but also with information that once imparted has remained forever with us. Burdened by knowledge regarding the fate of their clients, from time to time attorneys have used Jonathan and me as receptacles for secrets too terrible to bring home to their wives and children.
On this, our first morning together on death row, as we drove from our motel along the main drag, through the flat countryside and onto the prison grounds, the public defender saw fit to describe to us the week-long ceremony leading up to an execution at Starke.
Several days before a scheduled execution, the prisoner is moved from his death row cell to a small holding cell close to the death chamber. There a light burns day and night so that the prisoner can be watched closely and prevented from taking his own life. The condemned is visited there by a tailor, who takes careful measurements for the suit that the inmate will wear in his coffin. The prisoner, we were told, also has the option of being comforted and counseled spiritually by the prison chaplain. Given the common knowledge that this man of the cloth is an outspoken partisan for the death penalty, few if any prisoners avail themselves of his services.
The prisoner is also allowed a last meal of his choice, the parameters of which were not spelled out to us. Julia Child recently published an account of her own preferred last meal. If I recall it correctly, it began with foie gras, oysters, and caviar, followed by pan-seared duck and topped off with crème brûlée. She asked that each course be served with an appropriate wine. If my memory serves me, dessert was accompanied by a 1976 Château d’Yquem. I somehow doubt that a request like Julia Child’s would or even could be honored at Starke. I do know that according to our public defender-informant, wine and beer are forbidden even at this final meal. Château D’Yquem is out.
An inkling of the tastes of the condemned can be obtained from postexecution newspaper accounts. From these, my impression is that fried chicken ranks high. (My choice, as well, when in Starke.) But, unlike me, their choice is not influenced by safety. Not long ago, a man in Oklahoma was reported to have requested a couple of Big Macs or Whoppers—I don’t recall which. Then there was the unfortunate retardate in Arkansas, a man who had shot himself in the head shortly after committing the murder for which he was nevertheless condemned to death. Like James Adams in Florida, doctors saved his life so that he could eventually be executed. His final meal proved to be a textbook example of how damage to certain parts of the frontal lobes affects planning. According to our public defender sources, this man set aside his dessert—pecan pie—so that he could have a midnight snack after his execution. In theory, prisoners cannot be executed if they do not understand what is happening to them or why. So much for theory.
During a prisoner’s final days on earth, visitors are severely restricted, though lawyers have access to their clients. At Starke, however, prisoners are usually permitted a final “contact visit” with a loved one. This contrasts with most visits during the final days leading up to execution, which occur behind glass. The prisoner is separated physically from his friends and family. However, for a brief period of time on the evening prior to execution, the prisoner can see his nearest and dearest without the glass barrier and embrace them for the last time. Occasionally this privilege is denied.
An example of such a denial occurred in the case of Ted Bundy. I had known Mr. Bundy over a period of several years, and he had come to trust me. Therefore I was only mildly surprised to receive a call from his lawyer, Polly Nelson, on the Saturday before his scheduled execution, which was to take place the following Tuesday. He had asked to talk with me before he died. I, of course, agreed to come. I had hoped to arrive in Starke on Sunday evening, but a combination of engine trouble, schedule changes, and an unexpected layover in Atlanta delayed my arrival. Monday morning Polly Nelson picked me up at the airport, and we raced to the prison.
There, in one of the little glass-walled cubicles not far from the one in which years before we had been locked in together, we sat and talked—Polly Nelson, Ted Bundy, and I. No glass separated us from each other. His wrists and ankles were shackled. For approximately four and a half hours the three of us talked. Early in the afternoon, a secretary or prison administrator entered, carrying a steno pad and pencil. With the air of a personal secretary, she asked Mr. Bundy exactly what his desires were for that evening; with whom did he wish to spend his final hours? Prison rules dictated that he could speak with friends or family for an hour or two, but that these visitors would be separated from him by a glass barrier. A time would be reserved, however, for a contact visit with a loved one. It was evident to me that these arrangements had already been discussed. The only change in Mr. Bundy’s request, as I understood it, was that I be added to the list of visitors to be seen behind glass. The arrangement for a final contact visit alone with his most recent conquest, a female attorney who bore a slight resemblance to several of his victims, would remain as planned. The secretary’s gracious demeanor, combined with her obvious efficiency, reminded me of a Delta Airlines stewardess in, say, business class. Polly Nelson had similar associations. I recall her turning to me on our way out of the prison and chirping, “And what else would you care for with your execution, Mr. Bundy?”
As things turned out, Mr. Bundy neither saw all of the visitors he had selected nor gave his lady love a final embrace. When we returned to the prison that evening, our car was stopped at an entry gate and I was told that not only could I not visit with Mr. Bundy, but I could not even enter the prison grounds. Warden’s orders. Apparently the warden was fearful that I would suddenly take it into my head to declare Mr. Bundy incompetent to be executed. In order to be incompetent for execution, a prisoner must not understand what is happening or why. With Mr. Bundy, that was hardly the case. Nonetheless, one of the local newspapers had already published an article stating that I had been called to the prison and had declared Mr. Bundy incompetent. I had not. But the warden was taking no chances. In fact, rumor had it that three psychiatrists were called to Starke and were at the ready to declare him sane and competent should I be so foolish as to suggest otherwise. Eventually Polly prevailed on the prison to allow me to enter and sit in a hallway while she and the other selected visitors met behind glass with Mr. Bundy.
The female attorney, dark hair parted down the center and flowing to her shoulders, was denied a final embrace. The warden had had second thoughts about her as well and deemed such a visit too risky. I guess he was afraid that she might slip Mr. Bundy a cyanide pill. This particular change in plan—the warden’s prohibition of a contact visit between Ted Bundy and his lady love—left me, to the best of my knowledge, the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy before he died. I had certainly not planned it that way. In fact, I had no intention of ever kissing Ted Bundy. I worked for him and his lawyers. It was my job to determine whether any psychiatric problems had been overlooked that were relevant to his case. This was my job—no more, no less. He, in turn, permitted me to study him on the chance or in the hope that I would discover the forces within him and around him that had made him so extraordinarily violent. When I began our final interview, I asked him why he had wanted to talk with me. His response: “Because everyone else I’ve talked with these past days only wants to know what I did. You are the only one who wants to know why I did it.” We are still studying the data from the Bundy case and hope some day to report what we find in a scientific journal.
Whatever his motives for asking me to come to Starke, and mine for coming, our four and a half hours together on the day before his execution were riveting. In fact, until the secretary interrupted, I had quite lost track of the time. When I realized how much time had gone by, I felt a bit guilty. There must be others waiting to say their good-byes. There was so much more to learn, but since these might be Theodore Bundy’s last hours on earth, I felt obliged to leave. An appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending, so I decided to end the interview by shaking Mr. Bundy’s shackled hands and wishing him luck on the appeal; we would not hear the Supreme Court’s verdict until almost midnight. We both stood up to leave. Then, as I took his hand in mine to shake it, he bent down and kissed me on the cheek. With that, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, exactly as he had kissed me. And that is how I came to be the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy.
I flew home on Tuesday evening. My husband opened the door for me and I placed my bags on the kitchen floor. Trying to sound light about what had obviously been a harrowing experience, I said, “You are looking at the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy.” Mel’s comment: “And live.”
According to the attorney driving us to the penitentiary, the final hours of the condemned are the most grotesque and humiliating. A prison barber comes and shaves the prisoner’s head and the skin around one ankle, ensuring a proper flow of electricity from the machine through the body. The final degradation occurs toward the very end. The prisoner showers, then before donning fresh prison garb, he is restrained while guards shove large wads of cotton into his rectum. This is done to ensure that Old Sparky is not fouled by the feces that would otherwise be expelled involuntarily when the switch is thrown and the prisoner convulses. More than one public defender has seen fit to share these details with Jonathan and me. They must figure that if they have to live with them, so should we.
As we neared the entrance and turned into the parking lot in front of the prison, we saw that what from a distance appeared simply to be a wire mesh fence encircling the prison was in reality a double row of fences running parallel to each other, separated by about fifteen or twenty feet. Between these fences, coils of razor-sharp barbed wire gleamed in the Florida sun. This was not ordinary barbed wire. Obviously it was manufactured especially for prisons, each barb sharp enough to carve a roast and long enough to skewer a turkey. Anyone attempting to escape over or through this lethal network of wires and blades would be sliced to ribbons.
In front of the electronically controlled entrance gates stood an old-fashioned guard tower, the kind that lends atmosphere to prison movies, especially when filmed at night. At its base a telephone enabled visitors to identify themselves to an invisible guard stationed at the top of the tower. The attorney did just this, explaining who we were and clarifying our mission. Our visit to the prison had been cleared days before and our names were on a list. All that was left was proof of our identities.
Then an amazing thing occurred. The guard, as if to mock the otherwise high-tech security system, proceeded to lower a plastic bucket on a string. We thereupon deposited our photo I.D.’s in the bucket, which the guard then slowly raised to his perch atop the tower. Eventually, having confirmed to his satisfaction that we were who we purported to be, he slowly lowered the bucket and returned our I.D.’s. I realize now that there was absolutely no way that the guard, so high above, could possibly match the tiny photographs in his hand with the faces of the people below seeking entry. Nevertheless, each time we have visited Starke, we have participated in this ritual.
Having passed this first test, we moved toward the entrance and passed through an electronically operated wire-mesh gate that closed behind us. As we waited for a second gate to open, we looked back and watched the empty plastic bucket slowly ascend the tower and disappear into the turret. With the first gate solidly closed behind us, the second not yet open, and coils of razor-sharp wire on either side, Jonathan and I had a taste of what it was like to be a prisoner in the South.