Dead Men Talking (26 page)
Authors: Christopher Berry-Dee
The sleuth knew that the description of a blue car didn’t exactly match that of Ross’s vehicle, which was parked outside. The cop was looking for a hatchback with rear wipers and, while Ross certainly had a blue Toyota, it was a sedan and had no rear wiper blade. After a few more minutes of general conversation, Malchik got up to leave, for the second time. He had only walked a few yards before a gut instinct prompted him to turn around and ask Ross a question of his own.
In the manner of Peter Falk in his role as Columbo, Malchik asked, ‘What were your movements on Wednesday, 13 June, the day Miss Baribeault went missing?’
Amazingly, thought Malchik, Ross immediately reeled off his movements for that day almost to the minute, with the exception of the hour encompassing 4.30pm. This was the time when the witnesses had seen Wendy walking along the road, with a man answering Ross’s description following her. The detective thought it remarkable that anyone could so rapidly recall his or her exact whereabouts, along with solid timings, two weeks after an event, without at least considerable thought, or reference to a well-kept diary, so he reckoned that 13 June must have been a special day for Ross. Malchik them asked him what he had been doing on the two days either side of this crucial date. Ross couldn’t remember a thing and the detective was stunned, for the implication was now obvious. Ross had tried to alibi himself for the day of the murder and in doing so had been too clever for his own good.
Malchik then asked his suspect to accompany him to the murder incident room, which had been set up in the nearby Lisbon Town Hall on Newent Road. Ross thought that a ride in an unmarked police car would be ‘fun’, so he changed into a white, short-sleeved shirt, and dark, lightweight slacks for the five-minute journey, the very same clothes that he had worn when he killed Wendy Baribeault.
Once seated in the police interview room, Ross was soon rambling about his life to the amiable cop. By now, Malchik had learned about Ross’s criminal history, and he was privately convinced that he had a serial killer sitting in front of him. But in the bustling confines of the command post, obtaining a full confession was another matter entirely. At one point, just as Ross was about to make some serious admissions, a cleaner burst into the room and started to mop the floor. This unexpected intrusion broke the spell and Malchik had to begin coaxing his suspect again.
Suddenly, Ross asked: ‘Mike, do you think I killed Wendy?’
Malchik said that he believed so, and with that, Ross admitted eleven sexual assaults and six murders.
Recalling that first meeting, during a subsequent prison interview, Ross told me:
I remember the detective coming to the door. He was looking for a blue hatchback with wipers, and I didn’t have a blue hatchback. I had a blue sedan with no wipers. And, uh, he was getting ready to leave, and I told him something. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but something that made him pause. And he said he had better ask me a few more questions and then afterwards he was getting ready to go. An’ I said something else, so I guess I didn’t really want him to leave.
Remembering the interview with Mike Malchik, Ross explained:
You know, it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. You know, ‘Hello Mr Police Officer, I killed a load of people.’ You know, it was hard for me. If you actually listened to the audiotape confessions, ah, it was very difficult for me to admit that I did it, and then I had got one out. Then he would have to kinda get the next one out. Then I could talk about that one. Yes, it was hard at first saying I killed this one, or that one. I mean I told ’em about two they didn’t know about… I mean they didn’t even question me about them ’cos they thought they were runaways.
When I asked Ross why he had confessed to the murders of Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, when he hadn’t even been asked about them, the killer complained:
Well, the police said that there was something wrong with me, and there was a place at Whiting Corner for insane criminals. Yeah, I fell for that one, an’ I thought I was going to get the help I needed and that’s what I wanted to hear. ‘Hey, you know you have got something wrong with you and we are going to do something about it ’cos the murders have
stopped.’ Yeah, Malchik said all the right things, so I thought, what the hell, and I gave ’em everything.
To be fair to Mike Malchik, he did honour his promise to Ross, for the murders did stop, and the law eventually did do something about Ross’s problem: they would execute him.
* * *
Wyndham County Prosecutor, Harry Gaucher, only charged Ross with the 1982 murders of Tammy Williams and Debra Smith Taylor. Whether it was because of lack of physical evidence to support the rape portion of an aggravated capital felony charge, which carried the death sentence, or Gaucher’s anxiety about losing his case at trial, he allowed Ross to plead guilty solely to murder.
Sitting on Saturday, 13 December 1986, the trial judge sentenced Ross to two consecutive life terms. He would serve no less than 120 years behind bars. However, the murders of Wendy Baribeault, Robin Stavinsky, April Brunais and Leslie Shelley fell under the jurisdiction of a more tenacious prosecutor. New London County State’s Attorney, C Robert ‘Bulldog’ Satti, of the ‘hang ’em and flog ’em brigade’, wanted to be the first prosecutor for decades to send a murderer to Connecticut’s electric chair.
Satti also knew that he was up against a death penalty statute that tipped the balance in favour of life imprisonment. But the formidable counsel stuck to his guns, for he strongly believed that if ever there was a man worthy of the chair, it had to be Michael Bruce Ross. Apart from the morality of executing a man in the liberal ‘Nutmeg State’ of Connecticut, there was another cost to consider. ‘Old Sparky’ had not been used since Joseph ‘Mad Dog’ Taborsky had been electrocuted in it on Tuesday, 17 May 1960, since which time it had fallen into disrepair. If they wanted to kill Michael Ross, the state would have to fork out at least $30,000 to refurbish the old oak chair, upgrade the wiring, renew the restraints, redecorate the witness viewing area and death house suite.
For their part, the defence attorney had to convince a jury that Ross was not legally responsible for the crimes to which he had confessed. Making their job tougher was the fact that Ross didn’t qualify for an insanity defence. Moreover, the case had received so much pre-trial publicity that, in the summer of 1987, the venue was moved to Bridgeport, where the prosecution would argue that Ross was a rapist, a cold-blooded, calculating monster, who had planned his assaults and murdered his victims simply to stay out of prison.
In June 1987, after four weeks of testimony, the eight men and four women jurors took just 87 minutes to convict Ross of capital felony murder. At the penalty phase, three weeks later, it took them under four hours to prove that Connecticut’s death sentence could be imposed. On Monday, 6 July, 20 days before his 28th birthday, Ross was condemned to death. Under Connecticut law, he would have been spared this sentence if the court had found even one redeeming factor or quality that the jurors believed to indicate remorse or mitigation. They could not, for Ross, it seemed, did not have a conscience and didn’t give a damn.
During and after the trials, Michael became angered because he felt that the judge and jury were biased and the testimonies of some of the witnesses were grossly inaccurate. Yet, probably his greatest source of irritation was that he felt the court failed to recognise his alleged mental illness. Michael suggested that this was most evident when the judge disallowed testimony by his psychiatrist, Dr Robert Miller. The defence team claimed that had Dr Miller been allowed to submit his testimony concerning Michael’s psychological state, the jury would likely have been more lenient during the penalty phase. Moreover, his ‘mental illness’ might have even been considered a mitigating factor, which could have spared him the death penalty altogether.
Ross had told me that he wasn’t afraid of dying in the electric chair. He said that living was too good for him, but he was worried that, if that fateful moment did arrive, he might say the wrong thing or show weakness in the face of death. He was also afraid of something he said was far worse then death:
I’ve always felt that I had to be in control of myself and, even to this day, I feel the need to be in control. What scares me the most isn’t life in prison, or the death penalty, but insanity. I’m scared of losing touch with reality. Sometimes I feel I’m slipping away and I’m losing control. If you’re in control you can handle anything, but if you lose it, you are nothing.
When asked if he had feelings or remorse for his crimes, he replied bluntly:
Nope! I don’t feel anything for them. I really wish I did. I don’t feel anything. I feel really bad for the families. I mean, I feel lots of times. Like I can see Mrs Shelley, the mother of one of them girls I killed, on the witness stand crying. And, then there’s Mrs, ah, I can’t remember her name, but I can think of another one on the stand describing her daughter. She went to the morgue and saw her at the morgue. But the girls themselves I feel nothing for, and I never have.
Ross then explained why he hadn’t turned himself in to the police when he started to commit his earlier offences, way back at Cornell University, when he knew he needed help:
I made myself believe that it would never happen again. And, I know it sounds hard, but looking back, I can’t understand how I did it. It was a fluke because I really didn’t do those things. Even sitting here now, I know if I was released I’d kill again. There’s no reason to think otherwise. But, I can’t, as I sit here now, picture myself wanting to do that. I can’t really see myself doing it. I mean, it’s like being on different levels.
When asked if he had any detailed memories of the murders, Ross chuckled, and then said:
Yes and no. I used to fantasise over the crimes every day and every night. I would masturbate to the point of, um, actually having raw spots on myself from the masturbation. I would bleed. It’s weird. I get a lot of pleasure from it. It is really a pleasurable experience. But, when it’s all over, it’s a very short-term thing. I guess it’s like getting high. You know I’ve never used drugs, but you can get high, then you come down and crash. That’s almost how it is. It’s just not an easy thing to live with.
An inevitable question was to ask him what had been going through his mind when he was raping and killing his tragic victims. His reply was:
Nothin’! That’s what so weird about this thing. Everybody seems to think, you know, the state’s theory that I’m a rapist and I kill them so they can’t identify me. Look, most of the time it’s broad daylight. I mean, I’m not a stupid person. As sure as hell, if I was going to do something like that, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it that way. There was nothing going
through my mind until they were already dead.
And then it was like stepping through a doorway. And, uh, I remember the very first feeling I had, was my heart beating. I mean really pounding. The second feeling I had was that my hands hurt where I always strangled them with my hands. And, the third feeling was, I guess, fear, and the kind of reality set in that there was this dead body in front of me.
And, again, I don’t want to mislead you because I knew what was going on, but it was like a different level. I mean it was like watching it
[on TV].
And, after it was all over, you know, it kind of sets in, an’ that’s when I would get frightened and stuff. I would hide the bodies and cover them up, or something.
I abused them, I used them and I murdered them, what else do you need?
The Osborn Correctional Institution, formerly known as the Connecticut Correctional Institution-Somers, was opened in November 1963 as a replacement for the Old Wethersfield State Prison. It served as the state’s maximum-security prison and as the Reception/Diagnostic Center for incoming male inmates state-wide. When I first met Michael Ross, before Death Row inmates were transferred to the newly opened Northern Correctional Institution, in 1995, he was incarcerated at CCI-S, and his ‘house’ on ‘The Row’ was a truly ancient dungeon painted a muddy-brown colour. ‘Death Row’ was stencilled in white on the brown-painted steel door leading to the tier which housed Connecticut’s seven ‘Dead Men Walking’. Indeed, there will be few readers who have not seen the 1999 movie
The Green Mile
, starring Tom Hanks, as Officer Paul Edgecomb, but I can assure you that the squalid conditions on Death Row at Somers made the Louisiana‘s imaginary Cold Mountain Penitentiary seem like a first-rate hotel.
On my final visit to Death Row, only Michael Ross and Robert Breton were ‘at home’. Sedrick Cobb, Ivo Colon, Richard Reynolds, Todd Rizzo and Daniel Webb were enjoying fresh air in the yard and taking in a little sun.
* * *
Robert Breton, Sr was sentenced to death in 1989. He was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of capital felony for the 13 December, 1987, beating and stabbing deaths of his 38-year-old ex-wife, JoAnn Breton, and their sixteen-year-old son, Robert Breton, Jr. In the early morning of 13 December 13, 1987, Breton entered the Waterbury apartment that his ex-wife rented after their divorce eleven months earlier. Surprising her while she slept, he slashed at her with a sharp five-inch knife and pounded her with his fists. JoAnn Breton scrambled across the room. Her ex-husband followed and killed her by thrusting the knife through her neck, opening a major artery. Robert Breton, Jr heard his mother’s screams and ran into her room, where his father attacked him. Bleeding from his arms, hands, and fingers, the younger Breton tried to escape down a flight of stairs. His father pursued him, overtaking his son at the bottom of the staircase and continuing the attack. Robert, Jr. bled to death from a wound that severed his carotid artery. Police found him, clad only in his underwear, at the bottom of the stairs, his head propped against a wall.