Body Dump (21 page)

On March 7, 1995, Governor George E. Pataki had signed a bill reinstating the death penalty in New York. After more than thirty years without it, New York, with its infamous electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, had the death penalty once again.

Both houses of the New York State legislature, the senate, and the assembly had previously passed the bill, by votes of thirty-eight to nineteen, and ninety-four to fifty-two, respectively. There had been eighteen previous attempts by the senate and assembly to reintroduce the death penalty since 1977, but all the previous bills had been vetoed by former Democratic governors Cary and Cuomo. Those men believed that the death penalty was not only inhuman, but it was not a deterrent to capital crime.

In contrast, Governor Pataki, a Republican, had run on a platform that made the reinstatement of the death penalty the centerpiece of his future administration. His 1994 election as governor had moved the issue forward and guaranteed that he would sign the legislation. Upon his ascendancy, the death penalty bill had been the first major piece of legislation to be signed into law.

In reaction to the signing of the death penalty bill, former Governor Cuomo stated: “This is a step back in what should be a march constantly toward a higher level of civility and intelligence. The argument that the death penalty will deter and reduce crimes has been abandoned almost everywhere.”

The way the legislators had written the statute, the new law allowed for death sentences to be imposed for approximately ten offenses. They included the following: intentional murder committed during the course of a rape, robbery or kidnapping; contract killings; the murder of prison wardens, police officers or other law enforcement officials; and murder involving torture. The law excluded those under eighteen years of age at the time of the offense, pregnant women and the mentally retarded from execution. The determination of mental retardation would be made by the trial court.

Under the death penalty statute, capital murder trials would have two phases. The first phase would determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Upon conviction of first-degree murder, the court would hold a second hearing known as the penalty phase. The penalty phase would determine whether a sentence of death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole was to be imposed.

The decision on sentencing rested with the original trial jury that would be reimpaneled during the sentencing phase. The jury would be required to determine whether the mitigating facts pertaining to the defendant and the crime outweighed the aggravating factors. Mitigating factors included the defendant’s lack of prior criminal record; whether the defendant suffered from mental retardation or impaired mental capacity at the time of the crime; and that the defendant was under duress or the domination of another person at the time of the offense. Aggravating factors included previous convictions for violent offenses, or that the crime was considered an act of terrorism.

A unanimous decision by the jury was required for either of the available sentences. In the event of the jury being unable to reach a unanimous decision, the defendant would be sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty years.

Detailed research, both in the United States and other countries, has produced no evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than any other punishment. In many nondeath-penalty countries, the homicide rate has decreased after the abolition of capital punishment. For example, in Canada the death penalty was abolished in 1976. From the date of its abolition until the end of 1993, the rate of homicides per 100,000 population has dropped by twenty-seven percent.

Figures from other countries made no difference, though. Governor Pataki cited prevention of violent crime as his major justification for reintroducing capital punishment. He knew that if the public did not want its revenge, the death penalty would not exist.

No politician in his right mind who expected to be reelected in a conservative county, which Grady served in, could advocate against the death penalty, let alone not impose it in the worst case of serial murder in New York State history. Electrocution had once been the method of execution. The new law made execution more humane. The killer convicted of murder one would see his life ended by lethal injection. Old Sparky at Sing Sing would remain inactive.

An act was also passed making a provision of eleven million dollars, “or so much thereof as may be necessary,” to cover the increased prosecution and defense costs involved in administering death penalty laws. This included the establishment of the Capital Defender Office, a state body charged with defending those who were being prosecuted under the new death penalty statute.

At the bill-signing ceremony in 1995, Pataki used two pens that had previously belonged to murdered police officers. The relatives of homicide victims surrounded him. Governor Pataki was quoted as stating, “Justice will now be served.… It is a solemn moment because this is something aimed at preventing tragedy, and we’ve seen too many tragedies in the past.”

Solemn moment or not, Pataki’s death penalty bill was terribly flawed. Serial killing did not necessarily warrant the death penalty and in the case of Kendall Francois, even less so.

Francois could claim that he had strangled the women during a business transaction—sex for money, usually known as prostitution. That certainly did not qualify as rape under the law, which meant Francois had not intentionally killed while committing another felony.

Nor had he planned the killings. They seemed to happen at the moment. Only if a murder was planned in advance could the prosecution justify a capital murder one charge.

As for the serial aspect of the crimes, the statute says that murder punishable by death falls under the death penalty law if “the defendant intentionally caused the death of two or more … persons within the state in separate criminal transactions within a period of twenty-four hours when committed in a similar fashion or pursuant to a common scheme or plan.”

In other words, the statute defined serial killing as two or more murders committed within the state, on separate occasions, “within a period of twenty-four hours.” Under the state’s own definition of serial killing, Kendall Francois did not fall into that category.

If Francois opted for diminished capacity, commonly known as the insanity defense, Grady would have to prove that Francois was sane at the time of the crimes. That might be difficult. What sane man commits serial murder?

Francois’s very crimes might be the actual defense that kept him from being strapped to a gurney and having poison injected into his blood. It was like he had a “get out of death free” card. And, if the jury didn’t vote for death, what then? It was entirely possible that the worst he could be sentenced to was life behind bars without parole. But who knew if that really meant life?

Somewhere along the line, some reformers would change the law. Lifers like Francois could be given paroles. Even Nathan Leopold, who, along with his friend Richard Loeb, was convicted of the most famous thrill killing in United States history and received a life sentence in the 1920’s, was later given parole during the 1950’s.

Life didn’t necessarily mean life. But sentencing was a long way off. In order to prosecute an individual successfully, the state needs to know his or her official background. It helps in establishing a time line, especially in cases of serial killing. Plus there might actually be something in the individual’s background that could further assist the state in its prosecution.

Fifteen

Siegrist and company zeroed in on Kendall Francois’s military service. Could he have committed serial murder while he was in the army stationed in Hawaii? A check of the records showed that there was, indeed, a serial killer operating in Hawaii while Francois was stationed there. The Poughkeepsie Police Department immediately contacted the Honolulu Police Department.

“We had focused on a suspect [who wasn’t Francois] but there wasn’t enough to bring him to trial,” said Honolulu Police Lieutenant Allan Napoleon. Napoleon headed up the city’s homicide squad.

Napoleon pointed out that unlike the Poughkeepsie case, in Hawaii the victims were all blondes and their bodies dumped near the ocean and streams. Since the victims’ descriptions didn’t match Poughkeepsie’s, the connection was discounted.

Plus, Napoleon said, when their suspect left the area, “It [the killings] stopped.”

That seemed to pretty much rule out Francois. The police did not follow up on Francois’s time during basic training at Fort Sill, in Oklahoma, to see if there were any unsolved murders there. Reading about all this in the newspapers, which covered every detail of the official investigation, the Francois family couldn’t help but be interested, but not interested enough to make any public comment. Speaking for them, their lawyer, Marco Caviglia, told how the Francoises were forced to leave their daughter’s apartment, where they’d been staying since the night of their dispossession.

“The Francois family is still homeless,” attorney Caviglia told the media. “Because of the allegations of unkemptness at the former family residence … they have been denied the right to rent.”

The Francoises had no choice but to rent, since their house was literally still in police custody. It was doubtful, too, if they would go back there to live; it wouldn’t be safe. The public perception was that there were too many people Francois had allegedly harmed who would, in turn, want revenge.

Their only choice was to rent until the house was released, at which point they could try to sell it. Unfortunately for them, state law requires full disclosure about a house’s sordid history, not that any was really needed in this case since it got so much media coverage. That kind of unwarranted attention could do nothing but lower the sale price.

While the Francoises continued to contemplate their uncertain future, Grady convened a grand jury to formally charge Kendall Francois. It was the first step on a path that Grady hoped would eventually lead Kendall Francois into the death chamber.

Unlike in the Brawley case, this time Grady controlled the story. Not one word about the police investigation, city, county or state, got out without his prior okay. Police officers were instructed not to talk to the press unless they checked with his office first. But despite his attention to detail, Grady found himself once again in over his head. He made the wrong decision.

The first thing the press latched on to was the seeming incompetence of the police in tracking the serial killer down. Charge after charge appeared in the press that the cops had blown it. The September 3
New York Times
article was the best example of the popular perception that the cops had been apathetic toward the victims.

The perception was that the cops thought the women were just worthless prostitutes. Feeling that way, they did not devote their full resources to bringing the killer to ground. As a result, he continued to kill with seeming impunity because of the way he picked his victims: the flotsam of society that no one, including the public, really cared about.

To Siegrist, the truth was it had not made any difference. They had pursued the killer through two years and eight changes of season. It made no difference to them who the victims were; the public could believe what it wanted. They had not given up and through careful, plodding police work, they had gotten him.

That wasn’t enough.

Now that the savagery of Kendall Francois had been exposed to the light, someone needed to shoulder the blame for his reign of terror. Had the politicians given law enforcement more support to begin with, had given them more financial resources to tackle the case, maybe, maybe Francois would have been brought in sooner.

No matter.

Someone needed to take the blame. As usual, the police were the best candidates. Also working against further disclosure in the case were the vagaries of New York State law.

In terms of the police investigation, normally after a forensics examination of the crime scene, detectives are dispatched to pound the pavement in search of evidence and to do interviews with people who can provide leads to the killer’s identity. But in the Francois case, it was all backward. There was no crime scene to investigate.

By the time Francois confessed, any real evidence of the murders in his bedroom, aside from a few trinkets that belonged to the victims, was gone. Should he decide to recant his confession and say he gave it under duress, a good lawyer could plant reasonable doubt in a jury’s mind that he had gotten those things voluntarily from the victims.

Grady’s quest to see Francois hang would not be an easy one. He would have court-appointed adversaries up to the challenge of saving the serial killer’s life.

Albany

Dr. Barbara Wolf and her forensic team continued to examine the bodies of the victims.

None of the victims had neck tissue with fingermarks on it because there was no skin, just necrotic tissue. Because of this kind of decomposition, the state police medical examiner and her team were unfortunately unable to gather much evidence from the bodies regarding cause of death. They were, however, able to ascertain through breaks in the victims’ hyoid bones that they had been strangled.

Identifying the victims was much easier. Medical and dental records were compared. One by one, over the next few days, the victims were identified. The last to be identified was Kathleen Hurley on September 8.

“She left early one afternoon and never came back to her apartment,” her brother Jim DeSalvo said to the press.

DeSalvo revealed that his sister had become “heavily involved with drugs, especially crack, after their mother died.” Most tellingly, DeSalvo was not surprised that his “sister hung around people like Francois prior to her death.”

September 10, 1998

The Francois family was distraught. They just could not believe what had happened to Kendall and how they themselves had been dispossessed. That was the substance of the statement their attorney, Marco Caviglia, delivered to the press.