Spare the Lambs (19 page)

Part Seven

November 29, 2001

Steve Johnston

123 York St.

Georgetown, DC 57931

Jill Mansion

Editor

Marilyn Press

4563 Peters St.

Suite 1000

New York, NY 13795

Dear Jill Mansion;

              My name is Steve Johnston and I am contacting you to ask for advice on writing a manual.  I have been an FBI Special Agent for seven years and I feel I have the experience and knowledge to create a manual of great value for future or even current law enforcement.  I was intimately involved with both the Easter Murders and the Easter Hunter investigations.

It pained me to see a good detective, the Easter Hunter, James Pearson. go so bad and I feel the data I have gathered on the experience could become the basis of a  book that could help educate and prevent others from ending that way. I can send all this information if you wish.  The gathered data includes; confessions, journal entries, and news articles.  I hope you are willing to offer advice on this project.

Sincerely,

Steve Johnston

1 April, 2002

              I must me going insane.  It couldn’t have been real.  I won’t believe it was real.  Maybe reading the raving of a madman so many times has infected me.  Is insanity contagious?  I’ll ask the FBI’s psychologist when I get back to D.C.  Hell, even writing a damn journey entry is probably due to James Pearson’s madness.  I hadn’t done this since I was sixteen.  Oh well, this is oddly calming.

              All of this is caused by my habit of seeing things through to the very end.  This tendency has helped me to rise in the bureau, finishing cases that other would’ve given up on.  However, this time it might land me in a padded cell.  Wait, do they have those any more?  They have to. 

I watched James Pearson, the murdering detective, die tonight at eight p.m.  I arrived at the Charlesville State Prison around seven p.m. and had to fight my way through the crowds of people that congregate for any execution.  The CSP is home to the state’s worst rapists, murderers, child molesters, as well as all of the state’s death row inmates.

One groups blocking the entryway would’ve gladly give a criminal a knife and offer their own neck before ever executing anyone.  They had signs with bible quotes and slogans like, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Another one of the groups would’ve formed lynch mobs and string someone up for any crime.  They had signs with the same bible quotes as the peace lovers and slogans like, “fry that murderer.”

The last group held signs that said, “Let the savior of our children go,” and “God bless James Pearson.”  I had never seen or even heard of a group like them at an execution before.

It took me fifty minutes to work through the crowds and security.  I finally arrived at the little viewing room.  I entered the room and saw the window allowing the victim’s family and officials to see into the gas chamber.  There were thirty people in the 10 by 10 room; so many people that the walls were sweating.  I have witnessed many executions during my FBI career, some with the chamber, some with the chair, and some by injections.  But, I had never seen so many people ready to watch a man die.  I once watched the execution of a man that had murdered twenty people and the only people in the viewing room were myself, the warden, the judge, and his mother.

It shocked me when I saw that not only had the parents of his victims come but the parents of the Easter Murders victims were there as well.  Mostly, they sat with Pearson’s victims on the right of the room and victims of the Easter Murders sat on the left.  The only outlier was Judith Smith’s father.  He sat on the far right and his angry expression fit in with all the others.  I heard that he lost his other daughter to child services thanks to Pearson’s tip.  The judge and warden sat in two reserved seats in the back of the room.  With no other chairs available, I leaned against the back wall.

As if they’d been waiting for me, the moment I settled in, the curtain opened revealing the inside of the chamber.  A door on the side of the chamber opened and Pearson walked into the room with two security officers.  I was a little annoyed to see that he looked healthier than he had the last time I seen him, as if he was relaxing at a vacation spot instead of doing hard time in prison.  He was pale, but his orange jumpsuit showed the lines of large muscles underneath and I doubted he had any of the fat he’d had when we’d been working together.

He sat in the chair as if it was a throne.  A few of the people on the left side of the room started to cry as the guards strapped him down.  One of the guards left the room as the other checked the wrist and ankle restraints. The security officer straightened and stood behind Pearson as there was a loud pop in the viewing room.

“James Pearson, you have been sentenced to death for the murders of Lee Maynard, James Levee, Samantha Garere, and Gerald Johnson.  Do you have any last words before the sentence is carried out?”

Pearson took a deep breath and nodded.  He looked at the parents of the Easter Murders victims and said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save your children, I just hope I was able to bring you some closure.”  It sounded stiff and well practiced.  However, I saw some of the parents nodding to him, one smiled at Pearson, while others unashamedly wailed.

The guard put a black shroud over Pearson’s head and walked out of the room.  The door made a loud clang as it closed and a voice said, “By the power invested in us by the city of Charlesville and the state, you will now be gassed until you die.  May God have mercy on our souls.”  There was a loud pop and we couldn’t hear inside the chamber any more.

Pearson’s hands gripped the chair’s armrests and the fabric of the shroud sucked in and puffed out.  I watched as the room slowly filled with thick white smoke.  The shroud sucked in and puffed out faster and faster.  When the smoke had risen up past his knees, he jerked and stared off to his right.  He nodded and relaxed.  He was completely calm by the time the smoke covered his chest.

There were gasps and loud crying in the viewing room.  My eyes went wide as I stared in shock and horror.  I know weird things, tricks of light, have been seen in smoke and I hope that’s all it was.  Pearson started to thrash and convulse as the gas reached his head.  He was still and lifeless before the smoke filled the room.

I left the room shaking.  The judge said something to me, but I walked out without a word and without really hearing him.  I made it to my car and back to my hotel room.  The proof of my insanity was in that smoke.  I’d seen eight small bodies, the size of children and young teens, standing around James Pearson as he died.  All of them had a friendly hand resting on his arms and shoulders.  Just before the smoke hid Pearson from view, I swear I saw Eric Moore’s face staring at me.