Digital Extras

October 2002.

Craig Price is up for parole.

Bill's on a car phone.

"I wouldn't give him three weeks on the street," he tells Arlene Violet, the talk-radio host on WHJJ-920. "He's a dead man. It's just that simple. So let him out, get it over with."

Thirteen years after Craig Price admitted, as a teenager, to murdering four of his Warwick neighbors, Rhode Island's airwaves are hot with anger at the news of Price's bid for parole -- on a 17-year sentence for contempt of court.

Violet: "Let's go to Joe; you're next on 920, Joe."

Joe: "Hi Arlene. I'm a first-time caller. Look, this guy's got me riled up. Why don't you people put in the death penalty and that's it. Final. You won't have to worry about Price."

Violet: "Claire on a car phone, what do you make of this?"

Claire: "When I first moved to Rhode Island, that's when all the hoopla was surrounding him . . . I remember it very vividly because I thought it was such a horrendous case. And I do have this feeling that laws were bent [to keep Price locked up] and even though I think that's wrong, I have to honestly say that I'm glad it happened in this case."

Price was denied parole in October 2002. His release date is in 2022, and he cannot imagine making it that long.

"Who wants to get out of prison at 50 when you've been locked up since 15?" he says. "I'd be getting out into the most technological society. By then you'll need a computer degree to flip a hamburger."

By the spring of 2003, Price has put all hope in an appeal to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. He cannot bear to think about what he will do if it fails.

He grows pessimistic, angry. He cannot eat, can barely sleep. He accuses correctional officers of harassment, of trying to provoke him. He has "unwanted thoughts" of violence.

On April 18, 2003, the court upholds his conviction.

Price writes:

What now happens, happens. I no longer have the mental strength to contend with the delusion of equilibrium of thought, for no amount of positive thoughts could counterbalance the on-slaught of negative thought now amassed, anchored and wedded into my [expletive] head.

Price had warned long ago that there is nothing more dangerous than a man without hope.

THE POLICE observed that Price showed no emotion when he confessed, on Sept. 17, 1989, to killing his Buttonwoods neighbors, Rebecca Spencer and Joan Heaton and her daughters, Jennifer and Melissa. He had stabbed Spencer to death in 1987; the crime remained unsolved until he killed the Heatons in 1989.

"It was like looking at the devil," Warwick police Capt. Kevin Collins told the newspaper. "He showed no remorse."

Price says he didn't show any emotion because he didn't feel any. He was numb, without hope -- "the worst feeling in the world."

He says the truth was too complicated, so he told the police he had killed to cover botched robberies.

So what about remorse?

It's what everyone wants to know. Does Craig Price have any?

Price says he feels remorse every day.

"To deny someone their existence is something for which I can never make up," he says. "You don't understand at thirteen years old the irrevocability of an act like that."

Price cocks his head and asks me, "Have you ever wanted to kill somebody?"

It is the only time in all my 30 visits with him that I'm uncomfortable, and I'm not sure why. "There have been times I've wanted to beat somebody up."

"But you didn't."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it wouldn't have been worth it, I guess. Because it's a momentary satisfaction and then years of problems -- going to court, getting sued. Because I don't want to give in to that kind of emotion."

Price nods, pleased. "Ahhh," he says. "That's an adult talking. At 13, you're not capable of that kind of rationalization."

After doing something terrible, "you need to believe what you have done, accept it, not try to deny it. To take elements of your life" -- he grabs something imaginary from the air -- "bring it close, examine it, learn from it."

He writes:

Murder I did commit, and by doing so I will for the remainder of my days deal with the ugly responsibility, for my soul has been stained with the blood of the truly innocent.

Price says he has tried to come to terms with what he did as a teenager. He apologized in court to the victims' families in 1997.

"I cannot stay stagnant in that part of my life." He pretends to whip himself on the back. "Can't go around like those monks," the ones who whip their sinful flesh. Can't do that in prison. "It's unfortunate you have to always wear a lion's coat in this place."

He is introspective about his capacity for violence in threatening situations. During a fight with correctional officers, in 1996, he felt "acutely aware that I was becoming murderously detached from everything around me, except the object of my rage."

He is disturbed by the "cold mechanics" of his "automatic response."

"Whether I really like it or not, it's a thing of its own mind and purpose." And it more than once transformed into a "ferocious desire to kill, materializing in the form of a physical need."

IN 1989, Rhode Island law did not allow juveniles to be held past age 21, no matter what their crime. Family Court Judge Carmine R. DePetrillo committed Price to the state Training School until his 21st birthday -- Oct. 11, 1994.

The judge ordered the school to hire psychiatric experts to develop a program to treat Price before he would be set free.

Prosecutor Jeffrey B. Pine, who would later become state attorney general, complained that the sentence was "nowhere near enough" for the crimes. "I feel totally empty, totally frustrated, totally dissatisfied," Pine said at the time.

Within weeks, state officials were thinking about strategies to keep Price locked up past his 21st birthday.

One option was to have Price committed to a mental hospital.

When word leaked that the state might try to keep Price locked up, his court-appointed lawyer, Patricia Byrnes, advised Price to stop cooperating with the doctor developing his treatment plan, so that the doctor's findings could not be used against him.

The doctor, Wesley Profit, then the deputy director of Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts, could not persuade Byrnes to change her mind.

"In fairness to Craig," Profit wrote, "it should be noted that he also indicated that he had a strong desire to talk with the examiners but that he would not do so without his attorney's permission."

Price's refusal gave the state another opportunity to lock him up: Prosecutors would seek to charge Price for defying a court order.

IN 1993, Craig Price became the first Training School youth in memory prosecuted for a verbal confrontation, after being charged with extortion and assault for screaming at a Training School officer who had disciplined him for having cigarettes.

He faced 16 years in jail.

At his trial in 1994, both sides called current and former Training School officers as witnesses.

State witnesses testified that Price had threatened to "snuff" out the officer who disciplined him. Defense witnesses said Price never made the threat.

Shirley Price wrote a letter to her son on Oct. 4, the day before he was to testify in his own defense.

Good morning Sweetheart,

When you take the stand be yourself, very courteous and never let yourself lose control, even if the questions are designed to make you angry, which they are . . . Let's show the world a calm, intelligent, strong BLACK man. Remember, look at us and see our love for you . . . I say remember Maya Angelou and the legacy she is leaving our people. Most important, call on GOD for the will to remain calm. Always keep Him in your mind & heart.

On the witness stand, Price was engaging and relaxed. He admitted getting "heated" at the officer, but claimed he never used the word "snuff."

"I'm not stupid enough," he testified. "Everybody's got me under a magnifying glass . . . They want to keep me locked up past 21."

He complained of the conspiracy to imprison him.

"So we're part of the conspiracy?" asked prosecutor Michael Stone.

"Oh yeah," Price answered. "You're the head of it."

Shirley Price wrote another letter the next day:

Good Morning, Son.

Dad and I were extremely proud of you yesterday as you took the stand . . . No matter what the verdict is DO NOT LET ANYONE see how it affects you. Keep a dignified face and manner . . . Remember, you are a child of God, a prince in His Kingdom. Don't let yourself or your loving family down. Be proud, regal and above all else, be strong. I don't believe God brought you this far to leave you . . . Never doubt His methods or His time of deliverance. Remember [the family minister] said God has something special in store for you. Maybe it has begun.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated 10 hours over two days.

As his family had asked, Price was stoic for the verdict:

Guilty.

At his sentencing in December 1994, Price appeared before Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Needham and addressed the court. "To say I am not being pursued both publicly and legally with a racial vengeance is like saying America wasn't built on slavery." He went on that way for 15 minutes, and claims he never regretted one word.

Needham sentenced him to 15 years, 7 to serve and 8 suspended.

BY 1994, Price had a new lawyer -- Robert Mann, the German-born son of an American military family. He's a workaholic whose hero is Thurgood Marshall, the late U.S. Supreme Court justice. With a blast of ginger-blond hair mingling with a wavy white beard, Mann looks like a wizard from a Tolkien novel. He changed the course of Price's defense, recommending he cooperate with psychiatrists.

Dr. Richard Barnum, a Boston psychiatrist, and Dr. Frank DiCataldo, a forensic psychologist, met with Price in August 1994.

DiCataldo, in a report, described the exam with Price: "He maintained [a] smile throughout most of the session and demonstrated a broad sense of humor which at times seemed odd given the context of his present circumstances."

The doctors found that "anger may be a particularly potent affect for him that is difficult to control."

Price told the doctors that he was innocent of the Spencer murder, and only slightly involved in the Heaton slayings.

He says he thought the lie had a "civilizing effect" on those who heard it, and that it would protect him from public hatred.

Barnum wrote that treatment could begin even if Price continued to deny the crimes.

And if Price were guilty, Barnum said, he would appear to be "a disorganized serial murderer."

ATTORNEY GENERAL Pine followed through with a criminal contempt-of-court charge for the years Price had refused to cooperate with psychiatrists.

At first, the possible penalty was in dispute.

In a hearing before Judge Albert E. DeRobbio, prosecutor Stone argued that the penalty for criminal contempt is at the discretion of the court.

That led to this exchange:

DeRobbio: "So, if I got up this morning and I had a bad breakfast, I might turn around and say twenty-five years, and if I were very satisfied with the morning meal, I might say thirty days?"

Stone: "I've been before you for seventeen years now. I don't think your morning affects your sentences. It's not any different than a second-degree murder case, where you can sentence up to life, and the option is open to the court."

DeRobbio: "I tried to make light of it, but this is a very, very serious business."

The judge rejected Stone's argument, ruling that criminal contempt was a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of one year.

The attorney general appealed to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in 1996 that DeRobbio was more powerful than he thought: a Rhode Island judge may impose any sentence upon a criminal contempt conviction.

At trial in 1997, prosecutors argued that Price repeatedly chose to refuse court-ordered examination and treatment.

Price's lawyer, Bob Mann, countered that the state was seeking to punish Price in court for following the advice of the lawyer the court had appointed to defend him.

Price admitted at trial that he lied during his psychiatric examination by minimizing his role in the crimes. "It is necessary to set up some kind of safety . . . mechanism when you know the grass is hot and the snakes are crawling."

The jury found him guilty.

Prosecutors recommended Price spend 10 years in prison.

Mann answered: "They really want to make up for the fact that the law when Craig Price committed these murders didn't allow him to be incarcerated forever."

Not so, DeRobbio declared: "Perhaps politicians were so busy publicizing their ideas and views, but this entire trial had absolutely nothing to do with, 'Let's get Craig Price.' "

He then sentenced Price to 25 years, 10 to serve. The remaining 15 years were suspended, to be applied if Price got into trouble.

On his copy of the court transcript, Price wrote of DeRobbio: "He must have had a bad breakfast."

THE STATE secured more jail time for Price, after he fought with correctional officers in 1996, stomped on another officer in 1998, and beat up an inmate in 2001. Price claimed self-defense in each instance.

After stomping the officer, Price wrote to Judge DeRobbio and complained of correctional officers with a "vigilante complex," who "entice me to respond in a negative manner that I wish not to exhibit because I'm really tired of this senseless, ignorant violence."

DeRobbio was impressed with Price's letter. "Very articulate," the judge said. "It appeared to even have some sense of remorse, but there was in there also the sense that Craig Price is still angry, was still bitter, and was still putting the blame on everybody but himself."

Craig Price's projected release date is Feb. 17, 2022.

He will be 48.

PRICE WONDERS often about fate.

Does fate exist? Is destiny the plan of God? Or is life a series of unscripted events, shaped by experiences we create?

It was inevitable, he says, that someone in 1989 was going to unwittingly stimulate his "secret dark urge" to kill, once he became enraged.

It could have been anybody.

So why was it Joan Heaton? The question has lingered with him for 15 years.

I labor down many paths of thought pondering these questions whenever I think of the Heaton murders, and time after time after time again, it pains me deeply not to find the answers content enough for my conscience . . . Had I not seen Joan Heaton that fateful night, without question, I sincerely believe I would not have killed her and her daughters.

Price, now 30, considers himself spiritual, and studies all the major faiths; he has read the Bible many times. He believes in a heaven and a hell, of sorts.

"I don't think there's some fool in a red suit and a pitchfork dancing around some cauldron, or someone in the sky with a long flowing beard and a hammer," he says.

The place called hell, he believes, is probably like your worst feeling on earth, the lowest point in your life. For him, it was the day the police took him in handcuffs to his front lawn.

Heaven? That's like the best feeling you've ever had, multiplied by a million. What was his best feeling? "I'd like to think it hasn't happened yet."

What helped him "develop a conscience" was thinking about how he would feel if his family was the one wiped out. Still, he talks about the homicides analytically, not emotionally. He interrupts himself one time while explaining some grisly aspect: "I know it sounds cold, but I've been analyzing this in my head for 15 years."

Another time he bemoans how long he has been waiting for his mother to put money into his prison account. "I'm flat broke," he says with a smile. "I'm reduced to threatening people for stuff." He is clearly joking, but adds regardless: "Not really. Maybe in my younger days, not now."

There is a difference, he says, between being evil and doing evil, a difference between monsters and men who have done monstrous acts. He talks about public perceptions. "People think I'm in here lifting weights with one hand and sharpening a Ginsu knife in the other."

At last it's clear why Craig Price agreed to speak about the crimes.

He wants his humanity back.

"You say you don't care what people think, but you do care," he admits. "You don't want people running away from you."

THE POST CARD addressed to Craig Price dates to July 21, 1997, four days after he was sentenced for contempt. It's shakily scrawled, as if written by a small child or an elderly person.

The front says: "Kill Yourself," with a tiny drawing of a coffin.

"Hey you black stinking nigger," begins the rambling inscription, "you are worse than O.J. Simpson. He killed only 2 white people . . . "

Some of the message is unreadable, but it clearly urges: "Hang yourself."

The postmark is Providence, Zip Code 02904.

"That," Price says, "was one of the nice ones."

Some of his mail is just freaky.

He got a letter from a woman describing her fantasy date: Craig Price breaks into her house through a window and ravages her.

"And people say I'm crazy?"

Price won't kill himself. "I'd be lying if I said I never thought about it," he admits. But he believes his mother would never recover if her baby took his own life. And he has tremendous pride -- too many people, like the author of the racist post card, are rooting for his death. "I won't give them that satisfaction."

He won't let himself get killed, either. Though his restrictive status in the prison limits his contact with other inmates, he is cautious and suspicious. Whenever another prisoner enters the visiting room, Price leans back and looks him over. "I'll never let my guard down."

"If anyone ever comes at you with a shank, turn your right side to him," he advises. "Because your heart is on the left, you keep it away from him. Take it here," he says, patting the meat of his right shoulder. "Then try to take it away from him."

Sometimes the prisoners are handcuffed behind the back, and vulnerable. You need to know how to get the cuffs in front, with a Houdini-like move, crawling backwards through your arms. Price practices with socks around his wrists.

He makes no apologies for fights in prison. "There are some cold alligators in here."

THE CARD arrived on Christmas Eve, 2002. The front is a picture of four dogs in Christmas sweaters. Inside, Price writes:

Strength in the soul is multiplied ten-fold when the heart recognizes simple acts of kindness. May your mind and spirit embrace the infinite knowledge and true foundation of Christmas.

Craig.

BY EARLY 2003, Price is growing anxious about his appeal to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

He becomes prone to soliloquies about justice, fairness and racial equality.

He insists that the state has treated him outside of the law, and he has no patience for people who think that's OK in the case of Rhode Island vs. Craig C. Price.

"If they can do it to me," he says, "they can do it to you.

"No matter how despicable you may think I am, when the community goes outside its law, tyranny prevails."

The court hears the arguments in Price's appeal in March 2003. Price is not there. His lawyer, Mann, tells him later that the judges didn't seem receptive. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was maybe a 3.

Price's frustration bubbles up. In a letter to me in April, he accuses a correctional officer of stealing his address book to harass him.

My anxiety is so [expletive] out of control I can't even grasp my own [expletive] thoughts. So listen, I'm not sure how things are gonna go from this. Because I know they're trying to move on me and set me up . . . God help me, for I am well over my capacity to deal with this.

If next time you come and I'm locked up in segregation, or whatever, don't give up on me. I'll probably need a short time to put my control back together.

IT'S APRIL 2003, two days after Easter.

Shirley and Kimberly, Price's mother and sister, have driven a long way in the rain. They are annoyed. They have come to Supermax to see Craig Price, and only upon arriving do they learn that he is locked down without visitation privileges.

Shirley asks for paper to write her son a note, then changes her mind, pushes the paper back and walks out into the rain. Kimberly complains bitterly that it seems her brother is "in the hole" every holiday.

I had not expected to meet Kimberly Price this day, but I recognize her instantly. She is 35, a mother of two young sons, and she resembles her brother. She is outspoken and warm, deferential toward her mother.

We go to a coffee shop near the ACI.

Shirley Price speaks in long, illustrative anecdotes -- like her son.

"Nothing is more important than the family," Shirley says in her low, whispery voice. "I'm upset when I can't see my son. I've been sick and it upsets me when I can't see him because I know he can't come and see me."

The Price family "lost everything" when Craig was arrested. "We received 642 death threats," says Shirley Price. "Each one that came, I put on a glove and opened it and put it in a plastic bag."

Kimberly says, "We are victims, too."

After Craig was arrested, the Price family left Rhode Island. For years, Shirley would not permit her daughter to return to Warwick to visit friends.

They have traveled many times to Cranston, to visit Craig.

"The love is stronger," Kimberly says, "because you need each other more."

Shirley Price keeps her son's pictures up at home. Around the holidays, she will moan that everything is perfect, except that Craig isn't here. "Don't throw a child away," Shirley says. "When God gave you the right to bear that child, it belongs to Him."

Listening to Shirley Price, it is clear where her son inherited pride.

"People came up to me," Shirley recalls, determination in her voice, "and they would say, 'Aren't you the mother of that killer?' And I would look them in the eye and say that I am the mother of Craig Price. And I would not break eye contact. And they would back down."

Fifteen years passed so swiftly, they say.

"Not for him, but for us," Kim says. "His letters make it sound so awful in there and then we see him and he makes us laugh." But Kim had noticed, "He's depressed. You can see it in his eyes. When I would go see him he was so full of life, and now you can see he's faking it."

Shirley says Craig's brother, John Jr., holds himself to blame. Craig wanted to go out that night with his brother, she says, but John said no. "It has affected him to this day."

Which night was that? The night of the Spencer murder? Or the Heatons?

Shirley Price frowns at the question. She scolds, "Craig didn't kill Becky."

She says he didn't kill the Heatons, either.

It's suddenly clear why Craig Price had said at our first meeting that talking about the murders would hurt his mother.

He never told his family what happened.

The women explain their understanding that Price was among about four youths who participated in the Heaton atrocity, but they are sure that Craig did not commit the violence.

Shirley says: "I said to God, 'Tell me if my child did this and then give me the strength to endure.' And my answer was that my child did not do this. He was there. He was there and for that he has to pay, OK? I know God. I've talked to Him. He answered me. He told me to be patient, and a peace and calmness came over me."

But what of Craig's confession?

"The police only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear," Kimberly says.

They are sure that Craig will come home one day. "I have no doubt in my mind," Shirley says.

After the police arrested Craig, Shirley gathered her family at church.

"When I walked into that church, the deacon walked over and put his arms around me and my husband and did not say a word. When you are in the bosom of love and that love comes from God . . . " She trails off, and then begins again. "I thought I couldn't endure, but I found that I can endure anything."

SPRING 2003.

The Supreme Court decision on Price's appeal is expected any day.

A letter from Price arrives, hastily written in soft pencil on shorn half-sheets of paper. It reads as angry and desperate as it looks.

Price has not eaten in five days, he writes. He cannot sleep more than an hour or two a night. He is in punitive segregation and cannot have visits for several weeks. He says correctional officers have been harassing him, searching his cell and taking his property. The anger pours out in capital letters:

OBVIOUSLY, THERE EXIST A POSSE OF PUNK . . . GUARDS WHO HAVE . . . ORCHESTRATED THEIR FOUL EFFORTS TO CREATE FALSE AND TROUBLESOME SITUATIONS FOR ME, SO THAT I WILL GET JACKED UP, AND THEN GIVE CAUSE TO CONTINUE KEEPING ME IN THE HOLE AND CONTINUE TORTURING ME!!!!! . . . I can't even put into words how these jerks are making me feel mentally. I simply want to kill these people.

The thought frightens him.

He wants help.

It frightens me so much, that I said to hell with what the public thinks, to hell with what opportunity this might provide the attorney generals office -- I just submitted a letter to a psychoanalyst here and explained to him that I'm not mentally stable at this time and that I am consumed with uncontrollable, non-stop thoughts about 'killing' one of these [expletives] . . . I am in need of serious intervention.

The Department of Corrections confirms that Price has been very clear in expressing his mental state. A DOC spokesman says later that he is unaware of any harassment of Craig Price by the correctional staff.

The Supreme Court rejects Price's appeal on April 18.

He writes again:

Half of my life has been saturated with series of failures, let downs, horrific decisions and irreversible dark deeds. True happiness for me was a shallow and fleeting thing, at times an illusion. The other half of my life, at a crucial point, did hold a genuine opportunity to change things. I really had a shot to know true happiness, and if given the chance, I sincerely think it could've happened.

But all is apparently lost and I shall never know it.

What now happens, happens.

NEARLY A MONTH passes before Price is allowed visitors.

The next time I see him, he is escorted by three officers. Other inmates are forced to wait to begin their visits while Price is seated in the visiting room. They grouse about this when they are finally let in to see their visitors.

I mention to Price that I had met his mother and sister.

"How was it?" he asks.

"A little sad."

"Yeah, they think some other kids were involved."

"You never told them?"

"How do you explain something like that to your parents? Some kids at 14 can't even tell their parents they're pregnant."

He pretends he's on TV's Jeopardy:

"Yes, Alex, I'll take 'Things you don't talk about with your parents,' for $100."

The answer: "Murder."

BY SUMMER, his mood improves. He cracks jokes during visits.

He takes his appeal to federal court. He files a state court motion to get more psychiatric treatment. He wants to undergo a brain scan by a Harvard professor who specializes in the brain and emotional development, to discover if something in his wiring may have contributed to low impulse control. He thinks that finding such a problem would absolve his parents of raising a child who committed murder.

His lawyer for the state court motion, Dena Paolino-Sarcia, says that the Department of Corrections, after some resistance, agreed during a meeting with Judge DeRobbio to make more programs available to Price, and to pay for him to be evaluated by a new doctor.

Craig Price has rekindled his "flame of hope."

He is now concentrating on his appeal, doing some of his own legal research.

And he has directed his anger and frustration into a lawful way to get back at the system: He is helping other inmates, even the men he dislikes, study their legal cases for issues to exploit on appeal. For Price, this is constructive revenge.

He admits he came close last spring to lashing out and throwing away his dreams of freedom. "That's what prison will do to you." He says the treatment he gets from the authorities "mainlines into that reservoir of frustration, anger and rage" maintained by the system of incarceration, and only the moral conscience he has "nurtured" for 15 years kept him from violence.

Every story needs a headline. What should be the headline for his?

Price thinks a moment, and offers: "Does the system work?"

What would have happened if he wasn't caught after the Heaton murders?

"Self-destruction."

What would he do if he got out?

"Certainly wouldn't go back to Buttonwoods," he says. "That would be like walking into the arms of the lynch mob."

Price talks about moving overseas to study theology. He talks about finding a nice woman and filling a house with about 10 kids.

He's thinking about computers, how he could see himself in that field someday. "I can't wait to see what the Internet looks like."

He talks about being free the way working-class people talk about winning the lottery. "There is no doubt in my mind that I could lead a productive life."

Price tells a story about Robert A. Patnaude, a correctional officer at the High Security Center, who died last July while scuba diving.

"The other cops were saying they couldn't believe it. This was a guy who had the world by the balls."

Price says he asked the officers: Do you think he was ready to meet God? Where do you think his soul is right now? And where would you go if you were snatched right now from this river of life?

"Some of them got real introspective at that."

He asks me, "Is your soul prepared? If you were to die right now?"

"I'd like about sixty seconds' notice."

He laughs. "I'd be prepared." He says he's been in communication with God, repenting through prayer. "I know I'd be going someplace positive."