The Michael Ross case brings a supporter of capital punishment and an opponent closer together

11:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 30, 2005

BY EDWARD FITZPATRICK
Journal Staff Writer

HARTFORD -- The pastor and the landscaper seemed worlds apart before they got together at a Hartford coffee shop the other day.

Journal photo / John Freidah

Edwin Shelley stands by the grave of his daughter, Leslie Shelley, who was murdered by Michael Ross when she was 14 years old. Edwin Shelley has been the most outspoken in support of the death penalty for Ross. "I would personally execute this man," he says.

As more than 100 activists, clergy members and students marched in a cold rain at Connecticut's Capitol, the Bristol landscaper held a sign that said "Proceed with the death penalty. No more delays. This state will not tolerate innocent people being murdered such as my loving brother, Joseph Niwinski." The man who murdered Niwinski's brother now faces the death penalty.

The Rev. Walter H. Everett would have marched in the Dec. 10 rally, but he was in New York City that day to help start a new international group, Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, which opposes the death penalty.

Everett, pastor of the United Methodist Church of Hartford, has appeared on national television to talk about how he forgave the man who killed his son -- and later officiated at the man's wedding. And in recent months, he has been trying to halt the execution of serial killer Michael Ross, whose execution was scheduled for yesterday in a Connecticut prison.

"It's not about Michael Ross," Everett said. "It's about who we are as a state or as a people."

After the Dec. 10 rally, an anti-death-penalty activist decided to talk to Niwinski. Amy Harris had felt hostile toward Niwinski. But she offered her condolences for the death of his brother, and after talking awhile, she suggested he get together with Everett. "It's his job to help people in distress," she said of Everett. "And he's been there. He's walked in those shoes."

A couple of weeks ago, Niwinski drove his Dodge Ram 2500 over to Everett's church, and they headed out to a Hartford coffee shop. Everett, 70, who has a neat, white Burl Ives beard, ordered hot chocolate. Niwinski, 56, who has a walrus moustache, ordered coffee.

They found a table where they'd have some privacy, and Walt and Frank -- two men who'd lost someone they loved to murder, who'd reached opposite conclusions about the death penalty -- sat down and looked each other in the eye.

THE COUNTDOWN to Ross' execution brought New Englanders face to face with the reality of the death penalty -- and the deeply held opinions people have about it.

New England's last execution was in 1960, so for 45 years now, capital punishment has been more a matter of theory in this part of the country.

Ross' execution was scheduled for 2:01 a.m. yesterday at the Osborn Correctional Facility in Somers. But after a roller-coaster week, in which legal challenges went from Hartford to New York to the United States Supreme Court, one last appeal was possible.

Ross, 45, was placed on death row for strangling four young women and girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s. He also has admitted murdering four other young women in Connecticut and New York. He raped most of the victims.

The legal battle over his execution has been a true New England affair, with a Yale psychiatrist and a Harvard psychiatrist offering contradictory testimony about whether Ross was mentally competent to forgo appeals and demand death.

Outside the courtroom, pollsters have been tracking the public's often complex opinions about the death penalty.

A Quinnipiac University poll found that 59 percent of Connecticut voters favored the death penalty. But in Ross' case, support for the death penalty shot up to 70 percent. But support for the death penalty plunged when voters were asked: "Which punishment do you prefer for people convicted of murder: the death penalty or life in prison with no chance of parole?" In response, 49 percent chose life without parole, while 37 percent chose the death penalty.

In New England, only Connecticut and New Hampshire allow capital punishment. New Hampshire hasn't had an execution since 1939, and Connecticut hasn't put anyone to death since May 1960.

Rhode Island's last execution was in 1845, when an Irish immigrant, John Gordon, was executed for the murder of a wealthy industrialist. In 1852, Rhode Island became the second state, after Michigan, to abolish capital punishment.

While 38 states have some form of capital punishment, Texas has executed about one-third of the more than 900 people who have been put to death since the Supreme Court brought back capital punishment in 1976.

Connecticut has seven people on death row, including Ross, and the newest addition is Eduardo Santiago Jr., a Torrington man convicted of murdering Niwinski's brother.

IT WAS A murder-for-hire scheme, and the price for Joseph T. Niwinski's life was cheap: a broken snowmobile.

Journal photo / John Freidah

The Rev. Walter H. Everett, left, of the United Methodist Church of Hartford, attends a meeting of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, with Carl Sgamboti, Conn. Public Defender Thomas Ullman and CNADP Evevnt Coordinator Amy Harris. Everett, who is one of the few people who still visits Ross on death row, explains his efforts are not about Ross, "It's a human rights issue."

According to police and prosecutors, the series of events began when another Torrington man, Mark Pascual, met Joseph Niwinski and his girlfriend at a go-cart track and became infatuated with the woman.

Pascual, an engine-shop owner, asked Santiago if he knew anyone who would kill Joseph Niwinski. When Santiago said he would do it for $5,000, Pascual said the price was too high. Santiago later he would do it in exchange for a snowmobile that had been sitting in Pascual's shop with a broken clutch. He also wanted Pascual to pay his credit card bills.

Santiago evidently warmed to the task. According to testimony, he etched the name "Joe" into the bullets loaded into the rifle he used.

On a cold night in December 2000, Santiago and a friend, Matthew Tyrell, broke into Niwinski's West Hartford apartment, and Santiago shot him in the back of the head as he slept. The next day, Santiago called Pascual to ask when he would fix the snowmobile so he could use it.

Shortly after his death, a Hartford Courant article described Joseph Niwinski, 45, as a man with a big heart. When his father underwent open-heart surgery, he rented a limousine so his dad could ride to the hospital in style. The article also described how Niwinski, a mechanic, was once arrested for saying obscenities over the two-way radio of a police car he was repairing. The charge was not prosecuted.

Francis Niwinski shares his younger brother's big heart and foul mouth. They had been close growing up in West Hartford. But in the 12 years before the murder, they had not spoken to each other.

"We were just two thick-headed Polacks," Niwinski explained. When asked how the feud began, he had to stop and think. It started with a disagreement over property following his mother's death. "Something stupid," he said.

Niwinski recalled going to his uncle's house one day when his brother happened to be there. "We stood side by side and wouldn't say anything," he said. The uncle used to get so frustrated that he'd tell the brothers they were both "jackasses."

So when Joseph Niwinski was killed, Francis Niwinski was overcome not only with feelings of sadness and rage, but also with guilt. "It hurts when it's too late," he said.

What would he have told Joe if had the chance? "You're my brother -- I love you," Niwinski replied.

People should heed the lesson he learned, Niwinski said: "Don't hold a grudge. You never know when something could happen to somebody."

After the murder, the Niwinskis placed a tribute in the newspaper. Francis Niwinski wrote most of it: "Even though it was a while since we had spoken. My love for you could never be broken. You're my brother through thick and thin. I know now not talking was a sin. . . . Love, Big Frank."

THE MURDER weighs on Niwinski. "I'll always feel kind of screwed up, truthfully," he said.

He said he'd never thought much about the death penalty before his brother was killed. But afterward, "I said, 'They ought to kill those little sons of bitches who did it.' I said to myself, 'I gotta try to find out who did this' -- like I was a private detective or something."

Niwinski praised the West Hartford police for their detective work on the case. "Thank God my brother was killed in West Hartford and not Hartford," he said. "They have lots of murders in Hartford."

Niwinski said the hardest part was the court process. "I never thought the system was this lengthy," he said. "They object to this, that and the other thing."

Santiago was the only suspect to go to trial. Niwinski was in court every day. "My duty to my brother was to make sure justice was done," he explained.

Santiago never apologized and appeared to smirk during the trial, Niwinski said. On Aug. 5, 2004, Santiago was found guilty under the state's capital felony law, and later the jury recommended he be put to death. "The jury spoke for our family," Niwinski said.

Tyrell, 23, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 20 years. "I think that was fair," Niwinski said, noting Tyrell apologized to the family. "I have a lot more respect for him."

Pascual, 40, avoided a possible death sentence by agreeing to testify against both Santiago and a former prison cellmate, Edwin Snelgrove Jr. Snelgrove is charged with killing a Hartford woman whose decomposed body was found in January 2002 in Hopkinton, R.I. Pascual, 40, could receive 25 to 110 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

A judge is expected to sentence Santiago to death tomorrow, and Niwinski plans to be there. He said death is what Santiago deserves.

"Because he was so cocky and shows no remorse, I don't think I could ever forgive him," Niwinski said. "People say you have to cut it loose and forgive because it'll eat you alive, but I can't see it right now. No way. Maybe some day."

"Forgiveness is a very small word," Niwinski said. "But it's very hard to do."

AFTER DRINKING with friends, Scott Everett came home past midnight on July 26, 1987, only to find that his Bridgeport apartment had been broken into and ransacked. After walking his friends to their cars, he found he'd locked himself out, and he began pounding on a door to get back in the building.

Journal photo / John Freidah

When a taped interview of serial killer Michael Ross, from his cell on death row, was introduced as evidence at a competency hearing, TV trucks from around Connecticut parked outside the Capitol, in Hartford, to make a copy of the tape.

Michael Carlucci, who lived on the same floor, was coming off a two-day binge of booze and drugs. According to Everett, someone had been threatened in the apartment building a few nights earlier, and when Carlucci heard pounding on the door, he thought that Scott Everett was the same person -- that he was an intruder.

Carlucci grabbed a gun. The two men argued and struggled. Carlucci pulled the trigger, and Everett was dead at age 24.

At the time, Walter Everett was in Virginia on a trip to help build homes for Habitat for Humanity. When he got the news by phone, he slumped to the ground.

The devastation soon turned to rage, he said, when the Bridgeport police showed little interest in investigating the shooting. He recalled an officer telling him that the police were burned out -- that there had been four homicides in the city that weekend. Everett responded: "Well, my son was one of them. He's not number 1, 2, 3 or 4. His name is Scott Everett."

His anger was fueled when a prosecutor told him the state was entering a plea agreement with Carlucci, who would be convicted of manslaughter and spend no more than five years behind bars. The prosecutor told Everett he had no say in the matter -- that the state was the injured party.

At the sentencing on July 1, 1988, the judge asked Carlucci if he had anything to say, and Everett listened as Carlucci said: "I'm sorry I killed Scott Everett. I wish I could bring him back, but I can't. This must sound like empty words to the Everetts, but I don't know what else to say: I'm sorry."

Later that month, on the first anniversary of his son's death, Everett wrote a letter to Carlucci, detailing his bewilderment, loneliness and anger. In conclusion, Everett wrote, "Thank you for what you said in court. And as hard as these words are to write, I forgive you."

In a Hartford Courant story, Carlucci said, "That night was the first night I slept like a baby."

The two wrote back and forth for awhile until Carlucci asked Everett to visit him in prison. After talking for more than an hour, they went to shake hands and ended up embracing.

After 2 1/2 years in prison, Carlucci thought about seeking early release, and Everett told him to go for it, saying, "Mike, you're not the same guy who killed Scott.Your life was changed by God." Everett even agreed to speak to the parole board on his behalf, and Carlucci was released in 1991 after less than three years behind bars.

Carlucci landed a job as a truck driver and soon became a supervisor. Today, he supervises 100 people.

In 1996, Carlucci got married, and Everett performed the ceremony -- an act that captured national attention. Soon, Everett and Carlucci were on the Today show answering questions from Matt Lauer.

Most of the questions were simple, but then Lauer asked Everett if he could ever look at Carlucci and not think about what he'd done to his son. Everett recalled answering: "I can never forget what happened to Scott. It forever changed my life. But when I look at Mike, I don't see someone who harmed Scott. I see someone whose life has been changed by God, and I celebrate that."

Lauer asked Carlucci what he'd learned from Everett. Carlucci answered: "Unconditional love."

IN INTERVIEWS last week, Everett and Niwinski staked out starkly different stances on the death penalty and Ross' execution.

"In some cases, the death penalty is appropriate," Niwinski said. "Some people deserve to die." And Ross is a good example, he said. "Did those poor eight girls ever have a chance?" he asked, referring to Ross' victims. "What about those eight innocent people and their families?"

Niwinski dismissed the notion that Ross' death would open the floodgates for more executions in Connecticut. "They say it'll be like Texas -- bull," he said. "This man wants to die. He's begging to die. The other ones on death row have years of appeals. They're not going to be killing people left and right."

Niwinski said someone once asked him if he would feel better if the triggerman in his brother's murder was put to death. "I said, 'Do it and I'll let you know later.' I can't answer that question truthfully."

The death penalty is "punishment for what you did," Niwinski said during an interview Wednesday evening. "It's like the old saying -- eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."

Later that night, Everett spoke at an ecumenical prayer service on the eve of Ross' original execution date, reading from the Gospel of Matthew: "Jesus said, 'You have heard that it was said, An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.' "

Standing at the lectern, with a towering crucifix behind him, Everett held out his arms and said, "He was on the cross, saying, 'Father, forgive them.' "

In an interview, Everett said, "You don't have to be 'religious' to see this as a human rights issue." He noted that another of speaker at Wednesday's service was Bud Welch, a gas station owner whose daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Speaking with a Southern twang, Welch said he spent the year after the bombing consumed with anger, abusing alcohol and smoking four or five packs of cigarettes a day. He said the execution of Timothy McVeigh did nothing to bring him peace. Eventually, he said, "I realized vengeance and hate was not part of my healing process.

In an interview, Welch said he's not sure people even have to "forgive" people who've hurt them. But, he said, "they have to get past the point of wanting retribution."

Everett has visited Ross four times. While he declined to discuss their conversations, he said his message centered on God's forgiveness.

He said people ask why he's trying to save a serial killer, and he replies that it's not about Ross. "It's a human rights issue. The state doesn't have a right to take the life of any of its citizens," Everett said. "Do we want to continue to act in vengeance -- to do the very thing we abhor?"

Executing Ross would mark a step backward for New England, Everett said. "New England hasn't always been this humane," he said. "We had reputed witches burned at the stake in Massachusetts, and we had reputed witches hanged in Connecticut. But we have progressed more quickly than other parts of the country."

DESPITE THEIR different views, there was no great debate when Everett and Niwinski sat down at the Hartford coffee shop.

"We shared feelings and talked about his brother and my son," Everett recalled. "It was a good conversation, and we are going to stay in touch -- as friends, really."

Niwinski said their differences didn't mean "a damn thing." He said, "I really like him, and he really likes me because we're two honest individuals. We were sincere."

Everett explained how he felt and how he was able to forgive his son's killer, Niwinski said. "I told him how at this time I couldn't forgive, and he said, 'I understand that.' "

Niwinski said he wound up wanting to form a group with Everett to provide support for family members of homicide victims.

The two men talked for two hours, Niwinski said, and the time flew. "I could learn from him, and he could learn from me," he said. "It was a beautiful thing."

Digital extra: Get the latest on the execution of Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross on the execution of Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross at:

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