Word: spenkelink
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...trial that fall, the slightly built Spenkelink admitted having killed his companion but insisted that he had acted in self-defense: the muscular, 230-lb. Szymankiewicz, said the defendant, had stolen $8,000 from him, forced him at gunpoint to perform fellatio and made him play Russian roulette. But the wounds were all from behind, and the jury took only 3½ hours to convict Spenkelink of murder and sentence him to death. His lawyers filed 22 appeals, claiming that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, that it is unfairly applied more often to murderers of whites than...
Living in prison for six years under constant threat of death wonderfully concentrated Spenkelink's mind. He spent hours reading the Bible and such works as the mystic prophecies of Edgar Cayce...
...defenders insisted that Spenkelink had been rehabilitated. "If you want to execute a bad kid, then this is the case," his chief attorney, David Kendall, told the clemency board in April...
...Spenkelink begged the Governor to meet with him. Said the condemned...
...know the changes I've made since being here. I want him to know who he is killing-the real person, not some idea he has in his head about me." Said Spenkelink's anguished mother Lois, 67, of the Governor: "He doesn't even know my son. How can he kill my son, my only...