Voice Of The Mirror
From
ANTON ANTONOWICZ
Sean Sellers will die on Thursday. He murdered his mother, his step-father
and a shopkeeper.
He was a Satanist. He drank his own blood. And he was 16 years old.
Now he is 28 and living on Death Row, a place which concentrates the mind
wonderfully.
He is held in solitary in a death-watch cell on the second floor of Oklahoma
State Penitentiary. It is a concrete room with grey walls and two solid-steel
doors.
He sleeps on a concrete bunk. He has a radio, writing paper one inch thick
and a short, bendable ink pen. The authorities are obsessed with keeping him
safe until they kill him by lethal injection.
"If I could get on the stand and just tell them everything, I don't
think they'd give me the death penalty," he says.
That's as maybe. What is not disputed is the fact, highlighted by The Mirror,
that America - which its political leaders proclaim to be the most progressive
force for human rights in the world - violates international law by sentencing
children to death.
It is recognised in law around the world that people under 18 are not fully
responsible for their actions.
America does not agree. In some states, as we have reported, politicians have
demanded that the age of criminal responsibility be lowered to 11.
One member of the board which ruled this week that Sean should not be granted
mercy said: "I hope this sends a message to all the 16-year-olds of this
state."
Sean is guilty. He admits to the murders. We have focused on him precisely
because his crimes were so appalling - and because, even so, he is worth a
hearing.
Worth it because, if nothing else, he will be the first US prisoner to be
executed for a crime committed at 16 since Leonard Shockley was put to death in
Maryland 40 years ago.
The killing of child offenders has become virtually unknown outside the USA.
Since 1990, only five other countries are known to have carried out
executions. Yet there are some 70 other prisoners awaiting death in America for
crimes committed when they were 16 or 17.
Sean's waiting is nearly over.
He was born in California to a 16-year-old mother and an alcoholic father,
who were divorced when he was three.
His mother Vonda then married a truck-driver, Paul Bellofatto, and Sean was
often left with relatives while they drove across the country. By 16, he had
moved some 30 times. He became withdrawn, isolating himself within a world of
his own rather than suffer the repeated pain of leaving friends.
He was bright. He did well at school. But he became more and more emotionally
disturbed and detached from reality.
From his earliest days he was exposed to violence and humiliation. His mother
and grandfather beat him. An uncle made him wear nappies at the age of 12 and 13
because he wet the bed.
If he bed-wetted two nights in a row, the uncle forced him to wear a soiled
nappy on his head all day. Violence was routine. His mother and stepfather had
guns. One uncle would take the boy hunting and tried to teach him to kill by
stepping on the animal's head and pulling its legs.
Sean was called "a wimp" for refusing to take part.
The jury at his trial never knew any of this.
From the age of seven, Sean began to hear voices in his head. He would
experience huge mood swings - from euphoria to suicidal depression. He became
obsessed with good and evil. By 15, he was practising Satanism daily. He would
drink his own blood which he kept in the fridge. He mutilated himself. He
started to take amphetamines to stay awake.
Then the dreams started. Dreams in which he would kill his parents. He tried
to shun sleep because of the monsters it brought.
On March 4 1986, after three days without sleep, Sean fell asleep. When he
woke, he shot his mother and stepfather in their bed.
Six months before that, a store clerk named Robert Bower was shot dead at the
Circle K convenience store in Oklahoma City. Sean pleaded guilty to that, too.
A psychiatrist testified at the trial that the boy was incapable of forming
the intent necessary to commit first-degree murder. He was either insane or
"legally unconscious" - unable to realise his actions - at the time.
The prosecution admitted that the psychiatrist was probably correct. The
judge refused to allow other experts to testify that juveniles are different
from adults. In contrast, the prosecution was allowed to develop the argument
that Sellers was an adult: "When he picked up that .357, he became a
man."
On October 2 1986, the jury voted that Sean should die. Afterwards many of
them admitted thinking that it would never quite come to that, but that their
hand was forced by the judge. They regret that it has come to this.
Sean has been examined by a score of psychiatric experts. They all agree that
he suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, a condition in which one person
has many characters inside them.
One of these, the experts agree, was in "executive control" of
Sean's body at the time of the killings.
They also discovered that the man has brain damage as a result of a head
injury suffered as a child.
After killing his parents, Sean spent the night with a girlfriend. He says he
has no memory of the bloodshed.
He has been an exemplary prisoner. Like so many, he has turned to religion.
He writes and paints.
He has made several videos warning kids against drugs and Satanism, which
have been shown round the world. He has counselled many letter-writers. He saved
the life of a fellow con, even though the man - who was attacked in the exercise
yard - had taunted him.
He said he saved him because the man was a human being and therefore entitled
to live.
But the death penalty does not allow for people changing their ways. It has
no truck with a 16-year-old mentally-ill boy. And so Sean Sellers will die.
"I found out from the radio that my last appeal failed," he told
me. "I hate it when I find out things about me on the radio." A few
days later, he was stripped of his art supplies, razors, shoelaces and belt and
put in the super-maximum-security cell.
"I am finding it harder than I thought to maintain my spirit," he
says. "I am alone. The date for my death is known. The relatives of my
victims have spoken out. I realise all the pain that is still there and it makes
you want to die.
"I don't want to quit, because, if I do, I know I'll never make a
difference in the world at all. The fight ain't over, but death has now
appeared. From here, every step is closer to death.
"When I say that I'd like to get on that stand and tell them who I am
today, I really believe they would not want to kill me.
"Then, I was a 16-year-old kid. A Satanist. Now, I am 29 years old and
trying to make up for what I did. I am not trying to hide my crimes. But I do
want to say who I am after them.
"I am in solitary. When you are locked in here with no TV, no radio, no
one to talk to, you have no choice but to look inside yourself and listen to
what is there.
"You are forced to confront who you are, who you were. And deal with it.
I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't gone to prison.
When they sentenced me to die, all they saw was a 16-year-old Satanist who
had committed three murders.
"I've done good with my life - nearly half of my life - since. But maybe
the world doesn't care what someone like me became. Perhaps my regret doesn't
mean anything.
"People are very slow to forgive anyone on Death Row. It is as if we
must be monsters, maniacs, psychopaths. Even Christians say I should die. I'm
not sure I'll ever be able to make people see who I am now.
"And I look at America's refusal to sign the Convention on the Rights of
the Child and I wonder why this nation seems to have given up on its kids. Why
are so many in institutions? Why have we quit on so many of them?
"You don't give up on someone who is not considered old enough to die
for his country. If you are not old enough for that, you are not old enough to
die for your crimes."
I ask him about remorse and he says: "I am so sorry for what I did. It
has been the purpose of my life to try to do some good since."
I ask him what life has given him, a man who has taken away three lives. He
answers: "Maybe it's given me more time than I deserved. You know, there
are a lot of people praying for my death. A lot of folks who think I should have
died 13 years ago.
"I'm not avoiding responsibility. It wasn't my life as a kid which
killed three people. It was me."
Sean's crimes are appalling. But he was a kid. He was mentally ill.
He is a victim of a system which has made capital punishment a political
tool. A way of getting votes. In a nation which, with Somalia alone, does not
recognise childhood when it comes to crime.
And thank God we in Britain have no truck with it.
Sean sent me his daily diary. The other night, he shouted up through a
ventilation duct to John Castro, another convicted murderer.
"John told me something that flabbergasted me," Sean wrote.
"He's been here for 14 years. The warden told him he can't put his
16-year-old son on the list to be present during his execution.
"You see, in Oklahoma you can be sentenced to death at 16, but you can't
watch that sentence being carried out. In America you're old enough to die, but
not old enough to watch someone die."
Two months ago, we wrote about state killing in Louisiana, where Shareef
Cousin, the youngest person ever sent to Death Row, awaited judgment on his
latest appeal.
Last week, Harry Connick Snr, the district attorney and father of
singer-actor Harry Jnr, finally admitted that there was not enough evidence to
convict Shareef.
He is off Death Row - as this paper, Amnesty International and scores of
human rights groups said he should be.
Off a system which makes so many mistakes. Which has killed so many innocent
people.
Two months ago, 28 freed Death Row prisoners held their first formal
gathering since the United States resumed state killing 21 years ago.
Some had walked as dead men for 20 years before being found innocent and
released. If the state had had its way, they would all be dead.
Sean Sellers is not innocent. But his punishment is not innocent, either. It
is revenge killing contrary to the rest of the world's standards of justice and
humane treatment.
Sean has finished his last painting. It depicts him standing in a broken
prison wall. The background is of mountains and Paradise. Freedom from within
those jail walls.
In the bottom right corner is Sean's handprint. It is there for anyone to
touch after he is gone.
A murderer's hand. A violent hand. But one which, his incarcerated life
testifies, turned to kindness and to lending others a hand.
It shall remain there as a dead man's hand seeking greater understanding than
he ever received in life.
