How do you say 'bye-bye' to a killer?

This will be the last post in my series on Eric Nenno, the child-killer I met in 2006.

Unless any of you have questions, of course.

So one thing that sticks in my mind from the visit was the leaving of it. I remember sitting there for the last fifteen minutes wondering what the heck one says to a guy who's about to be executed. Remember, I met him on a Friday afternoon, his execution was scheduled (and was carried out) on the following Tuesday.

"Have a nice life" (okay, clearly not that one)?
"Have a nice weekend" (because that's all ya got left)?
"Take care of yourself" (before someone else does)?
"Seeya" (hopefully not, and certainly not for a while)?

In the end I opted for "Thanks for your time, good luck." And a slightly awkward wave through the glass.

The Killer I Met: your questions (pt. 4)

Been busy in court this week, so I didn't get to address the last of the questions about the killer Eric Nenno. But here we go:

Anon on 10/28: Does Texas law categorize the sexual penetration of a dead body as "rape" because the corpse cannot give consent? I didn't realize that an investigator would ever do something as personal as touch a homicide suspect very familiarly and continuously, as is described in this post. It seems highly unorthodox and it left me feeling a bit odd to read it, but I can't quite put my finger on why. Did it come up in postconviction in this case?

Good questions.

As to the 'sex with a dead body' question, you'll be glad to know I had to look it up. And it may surprise you that from my cursory search, necrophilia isn't expressly outlined as a crime. I saw one theory that it is a 'victimless' crime, for obvious reasons. The closest I could find was penal Code 42.08, Abuse of Corpse which outlaws treating "in an offensive manner a human corpse." It's a Class A misdemeanor, so punishable by no more than a year in the county lock up. Doesn't seem right, does it?

As for touching the suspect, that's an interesting one. Certainly, there's nothing illegal or improper about it so I'm sure it wouldn't have come up in the post-conviction case. Repulsive for the agent, maybe, but not improper. In fact, in my recent cold case the detective spent several minutes rubbing the suspect's back and touching his shoulder during the five-hour long interview. It's a very effective way to build trust, to show compassion and break down barriers. The hard thing, as I've said, is bringing yourself to do it, I imagine. Especially in the case of a man who's just killed a little girl.

The Killer I Met : your questions (pt. 3)

Two, similar questions in response to my series about the killer I met, Eric Nenno.

See here for the series.

Did he ever discuss the crime itself with you? ... Do you think he thought he would do something like that again if he ever got out? I guess I'm just curious for more insight into what this guy was actually thinking.

and ...

from Prosecutor's Discretion on 11/3:
Were there any other incidents like this in his past?

First, the description of the crime itself. Yes, he did. The description that begins this series comes directly from what he told me, not from newspaper accounts or anywhere else. As you can imagine, it was something of a bizarre experience having a murderer describe how he ensnared and killed a little girl. Perhaps the most disturbing part was when he acted out how he strangled her, right there in front of me. I was sitting there, telling myself this wasn't a movie, watching Nenno place his arm around an imaginary girl's neck, just like he'd done years earlier. Very very weird.

Second, other incidents. Which also goes to Anon's question about whether he'd do it again.

You see, he told me a story about when he was in the Navy, and I'll try to recreate the story now:

Nenno: "I was with a buddy and we went to his girlfriend's house. She was a lot older, I guess he liked older women. Anyway, when we got there, the woman's daughter was there and we hung out for a while, talking. Then my buddy went into the other room, the bedroom I guess, with his girlfriend. The daughter and I kept talking, and we were watching a movie."

Me: "How old was the daughter?"

Nenno: "She was younger than me. Anyway, we were watching the movie and then she kind of leaned over, and we started making out. I touched her over her clothes but that's all, mostly just kissing."

Me: "I see. So how old was she, exactly?"

Nenno: "I think she was five."

At that point, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and my eyes began to water. I looked down at my notepad and pretended to write something. Heaven knows what, and it took me a full minute to recover my composure. I'm not sure I've ever completely recovered it.

So, would a free Eric Nenno do it again? Yes. He truly believed that a five-year-old was coming onto him, wanting to kiss him. Just like he thought that Nicole Benton was coming onto him when she agreed to see his guitar. Did I mention that in the story? I don't remember, but that's what he told me: he knew she wanted to be with him when she agreed to look at his guitar.

He just didn't get it, and never would have. Which means he would have done it again.

The Killer I Met: your questions (pt. 2)

It's been a busy week so far, so I don't have time to go into some of the substantive questions you guys had. But I did want to address one issue my eloquent 'Anon' poster raised:

[D]o you think that your assessment of Nenno's remorsefulness (or lack thereof) is in any way affected by your orientation towards prosecution work? I wonder (non-rhetorically) whether an "impartial" (i.e. not working on that particular case) defender might be more likely than an "impartial" prosecutor to perceive an inmate's expression of remorse as sincere.

Fair question. But what I may not have made clear was that when I interviewed Nenno, I wasn't a prosecutor. I was a civil lawyer handling mind-numbingly boring construction and contract cases. So I don't think I walked into that prison with a bias against him.

Second, if you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you I am probably the most defense-minded prosecutor in Travis County. In fact, my first ever criminal case was won as a defense lawyer while I was in law school (hmmm, I should tell that story one day). Heck, one of the reasons I went to law school was to work against the death penalty (my position on that subject is a little more nuanced now!).

I think if anything, though, being a prosecutor gives me a good perspective in terms of not taking people at their word (click here for a tale along those lines).

Well, I have work to do but before I get back to answering your questions, I wanted to address the potential bias issue.

The Killer I Met : your questions (pt. 1)

This post is intended to follow up on the series about killer Eric Nenno (part one here). In the comments, some of you had questions that I will try to answer here.

First a thoughtful one from "Anon" on 10/21:

It seems that he belonged to the demographic of death row inmates who (a) committed an unspeakable, tragic, reprehensible crime, but (b) had at least a partial physiological explanation for the crime, with respect to his organic brain damage linked to his military service and chemical exposure, and (c) was extremely remorseful and could have been detained safely for the rest of his life in maximum-security conditions if given LWOP. Given this mix of circumstances - a not-uncommon mix on death row - I will be intrigued to hear your assessment of whether he was evil and what the term evil means as applied to perpetrators in the homicide context.

Let me start with the assumptions that underline your question:

(a) I agree: an unspeakable, tragic, reprehensible crime.
(b) I'm not sure I agree. It's possible and I haven't studied either the chemistry or the trial transcript but defendants and their lawyers will (not surprisingly, and I'm not saying this is bad) come up with all manner of theories to explain behavior. If you are judging this as fact from the Texas After Violence Project Interviews, the chap I'm reading also claims Nenno committed these crimes and then didn't remember them until days later, when the polygraph was done. I don't buy that.
(c) I also don't buy that he was extremely remorseful. I sat opposite him, just the two of us, and we talked for hours. He explained calmly how he'd done it, denied some other things I knew to be fact (raping her after death) and his expression of remorse to me was by rote, bored almost. I do agree he probably would not have been a danger in prison if given LWOP.

Now, the subject of 'evil.' I don't really believe in evil. I do believe some people chose to do things we don't understand, for reasons we don't understand. But calling someone "evil" is almost a cop out, in my opinion, for them and for us. For us because it means we can stop looking for reasons they behave that way, just stick a label on it and be done. I'm more curious about human behavior than that. Especially criminal behavior. And it's a cop out for them, because it almost indicates they can't help their behavior. Maybe that's true, but I doubt it. Again, it's an easy end to curiosity, to investigation.

So was Nenno evil? Of course, in my book no. He didn't torture puppies, set fire to nunneries, and likely would have helped old ladies across the street. The better questions (in my mind) are whether (a) he was genuinely remorseful, and (b) he would have done it again.

I don't think he was genuinely remorseful. As explained above, when I asked him if he felt bad about this he trotted out a line about "I feel terrible for the loss the family suffered," but there was no emotion, no feeling behind it. Maybe he's numb from too many years thinking about it, expressing it, but this was days before his death and the only emotion I saw from him was concern about himself. To describe killing someone so flatly, so easily, indicated to me he has no idea of the harm he's done, the damage not just to one little girl but to her family.

And would he have done it again? Ah, there's a question I can answer. And will answer. Because I have a little story to tell you, something he told me but had never told anyone else . . .

True story: Holding Hands with Evil ( final part)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. All previous parts are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART EIGHT

Throughout the confession, Young remained true to his personal pledge to do everything in his power to remain professional. He remained calm and spoke only when necessary. He directed the conversation and helped the suspect along where necessary, but he wanted the suspect, not the interviewer, to do the talking. Twelve years later, Eric Nenno himself remembered how calmly Mark Young got to the truth.

I found Special Agent Young to be exceptionally adept at his interrogation techniques. He was both insightful and thorough in his approach to gaining truthful responses. Instead of dwelling on a specific detail for a lengthy time, he would change the topic and revisit the question later on, often from a slightly different angle or line of reasoning.

Young’s professionalism in these situations was crucial, it was the mask he put on when dealing with the worst of society. He wore it to protect his own psyche and also because he found that getting people to open up, particularly when they were faced with their own evil deeds, started when they began to trust him. And Young knew from experience that trust came quicker when he treated his suspect decently. He didn’t shout, browbeat, or threaten them. As Nenno remembered:

After taking a polygraph test, I returned to the interview room and gave Special Agent Young and Detective Johnson a verbal confession. Detective Johnson entered the information into a laptop computer as Special Agent Young assisted me with collecting and organizing my thoughts and words into a coherent statement. Even at this point, knowing that I was confessing to a particularly horrendous crime, Special Agent Young maintained an unbiased, professional attitude toward me. He did not raise his voice nor make any disrespectful comments during the process of getting my confession uploaded, and later printed out for me to sign and initial.

Testimony was presented at my capital murder trial in JAN 96 by various HCSD [Harris County Sheriff’s Department] personnel in their respective capacities and involvement with the case. Unlike several other witnesses, Special Agent Young did not rely on a printed file for his responses to the prosecutor’s inquiries or cross-examination by defense counsel. He replied in an articulate, astute, and concise manner, revealing his confidence and depth of knowledge of every aspect encompassing the investigation.

####

On October 28, 2008, thirteen years after killing Nicole Benton, and less than one month after writing in glowing terms about the man who had helped seal his fate, Eric Charles Nenno was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas.

THE END

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 7)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Six are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART SEVEN

Young reached the bottom of the ladder and looked at Nenno. What to do with his suspect now? Young read his compliant posture and decided that Nenno had done the hard part, telling them where to find the body, and now it was time for him to answer some of the other questions. He and Detective Johnson took Nenno back to the command post and, once they were inside, Young removed his handcuffs. Nenno remained in a slumped, defeated posture. Oddly, he kept his arms rigid behind him as if he knew he should be in handcuffs, wanted to be restrained. Gently, Young put his hands on Nenno’s arms and guided them forward.

Young directed Nenno to sit down at a small table, and took the chair opposite Nenno. Johnson sat to one side, opening a laptop computer to take down any statement their suspect made.

Young wanted to bring Nenno out of the stupor into which he appeared to have sunken, so he began asking about his military service, his work history, and his home life. Nenno was a salesman for a plumbing supply company and lived in his sister’s house. She was in the military, currently stationed overseas, and Nenno lived there with her son, his 18-year-old nephew, Wes Chamness.

Finally Young said: “Eric, we need to talk about how Nicole ended up in your attic.”

Nenno fell silent, slumped so far down in his chair that his nose almost touched the table. This, of course, was the key moment. If it was going to happen at all, the confession would have to come now. Even though they could likely gather enough evidence to convict Nenno, Young was determined to find out exactly what happened. He stood and walked around the table, taking his chair and putting it next to Nenno. He sat down and took Nenno’s left hand in his, and then began to slowly rub the man’s back with his other hand.

Nenno started talking. He had been outside the night Nicole’s father was practicing with his band. He had walked along the sidewalk when he noticed Nicole walking away from the party, towards him. He stopped her, being as friendly as he could be, and engaged her in conversation. She told him that her father was in a band, and played guitar. He had laughed and said what a coincidence that was, because he, too, was in a band, and like her daddy he played the guitar.

Almost as soon as they got inside his house, Nenno said, Nicole realized something was wrong. She resisted. Nenno said he was unable to force himself on her, to rape her while she was alive. In a calm, steady voice, he told Young how he had killed Nicole in his bedroom, and then raped her.

Young continued to sit beside Nenno, holding his hand, rubbing his back. As difficult as it was to touch this man, it was working and so Young willed himself to keep doing it. As if under a spell, Nenno continued to talk in his quiet but clear voice. Nenno would later claim: “I knew I was to be arrested anyway, so there was no point in resisting or withholding anything which might help Nicole Benton’s family.”

Young, however, remembers that Nenno sounded like a young boy confessing a naughty deed to a parent, and contrary to his purported flash of decency, Young’s impression remained that Nenno was not sorry for the deed, just sorry that he had been caught.

It struck Young forcefully, and backed up what he already knew about these types of crimes, that within ten minutes of walking away from the neighbor’s yard, within ten minutes of being in full view of her father and friends, Nicole Benton was dead.

Nenno told Young and Johnson about the dilemma he faced once she was dead—what to do with her body. He wanted to take her out of the house, drive her somewhere, but he was afraid to do so with all the activity in the neighborhood. And he couldn’t leave her in the main house and risk his nephew coming home and finding her. His solution was to carry her to the garage and stash her body in the attic, behind the boxes. As it turns out, there was one admission that Nenno would leave out of his confession. A physical examination of Nicole would show that after being dumped in the attic, Nenno returned and raped her multiple times over the next few days.

As forthcoming as Nenno was during his confession, as freely as he related his horrendous crime, he remained absolutely inscrutable on one small point. Nicole was found naked, so Young asked what he did with her clothes. For no reason Young could fathom, either then or thinking about it later, Nenno refused to say. Young pressed, asking the question several different ways but Nenno simply wouldn’t tell him. A search of the house would later locate them, hidden in a filing cabinet in his den. In the same filing cabinet investigators found Nenno’s stash of pornography, not especially extensive but very revealing: young models, purportedly aged eighteen or older, but all dressed as little children.

Young testified at Eric Nenno’s trial and on January 18, 1996, Nenno was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Nicole Benton. On February 1, 1996, the jury sentenced him to death and after the judge entered the sentence Nenno was transported in leg irons to death row.

(Final installment to appear on 10/31)

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 6)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Five are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART SIX

They went in and Young turned to Nenno. “Where is she?”

Nenno looked at the floor, and his right arm slowly raised upwards, a finger pointing to the attic right above them. He didn’t say a word. Young nodded at Johnson who reached for the trap door above them, pulling the cord and unfolding the wooden step ladder. Johnson climbed the rungs and disappeared into the attic. A minute later he descended the stairs shaking his head.

“Eric, she’s not there,” said Young.

Nenno wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Maybe I saw her there in my dreams,” he said.

“Then in your dreams, Eric,” Young pressed. “In your dreams, where would she be?”

Nenno once again pointed upwards while keeping his eyes firmly on the concrete floor. This time he spoke: “Behind the boxes. Further back, behind the boxes.”

Young cuffed Nenno with his hands behind his back and left him with several deputies who had joined them at the scene. He climbed the ladder to look for himself. The attic was cold and dark inside but he was able to see the length of it either side of him. He looked to his left, towards the house and made out a low stack of boxes. Steeling himself, he walked to the boxes, looked behind them, and his heart sank. Nicole Benton lay on the floor, her legs splayed out, naked and deathly pale. Underneath her hips and legs was a large sheet of plastic wrap. He knew she was dead. He knew it from the way she looked and from the way he had found her. But on the off-chance, just in case there might possibly be a flutter of life left in her, Young bent down and gently laid his fingers against her skin. She was as cold as ice.

An experienced professional who had seen more than his share of dead bodies, adult and child, finding a body always provoked powerful and basic of emotions in Young: helplessness, anger, revenge, and deep, deep sadness. But, as always, he willed them away, intent on maintaining his professionalism. He now worked for her, for Nicole Benton. He would make sure every investigative step was perfect and precise, locking every possible piece of evidence into place to make sure her killer never did this to another human being.

Young, the father of two daughters, gritted his teeth and left Nicole where she lay. He knew that a team of experts would soon arrive to analyze the crime scene, take photographs and samples, makes maps and charts. He hated leaving her like this, naked and vulnerable, but he had no choice. She was gone, the real Nicole, and what remained needed to be turned into evidence. Once the crime scene experts were done, and not before, little Nicole could be reunited with her grieving parents for their final good-bye.

Young slowly descended the ladder. Part of him wanted to think of his own little girls, one just a few years older than Nicole, and part of him wanted to choke the life from the monster who stood there in handcuffs. But Agent Young did what he always did in these cases, he set those feelings aside, he shut off every part of his mind except the part that was running the investigation. After all, there was a lot still to figure out. They had found the body and Eric Nenno had implicated himself, but they didn’t know the full story. They didn’t know how or when she had died. And, of most interest to Young, why she had died.

(To be continued on 10/28)

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 5)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Four are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART FIVE

Earlier in their interview, Special Agent Young had asked Eric Nenno if he would sign a consent-to-search form, allowing officers into his house. Nenno agreed to the request and several deputies were dispatched to see what they could find.

With Nenno’s written statement in hand, the next step was obvious to Young.

“Eric, would you mind taking a polygraph exam?” he asked. “We’ve had the family and several neighbors take one.”

Nenno hesitated. Slowly, haltingly, he said he had “concerns,” and he was afraid that one concern in particular might skew the results.

“Our polygraph technicians are pretty good at dealing with outliers,” Young reassured him. “What are you worried about, exactly?”

Nenno told him that he had thoughts, fantasies, and one recurring fantasy that might interfere with the polygraph. It was about his ex-girlfriend and her daughter. He often imagined that he and his ex would have sex in front of the ten-year-old girl. It was for her education, Nenno added hurriedly, it would help her develop a healthy knowledge and understanding of sex. In fact, Nenno would later write this:

At the initial interview with Special Agent Young and Detective Johnson, I was at first unconcerned with their questioning. But as they broadened the topics to include any sexual interest or predilection I might have toward underage women and girls, I started to be deceptive and evasive in my answers. I do not know if they had intuitively perceived some suspicions; had reservations as a result of my body language, responses, etc.; or if they were just being thorough in their investigation. Their interview began to unlock some of the realization that I had been involved in an actual crime.

Young again reassured Nenno that the polygrapher would not let that fantasy mess up the test, and after a minute’s thought Nenno went into the small room at the back of the trailer. He would later admit that he only took the test because he thought it would look suspicious to back out. He also believed that if they asked him any tough questions, he would be able to bluff his way through them. The door closed behind Nenno and Young sat outside, waiting.

Time ticked by. Young checked his watch. It was taking a long time, longer than usual, he thought. His impatience was checked when the deputies who had been searching Nenno’s house reported in. No sign of Nicole, one officer said, but in Nenno’s bedroom they found a pair of binoculars on a credenza.

“And?” asked Young.

“And from his bedroom window,” the deputy said, “you can see the house where she was playing.”

A few minutes later the door to the polygraph room opened and Young saw Nenno slumped over in the chair, his body language telling of a man utterly defeated. Nenno stood slowly and walked towards Young and Johnson. For several minutes, no one said a word and then Nenno blurted out: “I flunked it, didn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” said Young. “Did you?”

Young and Johnson conferred with the examiner. Without being specific, Nenno had suggested during the polygraph that Nicole might still be at his house somewhere, so Young asked Nenno if he would accompany them over there. He agreed.

They left the trailer and walked to Young’s FBI car, Young intentionally leaving Nenno unhandcuffed. Young held the front passenger door open for Nenno and then took the wheel. Johnson stationed himself directly behind their suspect, and they drove the two blocks to Nenno’s house. They walked down the short driveway to the garage, which stood open.

(To be continued on 10/26)