Post by MXB on Mar 12, 2007 4:41:44 GMT -5
Merchants of Death
A strange and bustling little industry has sprung up in a most unlikely place -- San Quentin's Death Row. It came to Orange Coast's attention recently in a letter from Michael Hunter, himself a Death Row inmate. We were less startled by his description of the macabre art and artifacts trade being conducted by enterprising fellow convicts than by Hunter's genuine sense of outrage.
"Yes, there are different degrees of hell," he writes, "and William Bonin and Lawrence Bittaker are, for the most part, treated as pariahs." Why? Because they're Merchants of Death.
An autographed pen-and-ink drawing by convicted "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez goes for $50. For $35.
"Freeway Killer" William Bonin will inscribe a personal greeting on a jumbo glossy print of himself. Serial killer Lawrence Bittaker will cheerfully autograph transcripts from the trial that sent him to San Quentin's Death Row, although prices vary according to the gruesomeness of the testimony.
It's all available in Rick Staton's Grindhouse Graphics catalog, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based enterprise that gives new meaning to the phrase "merchants of death." Staton traffics in macabre curios that he collects from denizens of Death Rows throughout the United States.
To the casual reader it might seem that California's harshest prison has become a land of remarkable opportunity, an enterprise zone where nothing is sacred and everything is for sale.
For example, Ramirez, who seared his name into Orange County's psyche in 1984 and 1985 during a particularly vicious killing spree, creates satanic sketches behind his cell bars and forwards them to Staton for inclusion in the catalog, which boasts that each sketch is autographed, "Richard Ramirez 666 Night Stalker."
The catalog promotes works and curios from Bonin, convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering 14 boys and young men in Orange and Los Angeles counties, with terms that evoke an image of a modern-day, if psychotic, Renaissance man: "From San Quentin's multi-talented Bill Bonin comes an assortment of drawings, science fiction, short stories, and commissioned art available for special requests. . . This is a rare opportunity to purchase art from the low-profile 'Freeway Killer.'"
Listed are about a dozen of Bonin's paintings. Titles of the paintings include, The Civilized World Reacts and Past and Present Curses Resolved. The books Bonin has for sale "are individually handmade on request and signed/inscribed." Titles range from Doing Time: Stories From the Mind of a Death Row Prisoner to I Love You By Reason of Insanity.
Bonin also sells courtroom transcripts from the trials that sent him to Death Row. For an additional fee, he will autograph the transcripts that contain detailed accounts of his sexually motivated murders.
One document that has proven especially compelling to Death Row groupies is the 738-page testimony of James Michael Munro. Munro, an accomplice of Bonin, received a relatively light sentence of 15 years to life in exchange for his testimony against Bonin. Munro testified about the events of February 2, 1980, when he and Bonin has consensual sex with an 18-year-old male then beat and strangled him with a T-shirt. They dumped his body behind a gas station.
Those of us on San Quentin's Death Row are not a monolithic group marching in philosophic lockstep to the gas chamber. And many of us are just as concerned as you probably are by what I've just described. Many condemned men are involved in painting, writing, and finding other ways to communicate with the world outside.
Here in our isolation it's sometimes difficult to decide what is free expression and what is exploitation.
Most of the men I have spoken with believe that Ramirez's sketches are a product of his religious beliefs. As bizarre as those beliefs are to most people (including most of us on Death Row), the sketches are accepted in that context as legitimate and not exploitive of his victims.
However, Bonin and Bittaker are way over the line in the minds of almost every Death Row prisoner. Almost without exception their exploitation of their victims for dollars is loathed and considered filthy lucre by the men here. Yes, there are different degrees of hell, and Bonin and Bittaker are, for the most part, treated as pariahs.
For years Bonin has expressed bitter resentment toward John Wayne Gacy. [Gacy, whose work also is included in the Grindhouse Graphics catalog, had been on Death Row in Illinois for crimes quite similar to Bonin's. Gacy's official victim body count is 33, much higher than Bonin's 14.] Bonin feels that Gacy, despite his lack of artistic talent, had been stealing his customers, and therefore his money, simply due to his higher victim body count.
Last May 10, when Gacy was executed by lethal injection, Bonin happily danced about our exercise yard because his merchandising rival was dead. Now that Gacy isn't producing memorabilia, Bonin feels that Gacy's customers will be clamoring for his art. Bonin animatedly discussed plans to open a Cayman Island bank account to stash the funds he feels certain will come flooding in.
California law since last September requires inmates to deposit 60 percent of the proceeds from selling crime-related material in a fund benefiting their victims or their victims' families.
On at least one occasion, Bonin has sent an especially good customer a lock of his hair. He insists he received no money for the hair, saying it was just a bonus gift for an avid collector. His merchandising plans for the future include offering to memorize messages just prior to his execution ($1,000 payment in advance) and take them to the "other side."
I've listened while Bonin explored the possibility of creating hand-drawn maps of the freeway system of Los Angeles and Orange counties. The selling point would be the inclusion of black gravestones indicating the location of each body he left strewn on Southern California highways. The conversation included various decorative ideas, such as adding Bonin's fingerprints in blood-red ink.
Gravestones appear to be popular with Grindhouse Graphics' customers. Advertised for sale are "Grave rubbings from the burial marker of Dean Corll, Houston serial killer and sadist of legendary proportions." They cost $50 apiece.
Staton promotes the wares of Bittaker by mentioning his inclusion in Volume I of the book, Hunting Humans, described in the Grindhouse Graphics catalog as "invaluable in terms of crime case reference (serial killer info) and a must-have item for collectors of this type of 'memorabilia.'"
Bittaker, with a body count of five, laughs about generating more money from his sales than Bonin. He started his merchandising as soon as he was arrested. In the Los Angeles County Jail, Bittaker sold autographs, signing his name "Pliers Bittaker," a name he acquired from other prisoners due to his boasts about the torturing women with pliers.
Also while in jail awaiting trial, Bittaker wrote a book titled The Last Ride, a detailed account of the abduction, rape, torture and murder of one of his victims.
Bittaker currently has for sale through the Grindhouse Graphics catalog handmade "pop-up" greeting cards. Staton enthusiastically describes them in the catalog as "my favorite greeting cards in the whole world!"
Like Bonin, Bittaker will autograph-for a fee-transcripts from the trial that sent him to Death Row. The most compelling document for serial-murderer groupies is the testimony of Roy Norris, Bittaker's accomplice. In exchange for a deal from prosecutors that landed him in prison for 45 years to life-but off Death Row-Norris testified about the kidnapping of young women and girls for the purpose of rape, torture and murder.
In a transcript that Bittaker is autographing and selling, Norris details the gruesome crimes, which the two photographed and recorded. Bittaker is attempting to obtain copies of the photos and tapes, claiming that he has a legitimate right to examine the evidence used to convict him in order to effectively proceed with his death-sentence appeals.
Of course, if his history is any indication, Bittaker probably will make copies of the photographs and tapes, then sell them to collectors. It's quite certain that he will keep a complete set in his cell.
In addition to the trial transcripts, Bittaker also has for sale copies of his victims' autopsy reports. The reports contain the medical examiner's description of the wounds inflicted by Bittaker and his accomplice.
Bittaker also is willing to take messages to the "other side' for a fee. However, he is taking his entrepreneurship a step farther than Bonin. Bittaker plans to auction to the highest bidders the five tickets California law allows him to give to friends and family to attend his execution.
Even Bonin says he thinks Bittaker is way over the line. In response, Bittaker simply shrugs his shoulders and answers with a smirk: "Couldn't sell a thing if the good citizens out there didn't send me money."
By Michael Wayne Hunter 1995
A strange and bustling little industry has sprung up in a most unlikely place -- San Quentin's Death Row. It came to Orange Coast's attention recently in a letter from Michael Hunter, himself a Death Row inmate. We were less startled by his description of the macabre art and artifacts trade being conducted by enterprising fellow convicts than by Hunter's genuine sense of outrage.
"Yes, there are different degrees of hell," he writes, "and William Bonin and Lawrence Bittaker are, for the most part, treated as pariahs." Why? Because they're Merchants of Death.
An autographed pen-and-ink drawing by convicted "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez goes for $50. For $35.
"Freeway Killer" William Bonin will inscribe a personal greeting on a jumbo glossy print of himself. Serial killer Lawrence Bittaker will cheerfully autograph transcripts from the trial that sent him to San Quentin's Death Row, although prices vary according to the gruesomeness of the testimony.
It's all available in Rick Staton's Grindhouse Graphics catalog, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based enterprise that gives new meaning to the phrase "merchants of death." Staton traffics in macabre curios that he collects from denizens of Death Rows throughout the United States.
To the casual reader it might seem that California's harshest prison has become a land of remarkable opportunity, an enterprise zone where nothing is sacred and everything is for sale.
For example, Ramirez, who seared his name into Orange County's psyche in 1984 and 1985 during a particularly vicious killing spree, creates satanic sketches behind his cell bars and forwards them to Staton for inclusion in the catalog, which boasts that each sketch is autographed, "Richard Ramirez 666 Night Stalker."
The catalog promotes works and curios from Bonin, convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering 14 boys and young men in Orange and Los Angeles counties, with terms that evoke an image of a modern-day, if psychotic, Renaissance man: "From San Quentin's multi-talented Bill Bonin comes an assortment of drawings, science fiction, short stories, and commissioned art available for special requests. . . This is a rare opportunity to purchase art from the low-profile 'Freeway Killer.'"
Listed are about a dozen of Bonin's paintings. Titles of the paintings include, The Civilized World Reacts and Past and Present Curses Resolved. The books Bonin has for sale "are individually handmade on request and signed/inscribed." Titles range from Doing Time: Stories From the Mind of a Death Row Prisoner to I Love You By Reason of Insanity.
Bonin also sells courtroom transcripts from the trials that sent him to Death Row. For an additional fee, he will autograph the transcripts that contain detailed accounts of his sexually motivated murders.
One document that has proven especially compelling to Death Row groupies is the 738-page testimony of James Michael Munro. Munro, an accomplice of Bonin, received a relatively light sentence of 15 years to life in exchange for his testimony against Bonin. Munro testified about the events of February 2, 1980, when he and Bonin has consensual sex with an 18-year-old male then beat and strangled him with a T-shirt. They dumped his body behind a gas station.
Those of us on San Quentin's Death Row are not a monolithic group marching in philosophic lockstep to the gas chamber. And many of us are just as concerned as you probably are by what I've just described. Many condemned men are involved in painting, writing, and finding other ways to communicate with the world outside.
Here in our isolation it's sometimes difficult to decide what is free expression and what is exploitation.
Most of the men I have spoken with believe that Ramirez's sketches are a product of his religious beliefs. As bizarre as those beliefs are to most people (including most of us on Death Row), the sketches are accepted in that context as legitimate and not exploitive of his victims.
However, Bonin and Bittaker are way over the line in the minds of almost every Death Row prisoner. Almost without exception their exploitation of their victims for dollars is loathed and considered filthy lucre by the men here. Yes, there are different degrees of hell, and Bonin and Bittaker are, for the most part, treated as pariahs.
For years Bonin has expressed bitter resentment toward John Wayne Gacy. [Gacy, whose work also is included in the Grindhouse Graphics catalog, had been on Death Row in Illinois for crimes quite similar to Bonin's. Gacy's official victim body count is 33, much higher than Bonin's 14.] Bonin feels that Gacy, despite his lack of artistic talent, had been stealing his customers, and therefore his money, simply due to his higher victim body count.
Last May 10, when Gacy was executed by lethal injection, Bonin happily danced about our exercise yard because his merchandising rival was dead. Now that Gacy isn't producing memorabilia, Bonin feels that Gacy's customers will be clamoring for his art. Bonin animatedly discussed plans to open a Cayman Island bank account to stash the funds he feels certain will come flooding in.
California law since last September requires inmates to deposit 60 percent of the proceeds from selling crime-related material in a fund benefiting their victims or their victims' families.
On at least one occasion, Bonin has sent an especially good customer a lock of his hair. He insists he received no money for the hair, saying it was just a bonus gift for an avid collector. His merchandising plans for the future include offering to memorize messages just prior to his execution ($1,000 payment in advance) and take them to the "other side."
I've listened while Bonin explored the possibility of creating hand-drawn maps of the freeway system of Los Angeles and Orange counties. The selling point would be the inclusion of black gravestones indicating the location of each body he left strewn on Southern California highways. The conversation included various decorative ideas, such as adding Bonin's fingerprints in blood-red ink.
Gravestones appear to be popular with Grindhouse Graphics' customers. Advertised for sale are "Grave rubbings from the burial marker of Dean Corll, Houston serial killer and sadist of legendary proportions." They cost $50 apiece.
Staton promotes the wares of Bittaker by mentioning his inclusion in Volume I of the book, Hunting Humans, described in the Grindhouse Graphics catalog as "invaluable in terms of crime case reference (serial killer info) and a must-have item for collectors of this type of 'memorabilia.'"
Bittaker, with a body count of five, laughs about generating more money from his sales than Bonin. He started his merchandising as soon as he was arrested. In the Los Angeles County Jail, Bittaker sold autographs, signing his name "Pliers Bittaker," a name he acquired from other prisoners due to his boasts about the torturing women with pliers.
Also while in jail awaiting trial, Bittaker wrote a book titled The Last Ride, a detailed account of the abduction, rape, torture and murder of one of his victims.
Bittaker currently has for sale through the Grindhouse Graphics catalog handmade "pop-up" greeting cards. Staton enthusiastically describes them in the catalog as "my favorite greeting cards in the whole world!"
Like Bonin, Bittaker will autograph-for a fee-transcripts from the trial that sent him to Death Row. The most compelling document for serial-murderer groupies is the testimony of Roy Norris, Bittaker's accomplice. In exchange for a deal from prosecutors that landed him in prison for 45 years to life-but off Death Row-Norris testified about the kidnapping of young women and girls for the purpose of rape, torture and murder.
In a transcript that Bittaker is autographing and selling, Norris details the gruesome crimes, which the two photographed and recorded. Bittaker is attempting to obtain copies of the photos and tapes, claiming that he has a legitimate right to examine the evidence used to convict him in order to effectively proceed with his death-sentence appeals.
Of course, if his history is any indication, Bittaker probably will make copies of the photographs and tapes, then sell them to collectors. It's quite certain that he will keep a complete set in his cell.
In addition to the trial transcripts, Bittaker also has for sale copies of his victims' autopsy reports. The reports contain the medical examiner's description of the wounds inflicted by Bittaker and his accomplice.
Bittaker also is willing to take messages to the "other side' for a fee. However, he is taking his entrepreneurship a step farther than Bonin. Bittaker plans to auction to the highest bidders the five tickets California law allows him to give to friends and family to attend his execution.
Even Bonin says he thinks Bittaker is way over the line. In response, Bittaker simply shrugs his shoulders and answers with a smirk: "Couldn't sell a thing if the good citizens out there didn't send me money."
By Michael Wayne Hunter 1995