Transcripts For CSPAN3 Alex 20240704

Well, im happy to introduce our speakers for this evenings program. Our interview with this evening is todd allen. Todd is the Vice President of Diversity Affairs at messiah university. He is a founder of the Common Ground project, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching the history of the civil rights movement. For the past 21 years, in partnership with the pnc foundation, and allen has led the returning to the roots of civil rights bus tour. Hes a frequent lecture on commemorative practices public memory related to the civil rights movement. Of course, our featured author tonight is alex mar alexie. Author is the author of witches of america, which was a New York Times notable book of 2015. Her work has appeared in new york magazine, wired, the New York Times, book review and the guardian, among many other outlets, as well as the best american magazine writing. She was a finalist for the National Magazine award in feature writing in 2018. She is also the director of the feature length documentary american mystic. She lives in the Hudson Valley in new york city. Of course, alex, his new book that we are here for this evening is titled 70 times seven a true story of murder and mercy. Ive got to read just one blurb from author sierra cahn, who writes, quote, 70 times seven is a devastating and essential book, a meticulous deconstruction of the social fears, personal calculations that built and still uphold the Death Penalty in america. A brilliant reporter and empathetic narrator, alex ma, has written the truest kind of crime drama, unafraid of rendering our narratives about justice less comforting and quote. Its an honor to host alex and todd this evening. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming to the stage. Alex mar and todd allen. Thank you so much for being here. I just was talking about what a gorgeous bookstore this is. Theres so much here that i was tempted to sneak away into the stacks before the reading ran out of time. Its also my very first time in harrisburg, and everyones made me feel very welcome. So thats really been something special. Before we start our conversation, i would just like to read a passage from the book to short passages. One question that comes up when you center a story around a violent crime, i think, is this question of when do you introduce the crime itself . Because the moment at which you introduce that act of violence, it really has an impact on how much empathy the reader is willing to have for any of the characters involved. So i instead chose to open the book after the prolog with a moment, a few years back in time. So the crime at the center of this book took place in 1985. 15 year old paula cooper murdered an elderly woman, ruth pelkey, in her home in a sort of robbery gone wrong. She was then sentenced to death for the crime and incredible events took place in the aftermath of that sentence. But instead of 1985, i opened the book in 1979, when paula was actually just nine years old. So this is a scene. Its a moment from her childhood that i think lets the reader know something important about what her childhood was like. One house of the many that make up a city, a pale yellow house an hour after sun up in gary, indiana. A woman lives here on wisconsin street with her two daughters. Rhonda is 12. Her sister, paula is nine. It is 1979. Their mother, her name is gloria, hustles them outside into the Morning Light and then into the dark of the garage and the back seat of her red chevy vega. The girls are very young and they are powerfully tired. They understand what their mother intends to do. She has kept them up all night, softly talking than shouting and then whimpering to them about where theyll be traveling together, about what must happen next. And they are no longer resistant. With her daughters inside, gloria tugs at the garage door until it slides down to meet the concrete. She slips into the drivers side, rolls down the windows, turns the key in the ignition, the engine gives off a deep, thrumming sound. Then she waits for them to close their eyes and fall into that steady rhythm. She can see their faces in the rearview mirror. Small and brown and perfect. All three are still their limbs grown heavy, as if under water. The engine continues running. The minutes accumulate. The air thickens outside the garage. The neighborhood is awakening. Inside the garage, the girls are passing into an unnatural sleep. What rhonda remembers next. She and paula laying side by side on their bottom bunk, not knowing how they got there. They have not exited the world. Gloria is leaning over them, her daughters. They will be all right. She says just before leaving. Rhonda does not know how much time has passed before she is able to move her body. She rises slowly, early. A letter is taped to the door from their mother. She is finishing what she set out to do. Rhonda rushes to the kitchen and calls her aunt, who tells her to run, get their neighbor through the window. She thinks she sees exhaust seeping out from under the garage door into the bright daylight. Mr. Hollis drags gloria out of the garage and lays her on her back on the lawn. He drops to his knees and with elbows locked, hand over, hand pushes hard on her chest again and again. The neighbor across the street, a nurse, rushes over and takes her turn, trying to pump breath into glorias body. The ambulance arrives and the Fire Department and a medic becomes the third person in line to tend to. Gloria by now. Paula is standing outside watching. Rhonda sees her younger sister grow hysterical at the sight of this stranger bearing down on their mothers chest. And gloria not responding. Not responding. Something rhonda will not forget. No one examines them. The girls, the firemen, the medics. No one so much as takes their pulse. When gloria is swept off to the hospital, the sisters go stay with their aunt. When, after a week, their mother checks herself out early. No one asks any questions when she comes to retrieve her daughters. No one stops her. For years, rhonda has said that she does not know what transformed her sister. But now she tells me. As if untangling the question allowed that this was it. This must have been the start of a change in paula. Because you have to understand, we were all supposed to have been dead. Thats what we were expecting. Thats what we were hoping. But they were still alive. And what now . Another day in the yellow house. So the book then goes on to describe. You get a sense of the Larger Community in gary, indiana, and you get a sense of also the life of ruth pelkey, who ultimately loses her her life. Shes the victim in this story. And i describe the crime when paula and three other girls, 14, 15, 16 years old, talk their way into her house and paula killed mrs. Pelkey. We go through some of the sentencing hearings and ultimately paula is sentenced to death. As i mentioned, im going to skip ahead now to a moment that for me really drew me into this story and decided it really made me decide that i wanted to spend years looking into this case. What happened is ruth wilkies grandson, anne, who was a steelworker in his late thirties, just a man who minded his own business, had no particular habit of making political statements or anything of the sort. Decided to publicly forgive paula for killing his grandmother. And this was against the wishes of his family, his friends. I mean, everyone he knew thought he had lost it. So ill just give you a little passage from the night where he made that decision. He was called in for a late shift at the steel mill. He was a crane operator. So picture him in this warehouse where its dark, its empty. Hes the only guy on this shift right now. Hes waiting for instructions from his boss. So hes alone in this crane cab, hovering over this dark space. And he realizes in that moment its been months now since the death sentence was handed down to paula. He realizes that his life is a mess. Hes grieving for his grandmother, his girlfriend has left him, his family and him are having some issues. Hes just declared bankrupt, see . And he has no direction in his life. So in this moment of feeling so lost, he starts to cry. You know, this grown man in his workplace starts to cry. And he pictures paula cooper for the first time in months. And he thinks this is a girl who is someone far more desperate and alone than i will ever be. So that sets off a series of of thoughts. Seeing paula cooper in person that day in the courthouse. Hed been struck by how young she looked, just turned 16, 23 years younger than him. She was a girl. And immediately after her sentence was read, that man, the girls grandfather, the only grown family that had shown up the way he had called out, the way he had lost it, and how a guard had escorted the old man down the aisle right past. Bill still calling out about his grandbaby. Wretched paula was let out next to the front of her prison smock, darkened with tears, head bobbing her eyes darting from side to side, as if looking for the person who might appear at any moment to help her. He starts to think here of an image thats been in the press of his grandmother, ruth pelkey, with a ring of soft, silvery white curls around her head, high cheekbones, a beatific half smile. She wears pink lipstick, catsup, eyeglasses and silver earrings. The size of coat buttons at this moment, the image he holds in his mind begins to transform from his grandmothers eyes begin to shine their sweat and tears begin a steady, clear run off down her cheeks. Her face remains still frozen in that day in the portraits studio. But the photograph is weeping. Ruth pelkey has become like one of the weeping statues of the virgin mary. Those figures discovered in so many countries leaking tears of blood or oil or scented water, receiving thousands of visitors desperate for a demonstration of truth, or else her tears are in the likeness of the son of jesus in bethany, crying over the death of lazarus. Jesus wept. This, too, is a lamentation. The photograph is weeping because here is a woman in pain. Ruth hurts from the memory of her death, from the final 30 minutes of her life. But thats not it. No, it seems to bill, in this moment that ruths feelings are passed to him, that they flood his chest, and he believes he understands. She is crying for that girl. For paula cooper. For the girls grandfather there. She would not have wanted him to suffer the knowledge that his grandchild will be buckled into a chair and her body overwhelmed by electrical current. And she would not want this girl to be killed for killing her, to be killed in her name. Bill thinks of what jesus said when the romans raised him up on the cross. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. For the first time, he believes it is possible that the girl did not know what she was doing when she killed ruth, that shed been out of her right mind. That a blind anger must have propelled her forward. And now his grandmother is calling on him to forgive her. His grandmother is calling on him. Is this a calling . Almost 30 years since he first dreamt of such a moment. Bill pelkey is being called at first. The revelation is a notion it infuses no part of his body. It changes nothing about his instincts toward the girl. Those remain cool and hard. Bill has decided to forgive her, to have compassion, but he has none to give. And he knows that if he cannot find that store of empathy sunk deep inside of him, then from this point on, whenever he pictures his grandmother, he will feel that he failed her. Eventually, he will shut her image out. Bill begins again to pray the way a desperate person forms words, unable to prevent them slipping from his lips. He prays for god to make him love paula cooper, to flood him with it. And he waits. He waits. And inevitably, this comes to him. If that girl is worth forgiving, if even his grandmother can feel compassion for her, can wish for her protection. Then he must be too. Though he has also, in his own way, things up beyond repair. Bill himself must be worth preserving in the quiet of the mill. Hi. Above the dead machines. Bill considers what he will do. He. He will write. Paula a letter and in that letter he will tell her about his grandmother and about gods forgiveness and how jesus loves her, just as he loves every person who ever walked the earth. And he passes them out. The words he will write. And bill can see a way forward. He can imagine her just maybe writing back and in his head. This becomes a real correspondence and truly he wants to know what she might say to him. Not by way of explanation for what shes done, but as proof of humanness, of consciousness in a concrete box on death row. And bill realized, as he does not want to see this girl died. There it is, compassion. This is enough to forgive. He has forgiven her already. He will tell the story of this night for the next 30 years. But for some with whom he shares it, the story will recall a passage in the gospel of john in which jesus, upon learning of the death of one of his followers, begins to weep. And then he approaches the tomb and asks that it be opened. And he calls for the man to come out. Inside the tomb, the dead man sits up and then stands and then steps outside. His hands and feet are wrapped in linen. His face is covered. Jesus says to the crowd, take off the grave clothes and let him go. To be released from the threat of the death house would make of paula cooper. Another kind of lazarus. And she and bill both they would take off their grave clothes. You can clap for that. Thank you. Alex, welcome to the midtown scholar and to harrisburg. Just before we get underway with my questions, i want to have a moment of full disclosure. Alex and i just met, but in the dedication you say the book is for todd. And then you arrived. Clearly for saw this night. But, you know, after after reading this story and im so glad that you shared those those two excerpts, because there are so many people and whose stories are in this account. And it highlights the ways in which not only are the lives of the victim and the perpetrator intertwined and but the lives of their family and friends are forever transformed. And and interconnected. Now, you just told us kind of why this story. But im curious to know, how did you come to this story . And you say that you were working on this for a long time. What is what is a long time . Oh, five years. Which, you know, occasionally books do take that long when theres a lot of research involved. And and yet you you always think youre the one who do it faster. So but but i will say, i, i was doing some research on a hunch because i also write long form stories for magazines. And im always wondering where the next story will come from. I was doing some research into cases of Violent Crimes committed by women, specifically because its far more rare than Violent Crimes committed by men. And i wanted to understand what kind of patterns we might see. And so in just going through a lot of case summaries, i mean, hundreds and hundreds, i stumbled across the story of ruth welchs murder. And it just stopped me in my tracks. And part of it was paulas age. The fact that she was 15 and that she was then sentenced to death for that crime committed at 15. And then the forgiveness piece, how a few months later, the victims grandson chooses to publicly forgive her and i had never heard of Something Like that. I really thought you know, i think im basically a good person, but i really dont i dont know, you know, what is that moment all about . And so i, i managed to dig up bill pelkey phone number somehow. And i just gave him a call and introduced myself and said, you know, do you have a moment . I really want to ask you what was behind that decision all those years ago . And by the time i got off the phone, i just knew in my gut that id be exploring this for a long time, thinking of the people in this story. I had originally almost said characters. These are not these are people in this story. I cant ask you about everybody i want to ask you about, but i want to ask you about a couple. And i want to actually begin with with ruth. Shes a character, a person that we meet through her testimony, through the testimony of others, through this brutal act. Right. Yet her voice and particularly her christian witness, looms large in this story. You know, as you just shared about that transformative moment for for bill. How did the life and legacy of ruth influence the narrative . You know, i i definitely wanted to. Theres the sense that, you know, paula is is paul and bills relationship is the dynamic kind of heart of this book. But i wanted to make sure that we understood how heinous the crime was and also that there was a real human being who is no longer capable of sharing her story. You know, and so i talked to family members. I actually tracked down the spot where ruth grew up in in rural indiana, the brethren church, where in which she was raised and her her parents were founding members. You know, i just tried to find as many people who had known her. I actually found a woman who was 102 years old in a Senior Center who had been taught bible study by ruth. When, you know, they were growing up together and she remembered a hymn that i mentioned in the book that was a hymn that that ruth taught the young kids. You know, i wanted to make her a full person and whats incredible about her and you get to know her in one of the earlier chapters. And she comes up again. But, you know, i wanted her to have that early impact. You would remember her. But whats great about her, she was just she was so driven to work with kids of all kinds and i discovered and even her grandkids didnt know this when i mentioned it, that as a young person, she had a brother who was a couple of years younger. And since this was earlier in the 1900s, her brother died suddenly and there was no record of what he died of. You know, maybe it was a sudden sickness, but i just imagined, you know what . Maybe she was really close to her younger brother and she lost him. And because she spent the rest of her life around kids who were very young and, you know, so she was important to me. And she was also important as a contrast to bill, because when we first meet bill, he is a hot mess. He was raised with a lot of you know, faith that he then began to question. He loved the ladies. He wanted to have a good time in college. You know, he just he just wasnt sure what, you know, what his direction was going to be in life. But he he kind of returned to his grandmothers values in a way, after her death. You say early on, quote, theres no question of her guilt referring to paula. This is not a story of wrongful conviction. As i prepared to ask you about paula, what would you say then . This is a story about. Well, i wanted to make clear in in the prolog really, that theres no doubt as to who who committed the crime. This is not that kind of story. I think we were conditioned a little bit by true crime to think, you know, theres an angle like that. I wanted to do something that i thought was kind of tough, which was to confront the reader with heres a young person. She really committed this terrible act. Absolutely. Now, what do you want to do about that . If you were there . And if it were somehow your decision, if you were the prosecutor or the victims family member, what would you have said was justice in that scenario . The crime is terrible, but shes also a kid. And so when bill then chooses to forgive, thats to me, thats kind of a challenge to the reader. And it was a challenge to me. And thats thats the origin of the the title of the book, which is a reference 70 times seven to a passage in the bible about forgiveness that i think, you know, thats kind of the the tough question in the middle of this book. Are you capable of that kind of mercy . And is there room for that kind of mercy in our system . I promise you, before we took the stage. No, no spoilers, but about paula, i want to just read from your text here about one of the character witnesses. And heres what they said about her. And then i have a follow up question to it. The witness says, well, i came here to testify for paulas character or whatever it is. Okay . I didnt come here to justify what paula did was wrong. Mrs. Pelke and her family is hurt real bad. Okay. I understand that. But the child was hurt, too, you know, she never had the opportunity that any normal child had. She used to ask me on occasion. She said, i just want to be like the other little kids. I just want to be like the other little kids. This is what the child asked. I think maybe she needs to be punished, but didnt the system some kind of way let this child down . My question is, do you agree with that assessment . And if so, in what way or what ways did the system let paula down and what systems. Well, i mean, i included that moment from the sentencing hearing because i thought it was so powerful. She and her sisters, you heard in that opening passage, right. They grew up in a very volatile household. The mother clearly had Certain Mental Health issues. She was an alcoholic and it was and dealt with the father was physically abusive and they ran away from home a number of times and asked for help. They asked for help from the social worker. They asked for help. They were put in an emerging sea shelter, foster care. They were always sent back home. It was always a temporary solution. So, you know, theres even a moment later in her sentencing where paula is finally given a chance to speak out on her own behalf right before the judge is going to finally passed down his sentence. And one of the things she says is were were all of you and its clear to me, based on, you know, what i learned and what weve set up in the story before, that that thats what shes referring to. Everyone is so concerned about her now that shes done this extreme act. But her, you know, note no one, no one was checking in on these kids in the way that was appropriate. So in that sense, i think the system let her down. And i think ultimately when we have a system where you can sentence kids to death or what we do now, which we sentence kids to die in prison, essentially life without parole, right. What does that say about our hope for rehabilitation or for people to be transformed . Those kids are going to be incarcerated for decades. You dont think theres an outside chance any of them are going to mature and have something to offer . So i dont get on any kind of soapbox in this book. I really made an effort to show both sides of a lot of these arguments because these are tough questions. But the story does connect all the way up to the end of the Death Penalty for kids in this country, which was only in 2005. I mean, thats pretty recent. So you see how this case actually connects up to that moment, which i thought was pretty thrilling to map out. And that was one of the things that was shocking to me that there was such little outcry when she was sentenced to death. And i, i wont i wont ruin it from there. But i want to talk about bill, who once was a hot mess and then had that transformative moment that you talk about. You know, when i think about bill and then ultimately his his relationship with paula, i see this tension between forgiving. Right. And im wondering, how was this a time of healing . Was it a time of healing for bill . But then also then the tension for paula of being forgiven, feeling like your worth and worthy of forgiveness. One of you could speak to either one of those. Well, one thing that was incredible about the process of researching this is, you know, i was in the reading i gave where bill has this this idea. Oh, okay. I guess ill just write this girl a letter, which is sort of a, you know, since its okay, its a bold move. So the next day, you know, he sits down at work and he takes some paper out of his foremans office in a ballpoint pen. And he just sits and he thinks, okay, what am i going to say to this girl who killed my grandmother . And it started a correspondence between them. And i got to read hundreds and hundreds of letters between the two of them that mapped out this relationship. That started when she was 16 and he was 40 and continued for a long time. And at first, with this announcement of bills forgiveness, paulas response was actually one of anger. She was an overwhelmed, terrified kid on death row. And all she could think was you and your family wanted me to die. So good for you. Here i am, right now. And i think she was suspicious of this man as well, because as her older sister rhonda said to her, who forgives like that . Who does that . Theres a great scene where she she learns that bill is now also writing their grandfather and saying, oh, i want to come and visit. And you know, no, he is not im not going to be here for that absolute. And and bill when bill visits their family, he leaves a fruit basket as a gift. And rhonda comes over and she goes, is that from that man . Dont eat that fruit. Im not going to eat that fruit. Dont touch that apple. You dont know whats in that. You know, so you sort of these moments of levity, but really its about these two families, one on either side of this terrible crime. They have been made to feel that the last thing they can do is trust each other. Right. Even though ultimately the book starts to show, well, you know what, maybe rhonda and bill have a lot more in common than theyre aware of at first. But eventually, bill, in coming back, writing again, writing again, offering his friendship to paula. She takes it and she thinks, you know what, this is really a comfort. And i feel like i can trust this man and he becomes part of a much Larger Campaign to spare her life that goes all the way to europe and just as a teaser, eventually involves john pope, john paul the second. I mean its really an unexpected twist at a certain point. But yeah, i love that moment when rhonda was, you know, talking to the grandfather and like you said, said, dont touch that. I was like, i could see that and i might be thinking that same thing. And though the book has only been out now for a for a few days, but youre going to be heading to indiana soon. What do you think the response is going to be to this story . I mean, have. Im assuming maybe that family members belkis. Maybe. Rhonda, ive had a chance to to read it. Others in the state may be looking into the so a number of folks related to the story have read it and feel good about it. I think its challenging to have your story and your life written about because what sums up a life. Right. And its kind of a surreal experience. But but people have responded well so far to the book. Im actually a reading near gary as one of my first stops and rhonda will be there. She wrote me a note. You know, i want to be there and a couple of the pelkey family members and even the prosecutor who is a controversial character in the book, because the prosecutor in this case in lake county, he ended up being prosecutor for ten years. He went for the Death Penalty for two of the four girls, even though they were teenagers. He went for the Death Penalty 22 times during his as prosecutor and he loves the book. So even though i think, you know, hes hes a complex, controversial character, but he hes hes, you know, thought that it showed different dimensions to the story. And he was he was good with it. Ive heard you describe the book as a moral challenge for the reader. Im wondering in what ways did this book challenge you . And does it still challenge you . Oh, i mean, im worn out after five years of this. Youre kidding. Its an intense story, right and, you know, i ultimately, i, i did the math and i interviewed probably about 80 people for this book, a Corrigan Group of them i was seeing in person over and over again. And its its a lot of its a lot of weight. The responsibility of wanting to tell accurately someones story, to get the details right. And to have everyone feel like they were respected, you know, so. So. But but in terms of the moral challenge, honestly, one of the biggest things for me, the biggest revelation was this business of it with any crime in any courtroom, there is a family on either side of that case, on either side of that room. And we are so trained not to think about it that way. And those families often have some kind of common humanity. But the way the system works is the prosecutor tells a certain story. Hes going for a certain kind of sentence. For the families to talk to each other across the aisle just complicates things. That is the way the senate, the system is structured. And this really brought that home. And it raised for me some questions about, you know, how that maybe apply in our in our regular lives to where not communicating with what we think is the other side is is maybe prolonging an issue. So that to me was a challenging thing to wrestle with. I think ive got time for one more question before we turn it over to the audience, and that would be what is your hope for this book. I hope i hope people will read it with an open mind and really let themselves get close to all of these different characters and think think in a complex way about what what might have chosen to do. Because for me, my feelings, my answer to that changed every few months working on this book, you know, and i think that if someone like bill can have empathy for paula, if someone like rhonda can say, im going to stick by my sister in spite of the situation, in spite of what its going to cost me, you know, i think its a challenge to have greater empathy or to try to have greater empathy in complicated situations. Thank you so much. Can we give todd and alex a round of applause. So were in a transition. Audience q a if you have a question, feel free to raise your hand and ill come around with the mic. Yes. I realize that you wrote the book about the one young girl who did the killing. And i was wondering what happened to the other three young girls, because under whats called the felony murder doctrine, they could also have been and maybe they were charged with murder also. And i wanted to know what happened to them. That is something i address in the book. In the early chapters, you see them go through the system to. So the youngest one was 14. She needed a booster seat to sit on to be on the stand. I mean, these these were, you know, teenage kids. They were all centered to long terms, you know, 20 something years, 30 something, 60 years. And but paula was the only one who received the death sentence because her her involvement was more serious. She she committed the crime that the murder. Other questions. Got a half court every time i ive got a question. Your first book was which is of america. And now youve had this book. What in particular what what draws you to the stories that you decide to write . Oh, good question. You know something thats a recurring theme i realized in my work, whether its magazine pieces or its which is of america or a documentary made american mystic. This book, its im so curious about the Belief Systems that drive our lives right, that give our lives structure in an extreme situation like this. Family ended up in both families. Right. How do you decide to respond . Is it based on the faith you were raised with . Maybe its a faith you converted into. Maybe its the letter of the law. Maybe its something your mom used to tell you when you were a kid. And that always seemed true to you. You know, what is it that determines how you respond . So the prosecutor in this case was catholic but proDeath Penalty, and he was fine with that bill. Bills family was baptist, and therefore they wanted retribution. He and interpreted his faith, saying the opposite you know, so with witches of america that was an exploration of the pagan new religious movement around the country. Im really im fascinated with those bigger questions and how they insert themselves into our otherwise kind of practical daily lives. When you out to bill, had he not wanted to talk, you wouldnt have a book was there ever any one in the story that you contacted that was not on board with you writing a book as you said, the people you mentioned, some people who are very, you know, complimentary toward you now that the book is has been published, but was there anyone that was not on board that maybe you had to convince to be in the book and is there anyone that you wanted to be in the book that said, no, i dont want to be in there. There were a couple of people who are now deceased. And so i lost the upper two. You know, there was no opportunity. The judge in pollys case, i would have loved to have spoken to. But, you know, rhonda, rhonda, i was afraid to really approach it for years because i had been warned by people who knew her that she she was really shed been traumatized at the time. She was hounded by newspaper reporters. She got lots of nasty phone calls. You know, this she she really had a hard in the wake of her sisters arrest. And as about three years into the process, after writing her and then kind of talking to friends of hers, i was told okay. You know, i think i think its okay, you know, well do an introduction. Its i think this might be better timing. Shes feeling you know, like shes in a good place and we ended up talking a great deal and, you know, were were very friendly now. And i think shes an incredible person. But that was a huge gift because i was able to understand pieces of the story that i would never have otherwise known about. And then the one other person early on was monica foster, who was one of the appellate attorneys on pollys case, whos whipsmart amazing. Shes now the federal public defender of indiana. Shes been doing these kinds of really tough cases for ages. I called her on the phone early on. She was all for it. And then i could never get her on the phone again. No emails, no phone calls. And it was really early on and i thought, if i cant get her, shes so integral to this story. Its got to be a bad sign. So i bought a ticket to indianapolis where her office was so that i could casually show up and say to her receptionist, well, you know, im in town for some things. And is she in . And so she she saw me and and i knew. Okay, all right, were fine. But shes aware of that lie now. Did they do a psychological profile on paula . They did, yeah. They had. And someone at the psychiatrist testified during the sentencing hearing, you know, its its interesting because cause in spite of the profile, they created where they said, you know, she she does not necessarily show signs of an anti social personality or socio catholic personality. It it was very vague. You know, they made a note of her chaotic childhood. But to to my mind, you know, this is someone who showed clear signs of depression. Many people said that. It just i dont i dont think we had the information about Mental Health in 1985 that we have now. And that was one of the issues. And a Juvenile Court judge who knew her case in lake county at the time. I spoke with her all these years and she agreed, you know, it was just we didnt have the kind of sophisticated understanding of Mental Health if we have that now. But you know, it was less so in the eighties, but that was a very vengeful act. She did stabbing someone 33 times. Thats very personal stabbing to begin with, let alone 33 times. There was a there was a theory. And and her sister agreed with this. You know, she had a conversation with paul about it, whether or not its true. Paul at one point said to her, you know, i felt that i was stabbing one of her parents. Thats what i. Yeah. And i dont and again, i dont know if thats true, but that that was an idea that was floated. Which would you say that this story is more challenging to someone, morally challenging to someone whos a christian, who has a christian background or one who was more politically charged. Because im thinking of the two driving elements. The story, the Death Penalty and that forgiveness. So im just wondering, like if someone were to read this book and theyre are christian, would they say, yeah, you should forgive . You know, or or if youre politically charged, youre like, no, absolutely not. This was or will its tug at both sides. No, i, i cant really predict how people are going respond. You know what i, what i tried to do is, is raise these questions and describe these scenarios. And i hope give the reader space to wrestle with that theyre for for bill, as you saw in that, you know, passage that i read his faith was closely connected ultimately to his decision his decision to forgive. But there are other characters in the book you meet later where you know, theyre not particularly christian. And also, whether youre a baptist or a catholic or a church of the brethren member, you know, there are so many different stripes of christian in the book. They all have different feelings when it comes to the Death Penalty with criminal justice and, you know, theres also that question of can you subscribe to the kind of tough on crime approach that can be very popular in this country . And still say, but but i am a christian. I am merciful. I read the bible. Some people would say sure, others no, no, no. Thats contradictory, right . So i tried to just sort of tease that out and get it to the surface with the different characters. And then, you know, when you when you finish reading it, write me a note, let me know what you think and just be careful. On a related note, there was situation here within the last 10 to 15 years called the nickel mines tragedy, where there was a man who killed a number of students. Amish schoolchildren and and the Amish Community responded by forgiving. And so there was a book written called amish grace, where they about how for the amish that was tied very much into their belief in the lords prayer. So you talked about how. Im sorry, is it ben bill . Yeah. That that was tied into his faith. I have two questions. The first is, what did forgiveness mean to him . And the second question is, what are some lessons that you learned about forgiveness that could possibly be or lessons that we might get from the book. I think i think for bill what it what forgiven this did was it allowed him to create meaning and something positive within a terrible tragedy that had befallen his family. Right. Because then it became a story of compassion, of trying to figure out, well, what happened with this young girl can i help her . Like, lets lets turn this from a moment of extreme anger into something where were maybe we can have some kind of another kind of conversation. I really do think that it gave his life a different kind of meaning. But, you know, something that comes up later in the book, even beyond paulas time on death row, bill then ends up through all of the work he does to make people aware of pollys situation. He ends up meeting one by one other murder victims, family members. He chose to speak out against the death sentence in their cases. To who . All feel isolated people, different parts of the country who thought, oh, im just a pariah. People think im nuts. And they get together and its thats another piece of the book. And what i learned from getting to know a number of those folks is that sometimes the choice to forgive is is is a means of survival, because a lot of these individuals told me i couldnt hold on to that darkness, that anger, that desire for revenge. It was ruining their lives. So it sometimes people forgive for themselves. Its got nothing to do with that other person. And was really fascinating to me. Thank you for not giving up after five years or at any point in your writing. This is important. Im wondering you if you could identify i think you said earlier that there were times in the writing where you even your own mind was being changed about things. And im wondering if you could identify like one of the biggest surprises to yourself personally that you changed mind about something . And what led. What led up to that . Does that make sense . Yeah. Um mm. I, i dont, you know, theres theres not a clear moment, but a number of there were a number of moments where i just felt like i suddenly understood good things a lot better, you know . So it was the relations between rhonda and bill, which ends up playing more of a role in the book than i ever expected. That was really surprising to me, what they both ended up representing to and meaning to each other. But then also things like i never thought about the incredible toll on the attorneys who take on this kind of work. And i started to see people in all these different pieces of the process as as just a lot more fully human. I dont know how they managed to do this kind of work where youre representing someone whos, you know, up for the death sentence. And and its in its relentless, overwhelming work. So i just learned so much along the way. Im a pastor and i dont know if i could do it. That person did, to be honest with you. I would like to think i could. But, you know, thats another thing. My question is specifically, i mean, when i saw the book i havent read the book. When i saw the book race. Can you speak to the racial element in the story . Did it did that ever come out in the trial . The lawyer, judge, families can just speak that. Oh, absolutely. So, first of all, i think a lot of stories about our criminal Justice System inevitably involve race. You know, and this was one of those times as i set it up more as a background issue. Gary, indiana is an incredibly fascinating history city. It has an incredible history, but its its a Northern Industrial town that early on actually was just as segregated as parts of the jim crow south. So you had black workers and families coming up with the great migration, thinking great opportunity to get a job, finding that they were in the same crappy situation up north right. And the city was built to privilege white, middle class executives for the mill and everyone else who came to get a job. Well, good luck to them. You know, you had immigrants from europe, black migrants from the south, like i said, and they did not live in the same areas. They didnt have access to the same quality of schooling and housing and so on. Thats in the background of this crime, right . And so where mrs. Pelkey lived was a neighborhood called glen park that has historically was entire, largely white. At one point, if you were black, couldnt pass through the neighborhood unless you had a job to do or something that had started to change in the years leading up to the crime. But when you had four black girls entering the home of not only an elderly white woman, but a bible teacher, on top of it, the press just lost their minds. Right. But it wasnt clear cut in that the tough on crime mentality that was really kicking into gear in the mideighties. Everyone was feeling that. So the black community and gary was not protesting at, you know, this death sentence and, you know, the focus was on the heinousness of the crime rather than the fact of sentencing a teenage kid to death. The an interesting note that i mention in the book that i, i was the first one to find this out. The prosecutor, for the sake of optics, looked around and he said, well, lee county only has one black criminal court judge, the only one and the first one in indiana history. He should really be the one to try this case, because if were for death for these young black girls, that will just go over better. And he has he had his deputy prosecutor rig the system. So this would end up in in judge kimbroughs courtroom. And the judge who did not believe in the Death Penalty, felt cornered into giving the death sentence because the representation paula had was so poor he never recovered from it. But, you know, so so thats in the background. Its woven into the story. And it is also part of the relationship between bill and paula. Bill and rhonda and some of the challenges to building up trust that went beyond the fact of this crime. It was, you know, when rhonda said, dont eat the fruit that may gives you heat, she told me, you know, thats because this is an older man whos been living like 20 minutes away. This whole time hes part of it of of, you know, the people who live here keep to them selves. They dont trust us. We dont trust them. What is this forgiveness all about . So so its woven into the book. The question of here. Im just really curious for from your all the time that you spent looking at this from i mean i guess theres a criminal Justice Reform aspect to the to this that its underlying, obviously. And when you look at it like we just your thoughts on us as a culture were in one hand were like crazy safety obsessed. You know it just cant do enough right from a safety standpoint. And then at the other side, you know, its almost barbaric. Of course, you know, weve got minors being charged, you know, and given life sentences. Youve got people that are 15, 16, 18, 19 on sex offender registries for the rest of their life. You know, and weve got the whole drug thing which has been, you know, extreme incarceration. So you try to balance those two, which is, hey, look, theres got to be a softening of this if we want to reintegrate people into society. But then we have these this whole safety obsession. Sometimes its the same people looking for both. Im just curious what your thoughts are and how we how do we take step forward in that . And how does that how does that receive it, you know . Yeah. I mean, im and again, im not going to get up on a soapbox, but i will say about this. Oh, yes, you are asking me to. Its true. Fair enough. On request. Ill take a request. But you know, this tough on crime approach, which is, i think the a huge part of the problem it sells so well that slogan still plays in 2023, right . It gets people elected. And i think its based on a fantasy that we have of, you know, if we elect this one individual, theyll come in, theyll swoop in like a knight in shining armor and theyll be tougher than anyones ever been. And its going to clean everything up. But its already been proven that that kind of approach does not actually have real results. It just, you know, plays off of our emotions and our fantasies. I you know, i think its been proven already that that a huge step towards real safety in our communities is on the other end of things. You know, programs that are going to help kids so that you dont end up in this extreme situation where a kid had been bounced around the system. So much that she finally snaps right. What whats what kind of support do you have in communities in terms of, you know, Economic Development . You know, so you have a community where there are jobs, where people arent desperate, they dont have the need to commit crime. But the other side of it, too, is when people are incarcerated. Lets be serious about rehabilitation because people get out and then whos coming out . The other side . Theyre coming back into your community. I think theres an idea here that when you in prison, someone they magically, poof, disappear or something, you know, and and part tied into that also is this issue of race. The tendency to criminalize young people of color more readily than than white people of white, white young people. Im sorry. Thats something that we we know about these four girls. It was easier in spite of how young they were. And to see them as adults to try them as adults. And it would have been to do the same with young white girls. We have all this information already. Its all part of the mix. These are big issues, but i do think, you know, the number one thing i would say is, is is rehabilitation being serious about it. And being suspicious of any time someone uses that sort of tough on crime approach in their campaign. We are out of time. So can we give todd and alex a round of