On March 13 1985, after the executioner probed veins for 45 minutes looking for one that wasnt collapsed - raising the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union - Stephen Peter Morin was put to death by the state of Texas for the murder of Carrie Marie Scott, whose car he was attempting to steal.His real name, though, was Stephen Morin and he raped and murdered as many as 30 women.
In this extract from his blog Clarke recalls how he unwittingly helped his friend to fit out his mobile torture chamber - and an odd act of humanity by the serial killer C h r i s C l a r k e Thu 14 Apr 2005 19.05 EDT One morning 20 years ago this month, I opened the front section of the Washington Post and read that my friend Stephen Peter Morin had been executed by the state of Texas for capital murder. There are two reasons that that sentence, while accurate, felt awkward to write. First reason: it has been a long time since I thought of Morin as a friend. He was a twisted, manipulative and malevolent person, and if I hate anyone in the world or out of it I hate him. But Morin was his real name, and for a number of months in 1981 I spent just about every day with him, generally enjoying his company. Ray Constantine rode up to the front porch of my mothers house on his bicycle one day to ask whether she knew of apartments he could rent. Her current partner is one of my favourite people in the world, but my mother had phenomenally, staggeringly bad judgment in men in those days: by that evening or the next, it seemed, he had moved in with her. Ray was a smooth talker, and closer to my age than to my mothers. My mother had had a string of failed relationships with a string of increasingly sleazy men, the previous one ending just a week or two before. Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Full Of TheFull of the self-righteousness only a 21-year-old boy with a disintegrating mother truly knows, I exploded at her in mortified fury, telling her that she was being incredibly stupid and allowing herself to be set up for another romantic disaster. She said hed be moving in and that Id better get used to the idea. So I did. Ray decided to work his way into my good graces by getting me a job - always in short supply in 1981 Buffalo. Three things about that summer stand out in my mind, aside from the monotony of paint, hauling kegs of tar to roofs, and a story about a ladder that will come a bit later. The first was heading to WashingtonDC to the giant march in support of the striking air traffic controllers. The second was finding out that my mother had ordered a copy of my birth certificate to give to Ray so that he could get ID with a different name on it. I intercepted it in what was likely the luckiest moment of my life. The third was just before Ray and my mother left for their trip across country in her van. I wandered by her house one humid night - Id moved out to my own place, what with my union paycheck - and found Ray sweating, attaching carpet to the walls and ceiling of the van. He was struggling to hold the carpet up as he put rivets into metal; I stepped up and helped him. My mother and Ray went from town to town, San Francisco, Denver, Las Vegas, and into Texas. In each town Ray would disappear for a day or two and then show up again, a worried look in his eyes, insisting they leave town right away. There was an uncomfortable period in Texas in December after he found out shed turned him in but before they caught him. Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Trial And PleadedAnd then they did catch him, and he went to trial and pleaded guilty to capital murder and asked for the death penalty.
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