Executed June 15, 2010 06:10 p.m. CDT by Lethal Injection in Texas
Summary:
Austin police officer Ralph Ablanedo, 26, pulled over a vehicle for not
displaying a rear license plate. The driver, Sheila Meinert, 27, got
out of the car and approached him. She told him she had lost her
driver’s license, but she showed him her passport. The officer asked
the dispatcher by radio to check Meinert and her passenger, David
Powell, 27, for outstanding warrants. The dispatcher informed Ablanedo
that the computers were not functioning properly, but that there were
no local warrants for Meinert. Ablanedo issued Meinert a citation for
the license plate and allowed her to drive away. As she was pulling
out, however, the dispatcher told Ablanedo that Powell had a possible
warrant for misdemeanor theft. The dispatcher called for officer Bruce
Mills, Ablanedo’s partner, to go out to back up Ablanedo. Ablanedo
stopped the vehicle again. As he was approaching the car, and Meinert
was walking toward him, Powell shot at the officer through the back
window with an AK-47 machine gun. Initially, the weapon was set to
semiautomatic mode. Ablanedo tried to get up, but Powell switched the
weapon to full automatic mode fired at him again. The car then left.
Officer Mills arrived a few minutes later. Ablanedo had been shot ten
times. Despite the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, it was
not designed to withstand fire from automatic weapons.
Powell’s background was different from
most other capital murder defendants. He graduated from high school a
year early and was both the valedictorian and “most likely to succeed”
of his small rural school class. He was accepted into the honors
program at the University of Texas. While there, he became an anti-war
protester and began using drugs. He never finished college. By 1978, he
was a heavy user and dealer of methamphetamine. Powell was one of only
twelve prisoners remaining on Texas’ death row who committed their
capital offenses in the 1970′s. He was the longest-serving inmate
executed in Texas since the state resumed carrying out executions in
1982.
Final/Special Meal:
Four eggs, four chicken drumsticks, salsa, four jalapeno peppers,
lettuce, tortillas, hashbrowns, garlic bread, two pork chops, white and
yellow grated cheese, sliced onions and tomatoes, a pitcher of milk and
a vanilla shake.
Last Words:
None.
Internet Sources:
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Media Advisory: David Lee Powell scheduled for execution
AUSTIN –
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information
about David Lee Powell, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. on
Tuesday, June 15, for the 1978 slaying of Austin police Officer Ralph
Ablanedo.
FACTS OF THE CRIME
On the
evening of May 17, 1978, Austin police Officer Ralph Ablanedo stopped a
car and issued a citation to the driver for failing to display a
driver’s license. Ablanedo asked the dispatcher to check for local
warrants on the driver and passenger David Lee Powell. The dispatcher
found no warrants on the driver.
As the
car pulled away, Ablanedo learned from the dispatcher that there was a
possible warrant on Powell for misdemeanor theft. Ablanedo stopped the
vehicle again, and as the officer approached the driver, Powell shot at
the officer through the car’s back window with an AK-47, knocking him
to the ground. The weapon was set to semi-automatic mode, which
required him to pull the trigger more than once. Powell switched to
automatic mode and fired at Officer Ablanedo again, knocking the
officer to the ground a second time. The car then left.
Meanwhile,
the dispatcher on learning that there was a possible arrest warrant on
Powell, had sent another police officer to check on Ablanedo. When the
officer arrived at the scene a few minutes later, he found Ablanedo
lying on the ground. Ablanedo told the officer that he had no chance to
pull his weapon. Although Ablanedo had been wearing a bullet-proof
vest, it was not designed to withstand fire from an automatic weapon.
Ablanedo suffered ten gunshot wounds and died on arrival at the
hospital.
Other
police officers tracked Powell’s car to an apartment complex parking
lot. Powell fired on the officers with his AK-47 from inside the
vehicle and threw a live hand grenade in the direction of the officers
and then fled from the car. The hand grenade did not explode because
Powell had not removed all of the safeties.
Police
arrested Powell in the early morning hours in some bushes on the
grounds of a nearby school. They also discovered a .45 caliber
automatic pistol hidden under shrubs on the grounds as well as Powell’s
backpack, containing seven packages of high-grade methamphetamine.
Further investigation revealed that Powell had fired at least
twenty-three rounds of ammunition, and police uncovered fifteen live
rounds in Powell’s car. Police also retrieved from Powell’s car a book
entitled Book of Rifles, tabbed at pages discussing a Soviet AK-47
rifle. The book contained loose notes in Powell’s handwriting about
different types and models of weapons and notes referring to other
books on weapons. Books and notes regarding guerrilla warfare and a
pair of handcuffs were also found in the car.
A search
of Powell’s residence led to the discovery of another hand grenade,
additional weapons and ammunition, more books and manuals on weaponry
and combat, the components of a methamphetamine lab, and three vials of
methamphetamine.
PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY
Powell’s
capital murder conviction is his only conviction. However, he was
previously arrested for the following offenses: auto theft in Travis
County; auto theft and possession of dangerous drugs in Travis County;
obscenity in New Orleans, Louisiana; and petty theft in Travis.
David
Lee Powell, 59, was executed by lethal injection on 15 June 2010 in
Huntsville, Texas for killing a police officer at a traffic stop.
On the
evening of 17 May 1978, Austin police officer Ralph Ablanedo, 26,
pulled over a vehicle for not displaying a rear license plate. The
driver, Sheila Meinert, 27, got out of the car and approached him. She
told him she had lost her driver’s license, but she showed him her
passport. The officer asked the dispatcher by radio to check Meinert
and her passenger, David Powell, 27, for outstanding warrants. The
dispatcher informed Ablanedo that the computers were not functioning
properly, but that there were no local warrants for Meinert. Ablanedo
issued Meinert a citation for the license plate and allowed her to
drive away. As she was pulling out, however, the dispatcher told
Ablanedo that Powell had a possible warrant for misdemeanor theft. The
dispatcher called for officer Bruce Mills, Ablanedo’s partner, to go
out to back up Ablanedo.
Ablanedo
stopped the vehicle again. As he was approaching the car, and Meinert
was walking toward him, Powell shot at the officer through the back
window with an AK-47 machine gun. Initially, the weapon was set to
semiautomatic mode. Ablanedo tried to get up, but Powell switched the
weapon to full automatic mode fired at him again. The car then left.
Officer
Mills arrived a few minutes later. Ablanedo had been shot ten times.
Despite the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, it was not
designed to withstand fire from automatic weapons. Ablanedo told Mills
what happened and said he had no chance to draw his weapon. He died on
the operating table of the hospital about an hour after he was shot.
Officers tracked Powell’s car to an apartment complex parking lot.
Powell fired on them from inside the vehicle, but no one was hit.
Meinert was arrested in the parking lot.
Police
arrested Powell in the early morning in some bushes on the grounds of a
nearby school. They discovered a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a
backpack containing 2 and 1/4 ounces of high-grade methamphetamine
hidden under some shrubs. In the car, police discovered a book entitled
“Book of Rifles”. Pages discussing the AK-47 were tabbed down, and the
book contained notes in Powell’s handwriting about different types of
weapons and other books on weapons. Also in the car were a pair of
handcuffs, some ammunition, and books and notes regarding guerrilla
warfare.
Back at
the apartment complex, officers found a live hand grenade on the
ground, about ten feet away from the driver’s door of one of the police
cars. The grenade did not detonate because, although the pin was
pulled out, the safety clip was still in place. A search of Powell’s
residence uncovered another hand grenade, more guns and ammunition,
books on weapons and combat, a methamphetamine lab, and three vials of
methamphetamine.
Powell’s
background was different from most other capital murder defendants. He
graduated from high school a year early and was both the valedictorian
and “most likely to succeed” of his small rural school class. He was
accepted into the honors program at the University of Texas. While
there, he became an anti-war protester and began using drugs. He never
finished college. By 1978, he was a heavy user and dealer of
methamphetamine, and had an arrest record for auto theft, petty theft,
and drug possession. He was wanted for passing over 100 bad checks to
merchants in the Austin area and had begun carrying around loaded
weapons out of paranoia. He had no criminal convictions at the time of
the murder.
On the
day of Powell’s arrest, the trial court, at the state’s request,
ordered a psychiatric examination to determine his sanity at the time
of the offense and competency to stand trial. Dr. Richard Coons and Dr.
George Parker conducted the evaluation and determined that Powell was
sane and competent.
Bobby
Bullard testified that he witnessed Ablanedo’s shooting as he was
driving home from work. He saw shots fired from the Mustang that
knocked out the back windshield. He saw a man sitting in the middle of
the front seat, leaning into the back seat. Bullard’s description of
the man he saw shooting matched Powell’s appearance at the time of his
arrest. However, Bullard, Officer Mills, others who arrived at the
scene, and the doctors who treated Ablanedo all testified that Ablanedo
repeatedly said “that damn girl”. Witness testimony was also
contradictory as to whether Powell or Meinert threw the grenade in the
direction of the police car at the apartment parking lot.
In order
to impose a death sentence, juries must find not only that the
defendant is responsible for capital murder, but also that he poses a
future danger to society. At Powell’s punishment hearing, Drs. Coon and
Parker testified as to his future dangerousness, based on the
examination they conducted when evaluating his sanity and competence.
A jury convicted Powell of capital murder in September 1978 and
sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the
conviction and sentence in July 1987.
Sheila
Margaret Meinert was convicted of attempted capital murder for her part
in the incident at the apartment parking lot. She was sentenced to 15
years in prison. She was paroled in June 1989. With no arrests after
her parole, she was discharged from her sentence in January 2000.
In 1988,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Satterwhite v. Texas that the Fifth
and Sixth Amendments guarantee criminal defendants the right to be told
in advance that a psychiatric evaluation may be used to determine
their future dangerousness, that they have the right to remain silent,
and that their counsel must be informed that the evaluation is taking
place. Because of the similarities between Satterwhite’s case and
Powell’s, the Supreme Court sent Powell’s case back in June 1988 to the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for reconsideration in light of this
recent decision.
On
review, the Texas court held that Powell waived his right to object to
the testimony of Dr. Coons and Parker when his lawyers used psychiatric
testimony to argue for an insanity defense. Such an argument, the
court reasoned, entitles the state to present psychiatric evidence in
refutation. The Court of Criminal Appeals reaffirmed Powell’s guilty
verdict and death sentence in January 1989. The case then went back
to the Supreme Court, which found that while the Court of Criminal
Appeals dealt with the Fifth Amendment issue – the right to remain
silent – it failed to answer the Sixth Amendment issue – the right to
counsel. In July 1989, the Supreme Court vacated Powell’s death
sentence.
The
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Powell’s second death sentence
in December 1994 because the trial court’s instructions to the jury
were inadequate. By this time, the law had been changed so that when a
death sentence was thrown out, the guilty verdict remained in force, so
the state could request a new punishment hearing without having to
retry the defendant’s guilt. A new punishment hearing was held, and
Powell was sentenced to death for the third time in November 1999. All
of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.
For most
of his 32 years on death row, Powell declined interview requests from
reporters, while his lawyers attempted with each new hearing to shift
as much of the blame for Ablanedo’s murder as possible to Sheila
Meinert. In December 2009, however, as his appeals began to run out,
Powell wrote a letter to the victim’s family. “I am infinitely sorry
that I killed Ralph Ablanedo,” he wrote. “I shot Officer Ablanedo and I
take responsibility for his death. In a few frightful seconds, I stole
from you and the world the precious and irreplaceable life of a good
man … There is no excuse for what I did.”
The week
before his execution, Powell’s attorneys filed appeals asking that the
death sentence be reduced to life in prison. They claimed that in his
more than 30 years on death row, Powell was a model inmate who
exhibited “exemplary and humane behavior”, contradicting the jury’s
finding that he posed a future danger to society. Prosecutors countered
that the juries in 1991 and 1999 considered evidence of Powell’s good
behavior in prison and still sentenced him to death. State and federal
courts rejected the appeals. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
also unanimously declined his request for a reduced sentence.
Bruce
Mills eventually married Ablanedo’s widow, Judy, and adopted their two
sons. They and other family members were escorted by Austin police
officers to attend the execution. Powell kept his eyes locked on the
victim’s family as the execution was being administered, but he did not
acknowledge the warden’s invitation to make a last statement. He was
pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m.
In 1972,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty law in every state
was unconstitutional. Texas commuted the sentences of every death row
prisoner and passed a new death penalty statute in 1973. When Powell
arrived on death row in 1978, no one had yet been executed under the
new law. Since then, 459 prisoners have been executed before him. About
half that many have had their sentences commuted or overturned, and 36
have died from other causes. Powell was one of only twelve prisoners
remaining on Texas’ death row who committed their capital offenses in
the 1970′s.
Before
Powell, the longest time a prisoner served on death row before being
executed was 24 years. Robert Excell White killed a store owner and two
customers in a robbery in 1974, and was executed in 1999. Five
prisoners have been on death row longer than Powell. Two of them,
Raymond Riles and Clarence Jordan, are considered mentally incompetent
and ineligible for execution. Ronald Chambers and Anthony Pierce both
had their death sentences vacated by the federal courts in 2008, and the
state is seeking to have them reimposed. No recent information on the
fifth, Harvey Earvin, was available for this report.
“Convicted killer executed in slaying of Austin police officer.” by Michael Graczyk. (Associated Press June 15, 2010, 6:56PM)
HUNTSVILLE
— A former drug dealer convicted of using an assault rifle to kill an
Austin police officer during a traffic stop 32 years ago was executed
Tuesday evening. David Lee Powell, 59, received lethal injection about
30 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt his punishment
Tuesday evening. He was the longest-serving inmate executed in Texas
since the state resumed carrying out executions in 1982. He’s also one
of the longest-imprisoned in the nation to die. In 2008, a prisoner in
Georgia was executed after spending more than 33 years on death row.
Powell’s
attorneys had argued unsuccessfully his exemplary behavior on death
row over the past three decades showed jurors were wrong when they
decided he would be a continuing danger and should die for killing
26-year-old Ralph Ablanedo. Asked by a warden if he had a final
statement, Powell gave no response. As the drugs began flowing into
his arms, he gasped slightly, began snoring quietly, then showed no
movement. Nine minutes later, at 6:19 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.
Some 150
retired and active police officers from Austin traveled 135 miles east
to Huntsville and waited outside the downtown prison in the
90-plus-degree heat as the punishment was carried out. Several officers
in the group knew Ablanedo. “We’re not here to gloat or to celebrate a
death,” Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo said. “We’re here
to celebrate a life, and that is the life of Officer Ablanedo.”
“Powell
executed for 1978 slaying of police officer; Family of Ralph Ablanedo
expresses relief after 32-year wait; David Lee Powell makes no final
statement,” by Tony Plohetski and Chuck Lindell. (Updated: 12:46 a.m.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010)
HUNTSVILLE
— Declining to make a final statement, David Lee Powell was executed
Tuesday for killing an Austin police officer 32 years ago as seven
members of his victim’s family watched silently from a nearby window.
Strapped to the execution gurney with intravenous lines already
inserted, Powell kept his eyes locked on members of officer Ralph
Ablanedo’s family but did not acknowledge Warden Charles O’Reilly’s
invitation to speak. His head still turned toward the window, Powell
half closed his eyes as the lethal combination of drugs began flowing
at 6:10 p.m.
Afterward,
Bruce Mills, a former Austin officer who was Ablanedo’s friend and
later married his widow, said it felt as if a weight had been lifted.
“Relief would be the word to describe it,” Mills said. “No more
hearings. No more appeals.”
Powell’s
death concluded a 32-year case that featured three trials and multiple
appeals, agonizing Ablanedo’s family but providing Powell’s friends
and supporters with the slim hope that his execution could be avoided.
One late appeal, filed last week, argued that jurors mistakenly labeled
Powell a continuing threat to society, a requirement for imposing the
death sentence.
Supporters
argued that it was unconstitutional to kill Powell based on
information shown to be incorrect after he spent three decades as a
model inmate — helping illiterate prisoners learn to read and
counseling others on death row. Travis County prosecutors responded by
reminding the courts that jurors in two retrials — ordered after
successful appeals in 1991 and 1999 — had already considered evidence
of Powell’s good behavior and still sentenced him to death. Texas
courts rejected that appeal Monday, as did the U.S. Supreme Court on
Tuesday, shortly before Powell’s execution.
In
addition, Powell lawyer Richard Burr filed an execution-day appeal
accusing Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg of providing
false statements to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board
this month considered Powell’s request to have his death sentence
reduced to a life term. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied that claim
in the early afternoon, before prosecutors could file arguments
denying the allegation.
About
150 current and former Austin police officers traveled to Huntsville
for the execution — meeting for lunch in a local hotel to watch a video
about Ablanedo’s life. Most retired officers were wearing black
“Journey to Justice” T-shirts. Some wiped tears from their eyes. After
being escorted to the prison by Huntsville police, the Austin officers
assembled in seven lines —those who had worked with Ablanedo stood at
the front — to serve as an honor guard for the slain officer’s family.
The officers stood at attention and saluted as Bruce and Judy Mills;
Ablanedo’s 87-year-old mother, Betsy; and other family members were
greeted and given hugs by Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo.
Acevedo
said later that Ablanedo’s relatives were overwhelmed by the display of
support. “They were very touched,” he said, adding that the encounter
was emotional for him as well. “When you see his widow and Bruce Mills
and his mother start to cry it’s hard not to feel their pain,” the
chief said. “A mother should never have to bury her child.” Once the
prison doors closed, the officers broke ranks and milled around.
Suddenly,
nearby protesters fired up their microphone: “We are here because in
one hour the State of Texas is going to murder David Lee Powell,” a
voice loudly proclaimed — greeted by cheers from many of the police
officers. “David Powell the 27-year-old drug addict is not the same
person as the sober and remorseful 59-year-old man who is being
executed today,” Nell Warnes, who had visited with Powell since 2004,
told protesters later. “From my long-term interaction with David, I am
certain that he is no longer a threat to our society.” When it became
apparent that Powell was going to be executed, the four dozen
protesters, kept about 100 yards from the officers, stood silently.
Powell
spent his final day packing personal property — much of it bound and
loose papers — into about 10 orange mesh bags for delivery to
Huntsville’s Hospitality House. Friends can pick up the items there for
delivery to his relatives, who were not present in Huntsville.
“Crime
and punishment: After 32 years, has Powell’s execution lost its
meaning?” by Chuck Lindell and Tony Plohetski. (June 15, 2010)
Heavily
armed, deeply paranoid and strung out on drugs, David Lee Powell was a
nightmare personified in 1978. Sitting in a car that had been pulled
over on a dark Austin side street, Powell sighted his AK-47 through the
rear window. Police radios caught officer Ralph Ablanedo’s scream as
the first bullet penetrated his bulletproof vest. Nine more shots found
their mark. The well-liked father of two young sons died shortly
after the 12:30 a.m. attack .
Barring
the unexpected, Powell will be executed for that crime on June 15 — 32
years, three weeks and five days after Ablanedo was buried with honors.
Texas has never executed a man after so much time has passed, giving
rise to a question that speaks to a basic concept of punishment and
justice: Has Powell’s execution been robbed of its meaning and purpose?
The
clean-cut 59-year-old man who will be strapped to the Huntsville gurney
to receive a trio of lethal drugs is nothing like the nightmare from
another era. Powell’s time in prison long ago removed the
methamphetamine taint that helped turn a promising honors student into a
jittery, lank-haired killer, and a fiercely loyal group of supporters
insists that putting him to death now would be a travesty. “He’s the
old David Powell” — intelligent, compassionate, articulate and
thoughtful — and no longer poses a danger to society, said attorney
David Van Os, who befriended Powell in 1968. “This is not how the death
penalty was intended to be used.”
But for
those most touched by Ablanedo’s murder, Powell’s execution remains a
meaningful — and desired — goal. Irene Ablanedo, Ralph’s sister,
plans to stand at the window in the Huntsville death chamber to watch
Powell die from five feet away. She will be thinking about her brother,
what he meant to his family and how he was taken away too early. The
pain of loss still burns. “I can’t wait for that bastard to take his
last breath,” she said. “That is what he deserves.”
For some
officers, Powell’s death is a matter of fairness — an eye for an eye —
that validates their service in a dangerous profession and adds a
measure of protection by sending a clear message: If you kill a cop,
you die. More than 100 current and retired Austin police officers —
including Ablanedo’s friends and some who weren’t even born when he
died — will drive or take a chartered bus for an execution-day trip to
Huntsville, which they’re calling the Journey to Justice. Those who
can’t make it will toast Ablanedo in a downtown Austin bar at 6 p.m.,
the time set for Powell’s execution. “It is a matter of unfinished
business,” said retired police Lt. George Vanderhule, who helped
Ablanedo’s widow plan his funeral. “This has gone on for 32 years, and
he has managed to evade justice.”
But
defense lawyer Richard Burr argues another perspective. Powell, he
said, has led an exemplary life in the harsh conditions of death row —
teaching illiterate inmates to read, defusing guard-prisoner tensions
and offering true friendship to many in the “free world.” “Powell is
someone who contributes much more to life than his execution would
contribute to the symbolic goal of retribution 32 years after the
murder of Ralph Ablanedo,” Burr wrote to the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles in hopes of getting Powell’s sentence reduced to life in
prison.
Speaking
recently from death row, Powell said he wants to live. “I think I
still have something to offer in this life,” he said. But he’s also
begun preparing for an execution that appears increasingly likely.
Saying he is horrified to have caused Ablanedo’s murder, Powell has
tried to apologize to the officer’s family and to express regret for the
pain he caused by “an act that was a betrayal of everything I believed
in and aspired to be.” “I had wanted to do it for decades,” Powell
said of his December 2009 letter to Ablanedo’s family. “Although it was
obviously too little too late, it seemed like the right thing to do.
It seemed like a small, tentative first step towards healing the tear
in the social fabric that was caused” by the murder.
‘You’ll be all right’
It was
shortly after midnight on May 18, 1978. Powell — carrying an
automatic rifle with 38 rounds in the clip, a .45-caliber handgun, a
hand grenade and $5,000 in methamphetamine — was on his way to Killeen
for a drug deal. Girlfriend Sheila Meinert was driving his red Mustang,
which was missing its rear license tag.
Ablanedo
— a five-year officer who loved fishing, married his high school
sweetheart and had two boys, ages 5 and 1½ — was patrolling
South-Central Austin. He pulled the Mustang over on Live Oak Street and
ticketed Meinert. Computer trouble prevented dispatchers from checking
on Powell, so the officer let them go. But before the Mustang had
traveled half a block, the computer sprang to life and revealed that
Powell was wanted for theft and writing bad checks to dozens of Austin
merchants. Ablanedo again signaled Meinert to pull over as the
dispatcher alerted officer Bruce Mills to provide routine backup.
Mills
heard a scream over the police radio — it sounded like Ablanedo, but he
wasn’t sure — and arrived a short time later to find his friend
bleeding on the street. “He got me with a shotgun. He got me,”
Ablanedo told Mills, also describing the weapon as a machine gun.
Trying to sit up, Ablanedo asked how badly he was hurt. Running a hand
over his stomach, he felt blood and lay back down. You’ll be all
right, Mills replied.
As
paramedics arrived, other officers cornered Powell in the parking lot
of a nearby apartment complex. Somehow, nobody was hurt in the shootout
that followed or when the grenade with a 16-foot kill radius, its pin
pulled but a safety device still engaged, failed to explode after being
thrown near police. Meinert was quickly arrested. She served four
years of a 15-year sentence for being a party to attempted capital
murder. (Now living near Seattle, she hung up on a reporter who
recently contacted her by phone.)
Powell
ran. Police, believing they had him boxed into a wooded area, sent in
six officers and two bloodhounds. Everyone else was told to stay out;
anything moving would be considered a target. About the same time,
Ablanedo, 26, died on a hospital operating room table.
Powell,
only one year older than Ablanedo, was found hiding in bushes at Travis
High School about 4 a.m. and arrested without incident. His capital
murder conviction four months later prompted this line in the
American-Statesman: “Given the long, complex appeal process that is
automatic upon conviction of capital murder, Powell probably will
remain in a cell for several years.” It was a lot longer than that.
Powell’s appeals resulted in two new trials, in 1991 and 1999. Both
times, Powell was returned to death row after jurors concluded he still
posed a threat to society.
‘Not a troublemaker’
Before
the death penalty can be imposed — today and when Powell was first
convicted in 1978 — jurors must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant will probably commit future acts of violence that pose a
“continuing threat” to society. Powell’s supporters say it’s absurd to
believe the gentle, intelligent man of 2010 poses any such risk.
While on
death row, Powell was disciplined a few times, but only for minor
rules infractions such as having too many prison-issued socks or
refusing to remove a poster from his cell wall, prison officials said.
Four guards and a supervisor, testifying at Powell’s 1999 retrial,
called the inmate respectful and nonviolent. “He was very quiet,
always well-mannered,” Mark Morrow, a 14-year guard, testified. “Not a
troublemaker, by any means.”
Psychiatrist
Seth Silverman of Houston has concluded that Powell poses “virtually
no risk” of future violence. Powell has no history of violence beyond
that one horrific act in 1978, understands the string of bad choices
that led to Ablanedo’s murder and displays a superior intellect that
allows him to learn from past mistakes, said Silverman, an expert in
addiction and forensic psychiatry, in an affidavit supplied by defense
lawyers.
In
addition, Powell’s age adds an element of safety, Silverman said,
pointing to research showing that arrest rates fall 90 percent from age
20 to 60. Silverman began treating Powell about three years ago when
the inmate became convinced that voices from androidlike robots were
telling him to commit suicide. Aided by his intellect and ability to
form healthy relationships, Powell quickly responded to psychotherapy,
and the symptoms disappeared within several months, Silverman said.
Longtime
friend Genevieve Hearon of Austin said Powell has kept a remarkably
even temperament and displayed consistent concern for others despite
living in harsh conditions, including confinement in a 60-square-foot
cell since death row moved into new quarters in the Polunsky Unit in
1999. Hearon’s nonprofit, Capacity for Justice, works on behalf of
prisoners with disabilities and presented Powell with its first
Brothers’ Keeper Humanitarian Award in 2008. Powell, she said, helped
speed accommodations for deaf and wheelchair-using prisoners at the
Travis County Jail, where he was held during his retrials, and worked
to connect disabled death row inmates with outside help. “In all of
my contact with him, he’s been helping other prisoners,” Hearon said.
Van Os,
who befriended Powell when they were University of Texas freshmen in
1968, believes Powell could safely be released from prison.
“Everything that is known about David Powell demonstrates that the
horrific act of violence that he perpetrated against officer Ablanedo
and the Ablanedo family is an anomaly in his life. He is a very
peaceful, nonviolent person,” said Van Os, a former Austin lawyer who
now practices in San Antonio. “I’m not trying to excuse what he did. I
don’t excuse it. It was a murder, and it was horrible,” Van Os said.
“But the death penalty is supposed to be imposed only on a person who’s
a continuing danger to society and in his case, that is being made
into a farce.”
‘Just really scary’
With
details of Ablanedo’s murder still fresh in 1978, Travis County
prosecutors had little trouble arguing that Powell posed a lasting
threat. And during the 1991 and 1999 retrials, with defense lawyers
presenting evidence that Powell had appeared to reform while behind
bars, prosecutors never wavered. “I want you to picture the blood of
Ralph Ablanedo seeping through his bulletproof vest,” prosecutor Robert
Smith told jurors in 1991. “David Powell is here because of a
character disorder that cannot be rectified.”
Lead
prosecutor Terry Keel placed Powell’s handgun on a table in front of
Powell and asked jurors: “Does this make you feel safe? The death
penalty is society’s self-defense. You have a very manipulative, very
dangerous individual here.” Jurors in the 1991 trial deliberated for
10 hours. Nine of those hours were spent on Powell’s dangerousness,
said Charles Carsner, the jury foreman who still lives in Austin. The
turning point was a psychologist’s notes discussing Powell’s vision or
dream “where he was driving at night on a lonely road, and a cop pulls
him over, and he kills the cop,” Carsner recalled recently. “It was
just really scary.”
After
jurors in the 1999 retrial came to the same conclusion, Powell’s
appeals argued that his death sentence was unconstitutional because
there is no evidence that he still posed a danger. U.S. Magistrate
Judge Andrew Austin disagreed. “Powell contends that he was ‘a
different person’ when he was retried in 1999. Regardless of whether
this court might agree with that statement, the jury was not compelled
to accept that contention, and it plainly did not,” Austin wrote in
2005, adding that a federal appeals court has “explicitly rejected the
argument that improving oneself after committing a heinous crime
prevents a jury from concluding that one is a future danger.”
Powell
supporters remain convinced that such a legalistic argument ignores
Powell’s character, contributions and contrition. But Ronnie Earle,
the former Travis County district attorney who prosecuted Powell in
1978, is unconvinced. “There was never any doubt about the
applicability of the law and the appropriateness of the sentence. It
was an ambush totally out of nowhere,” Earle said. “His soul is between
him and his own personal higher power. His actions are between him and
the law.”
‘He was a genius’
Powell
was a fish out of water when he arrived at UT for the fall 1968
semester. Described as shy and naive, he came to Austin from his
family’s 80-acre dairy farm near Campbell, a town of fewer than 500
about 60 miles northeast of Dallas. He had been voted most likely to
succeed at Campbell High School and was valedictorian of his 15-member
graduating class even after skipping his junior year.
“He was
the class nerd; he was a very bright man,” former classmate Karen Hair
testified at Powell’s 1999 trial. “We thought he was a genius. He had
very thick glasses, and he walked around with a smile on his face all
the time.” His SAT scores were almost perfect, and officials with Plan
II, UT’s honors program, were excited to have him, UT adviser Donette
Moss testified in 1999. After initial trouble adjusting, Powell’s
grades and schoolwork improved — but trouble arose during his sophomore
year, Moss said. Powell got involved in the anti-war movement and
began experimenting with drugs. He dropped out of UT in 1970 and slid
deeper into addiction over the next eight years.
In the
years before Ablanedo’s death, Powell’s family was alarmed to find the
calm, responsible boy replaced by a flighty, fast-talking man with
paranoid delusions. Former friends had trouble recognizing him in his
thin, disoriented, disheveled state. “He called me once and said he
had to be careful talking to me because the CIA was after him,” uncle
Clem Struve said. “I’ve had mental illness in my family, and I thought
he was having a nervous breakdown,” Marjorie Powell, his mother, said
recently from her Dallas home. “I called a psychiatrist, different
people for help.” Powell, however, disappeared. No amount of searching
could turn him up, Struve said.
Then
came the phone call from Austin about Ablanedo’s death. “I remember
screaming. Nobody could stop me from screaming,” Marjorie Powell said.
“It destroyed me, really. I love him with all my heart, of course. And I
have never stopped loving him.” Marjorie Powell spent her life
savings on lawyers and sat through emotionally wrenching trials, crying
out in anguish when her son was sentenced to death, again, in 1991.
She and her husband divorced, and Bill Powell died in 2007.
If there
has been any silver lining, Marjorie Powell said, it has been watching
her son regain the sweet disposition he had as a child. “He tries to
help anybody that’s around him, even the guards. One guard talked to
me and said he was all for David, that David seemed like a wonderful
person — and that’s a guard,” she said. “I’ve had mothers of different
cellmates call to say how David has been so kind to their sons.”
‘What a hero’
Before
he reported to duty for his final patrol shift, Ralph Ablanedo spent a
few minutes sitting with his wife, Judy, on the front porch of their
South Austin home. He was sniffling from spring allergies but eager to
work, Judy recalled. “He was absolutely the model that you would want a
police officer to be,” said former Austin police Sgt. Sam Cox, who was
Ablanedo’s supervisor. “He had an even temperament, a great family, a
supportive wife and a bright future, and he loved what he was doing. He
was just a good, decent human being.”
Soon
after her husband drove away, Judy Ablanedo put their children to bed.
Several hours later, she was awakened by pounding on the front door.
The officer at the door had already summoned a neighbor to care for the
Ablanedo children, and he whisked Judy to the hospital in his patrol
car. How bad is it? she asked. It’s serious, he told her.
They
were at the hospital only a few minutes before Police Chief Frank Dyson
and a doctor walked into the waiting room. Judy sank into a chair and
sobbed. “Nobody had to say anything,” she said. “It was written on
everyone’s face.”
Mills
was already there, having ridden in the ambulance with his friend and
patrol partner. Together, he and Judy took on the grim task of telling
Ablanedo’s parents, who had moved to Austin in 1964, that their son was
dead. Over the next two years, Judy Ablanedo and Mills spent a lot of
time together. He’d listen to her anger and sadness in late-night
phone calls. A relationship bloomed, and they married in October 1980.
David
Ablanedo, only 17 months old when his dad was killed, has learned about
the man through stories shared by other family members, from reading
scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and from photographs. One of his
favorite photos hangs on a wall at the Austin Police Department. He had
seen it while visiting Bruce Mills, whose last name he assumed. “You
think about, ‘Who was my dad?’” David Mills said. “Naturally, you want
to know who he was.”
Over the
years, he has thought of his father as a hero, not just because of
what happened that night, but because of his devotion to his family and
desire to make the world a better place. “He died in the line of
duty serving the city, and as a boy, you look up to your dad,” he said.
“You look to Ralph and say, ‘What a hero.’”
‘Nobody wins’
For
years, Ablanedo’s family has watched in frustration as Powell’s case,
which they viewed as clear-cut, prompted new trials and appeals. With
Powell’s execution now days away, they are making plans for their own
journey to justice.
David,
who works in the San Francisco area for a human resources consulting
firm, is flying in for the execution. His older brother, Steve, a 911
dispatcher in Boston, also will attend. Ralph’s sister Irene, his
brother Armand and their 87-year-old mother, Betsy, are driving to
Huntsville a day early to make sure nothing comes between them and the
execution witness room. Ablanedo’s father died of natural causes in
1981.
They
predict relief will be the prevailing emotion when the death sentence
is carried out — mostly because it will mark the end of any legal
proceeding. “But it is one of those things where nobody wins,” Judy
Mills said. “He will be put to death, and Ralph will still be gone.
It’s not about feeling better. There is nothing to feel good about.”
In
recent months, Bruce Mills has pondered the death penalty and Powell’s
execution. He thinks that in this instance, part of the purpose of the
execution has lost its meaning. “I don’t think it is about
deterrent,” he said. “It is about retribution.” Judy Mills said, “If
it had been done in a timely fashion, it might have been a deterrent,
but when you can play the system for that many years, I don’t think it
is.”
But
Bruce Mills said the passage of three decades doesn’t make Powell’s
execution any less deserved. He said he supports Powell’s rights,
including his ability to appeal, but said the legal course that wound
through 30 years has been unfair. “That is the injustice to the family
and what the death penalty was meant for,” Bruce Mills said.
‘Terribly sorry’
Hands
cuffed behind his back and a guard at each shoulder, Powell is led into
a cramped booth in the Polunsky Unit’s visitor lounge. The cuffs are
unlocked through a hole in the metal door behind him, and he smiles
widely as he picks up the phone to begin his first-ever interview with
newspaper reporters. Powell at 59, his hair gone silver and his gaze
steady, is a far cry from the dazed, unkempt man who appeared in photos
after his arrest. He pauses often to collect his thoughts, which tend
toward the philosophical.
“Thirty-two
years ago, I was responsible for an enormously evil act, and it must
have affected most or all people who lived in Austin and their level of
comfort, the way they saw themselves and their neighbors,” he said.
“And no apology I could give would be powerful enough to express my
regret for that. “But every person is more than the worst thing they
have ever done, and I am no exception.”
Powell’s
lawyers always advised him to avoid contact with Ablanedo’s family and
the media, but with his appeals exhausted, he is free to try to
explain himself. He’s also free to pursue a goal he knows will be
elusive: redemption.
Powell’s
letter to the Ablanedo family — the first time he publicly took
responsibility for the officer’s death — was meant to let them “know
how terribly sorry I was.” Powell also offered to meet with anybody who
feels they might be helped by the conversation, but Ablanedo’s family
wasn’t interested. “I guess the question I’m asking myself is how much
pain is sufficient to achieve redemption in the aftermath of
irreparable damage. And I don’t guess you can ever achieve redemption
in this,” he said. “I hope I’m a better person now than I was then.
But the truth is, most of my life I was a better person than what you
know of me. Time has allowed my true character to re-emerge and show
itself. That’s how I understand it.”
With his
execution looking more and more likely, Powell said he hopes to
“connect with family and loved ones outside family — let them know what
they’ve meant to me, apologize for my departure and say goodbye.”
Inmates can have up to five people at the execution chamber, where they
gather in a separate room from the one holding the victim’s family.
Powell said he has tried to discourage family and friends from watching,
fearing they “will be damaged by what they witness.” “I have
encouraged everybody to stay away, to be honest. Nonetheless, there
will be some there.”
An indelible impact
Today,
Ralph Ablanedo Drive runs more than a half-mile through a South Austin
neighborhood. The officer’s name is read aloud at an annual ceremony
commemorating fallen officers. And sometime soon, a 5-foot-tall gray
granite memorial will mark the site, near Live Oak Street and Travis
Heights Boulevard, where Ablanedo was shot.
Powell
has spent more of his life on death row than in freedom. Friends and
supporters continue to rally on his behalf, primarily through the
website letdavidlive.org, but his appeals are over. His lawyer, Burr,
has compiled an extensive application asking the parole board for
clemency, knowing that only five of 58 such petitions have been granted
over the past four years. The governor can accept or reject the
recommendation of the parole board, which has not yet acted on the
request. However it ends for Powell, his case has left an indelible
impact on Austin.
Carsner,
the jury foreman from Powell’s second trial, recalls several jurors
crying and others shaking their heads as they voted by rising from
their chairs. “Nobody verbalized, ‘Let’s get rid of this guy; he needs
to die,’ or anything like that,” he said. “I was voting my own
thoughts about the matter, and thinking about the community and how
they felt about a police officer’s death.”
As for
Powell, Carsner said he walked away disappointed in the man. “It
looked like he really could’ve made something of himself. He just
really screwed up, and it didn’t happen to him all at once,” Carsner
said. “He got into drugs, selling and using more, then got interested in
guns. “He was just going down this trail, and there didn’t seem to
be any way back for him.”
Lives interrupted
Since
Powell’s first conviction in 1978, Texas has executed 459 inmates,
including six from Travis County. Of the 322 inmates on death row,
only five have been there longer than Powell. If executed, Powell
will be the state’s longest-serving member of death row to receive
lethal injection. Excell White was executed in 1999 after 24 years,
three months.
“Drug dealer executed for 1978 slaying of Austin cop,” by Mary Rainwater.
HUNTSVILLE
— After 32 years on Texas’ death row, David Lee Powell was executed
Tuesday for the shooting of an Austin police officer during a routine
traffic stop in 1978. Powell, 59, became the longest serving inmate
executed in Texas since the state began carrying out executions again
in 1982, and was the 13th death row inmate to be executed in the state
this year.
When
given the chance, Powell gave no last statement to witnesses, but —
except for a quick gasp and soft snoring — quietly succumbed to the
lethal drug cocktail released into his body. He was pronounced dead
nine minutes later, at 6:19 p.m.
While
all was silent inside the walls of the Huntsville Unit, the grounds
outside the prison facility were bustling with activity. Both pro- and
anti-death penalty activists stood outside the taped off area of the
site, as television crews and other media lined the sidewalk to capture
witnesses making their way to and from the unit. At another area, some
150 retired and active police officers from Austin waited outside the
prison as the punishment was carried out. They stood at attention as
Ablanedo’s family left the prison. “While we do not take lightly
today’s events, there is a sense of relief … as the passage of time has
allowed for healing,” said Wayne Benson, president of the Austin
Police Officers Association. “However, no amount of time will relieve
the sadness.”
Powell
was executed about 30 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to
hear his appeal. His attorneys had argued unsuccessfully that his
exemplary behavior on death row over the past three decades showed
jurors were wrong when they decided he would be a continuing danger and
should die for killing 26-year-old Ralph Ablanedo.
In May
1978, Ablanedo pulled over a car driven by Powell’s girlfriend because
it had no rear license plate. A background check showed Powell, riding
in the passenger seat, was wanted for theft and passing bad checks.
Powell shot the officer 10 times with a Chinese version of a
Soviet-made AK-47. He was sentenced to death three times, most recently
in 1999. The Supreme Court overturned his original conviction from
1978, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his death
sentence from a 1991 retrial. “I am infinitely sorry that I killed
Ralph Ablanedo,” Powell said in a December 2009 letter, intended for
the officer’s family and kept in the inmate’s court file. “In a few
frightful seconds, I stole from you and the world the precious and
irreplaceable life of a good man.”
Bruce
Mills, an officer who was Ablanedo’s backup the night of the slaying
and accompanied his mortally wounded partner to the hospital,
eventually married Ablanedo’s widow and adopted their two sons. The
family watched the execution from the viewing area. Mills had said
earlier that it was time for the sentence to be carried out. “I’m a big
believer in due process,” he said. “He’s had every single T crossed
and I dotted to have this reviewed and that reviewed and reviewed
again.”
Powell
stared at the family as they entered the viewing area but said nothing.
He was not a typical criminal. He grew up on a dairy farm near
Campbell in Hunt County, graduated a year early as valedictorian from
his small high school and went into the honors program at the
University of Texas at Austin. He was majoring in physics and math and
aspiring to be a doctor when he got hooked on methamphetamines and
never finished college.
Powell
was on his way to a drug deal when Ablanedo pulled over the car, said
authorities, who later found .45-caliber handgun and about $5,000 worth
of illegal drugs in the vehicle.
The next
scheduled execution is that of Jonathan Marcus Green on June 30. Green
was convicted in 2002 for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a
12-year-old Montgomery County girl in June of 2000.
David
Lee Powell was valedictorian and “most likely to succeed” in his high
school class. After graduating from high school a year early, he was
accepted into the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas.
While there, he became an anti-war protester and began using drugs. He
never finished college. By 1978, when he was 28 years old, he had
become a heavy user of methamphetamine and was also selling it. He was
wanted by the police for misdemeanor theft and for passing over 100 bad
checks to merchants in the Austin area. He had become so paranoid that
he had begun carrying around loaded weapons, including a .45 caliber
pistol, an AK-47, and a hand grenade.
On May
17, 1978, Powell asked his former girlfriend, Sheila Meinert, to drive
him from Austin to Killeen, Texas. They went in Powell’s car, a red
Mustang. Powell had the .45, the AK-47, and the hand grenade with him,
as well as a backpack containing about 2 1/4 ounces of methamphetamine.
Officer Ralph Ablanedo was on duty in his marked patrol car when he
spotted the Mustang and noticed that it did not have a rear license
tag. He pulled the vehicle over. Meinert got out of the car and
approached Ablanedo. She told him that she had lost her driver’s
license, but showed him her passport. Ablanedo also checked Powell’s
driver’s license and asked the dispatcher to run a warrant check on
Meinert and Powell. The dispatcher informed Ablanedo that the computers
were not functioning properly, but that there were no local warrants
for Meinert. Ablanedo gave Meinert a ticket for failing to display a
driver’s license and allowed her and Powell to leave.
Moments
later, the dispatcher told Ablanedo that Powell had a “possible wanted”
for misdemeanor theft. Ablanedo signaled for Meinert to pull over
again. Meinert testified that she got out of the car and as she was
approaching the officer, she heard a very loud noise and ran back to
the car. As Ablanedo approached the Mustang, Powell shot him with the
AK-47, in semi-automatic mode, through the car’s back window, knocking
Ablanedo to the ground. As Ablanedo tried to get up, Powell fired at
him again, after switching the AK-47 to automatic mode. Dr. John
Blewett, an emergency room physician, and Austin Police Officer Roger
Napier, testified that they, too, heard Ablanedo say “that damn girl”
when he was in the emergency room prior to his death.
Bobby
Bullard, who happened to be driving by on his way home from work,
witnessed the shooting of Ablanedo. He testified at trial that he saw
shots fired from the Mustang that knocked out the back windshield. He
saw a man sitting in the middle of the front seat, lying on top of the
console, sort of into the back seat. He said that the man who fired the
shots had long hair and was wearing a white t-shirt, and at trial he
identified Powell as the man he saw that night. Edward Segura, who
lived in the area, heard what he thought sounded like machine gun fire.
When he went outside, he saw a red Mustang driving away. Segura
testified that Ablanedo said that he had been shot. When Segura asked,
“who was it,” Ablanedo replied, “a girl.”
When the
dispatcher learned that there was a possible warrant for Powell, as a
matter of routine, she sent Officer Bruce Mills to assist Ablanedo.
When Mills arrived at the scene a few minutes later, he found Officer
Ablanedo lying on the ground. Although Ablanedo wore a bullet-proof
vest, it was not designed to withstand automatic weapon fire. Ablanedo
suffered ten gunshot wounds and died on the operating table at the
hospital, about an hour after he was shot. Bullard, his wife Velma, who
came outside after seeing the lights from the police car, Segura, and
Officer Mills all attempted to aid Ablanedo while waiting for the
ambulance to arrive. All of them testified that Ablanedo said,
repeatedly, “that damn girl” or “that Goddamn girl.” Mills testified
that Ablanedo told him that a girl and a guy were in the car, and that
they were armed with a shotgun or machine gun. Mills said that Ablanedo
told him, twice, that “He got me with the shotgun.” Apparently one of
the shots fired by Powell flattened one of the Mustang’s rear tires.
Meinert
drove the car into the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex.
Officer Villegas, who was en route to the scene and who had heard a
description of the Mustang in the dispatcher’s broadcast, spotted the
vehicle in the apartment complex parking lot and pulled in. He
immediately came under automatic weapon fire. He testified that a male
with medium length hair and no shirt was firing at him. More police
officers arrived, and a shoot-out ensued. Miraculously, no one was
shot. Sheila Meinert testified that Powell handed her a hand grenade in
the apartment complex parking lot and told her to remove the tape from
it. She said that she started peeling tape off the grenade, but was
hysterical and shoved it back at him and she did not know what he did
with it.
Officer
Bruce Boardman testified that the shooting in the apartment complex
parking lot came from a person at the passenger side of the Mustang. He
said that he saw that person appear again, making “a throwing motion”
over the top of the Mustang, and simultaneously, a female at the
driver’s side of the Mustang ran away from the car, screaming
hysterically and flailing her arms. The person at the passenger’s side
(Powell), after making the “throwing motion,” began running away from
the scene toward the grounds of a high school across the street. Later,
officers found a live hand grenade about ten feet away from the
driver’s door of Officer Villegas’s car that was parked in the same
parking lot. The pin for the grenade was discovered outside the
passenger side of the Mustang where the person making the throwing
motion had been. The grenade, which had a kill radius of 16 feet and a
casualty radius of 49 feet, did not explode because the safety clip had
not been removed. The State presented evidence that it was likely that
only someone who had been in the Army (Powell had not) would have been
familiar with the concept of a safety clip (also known as a jungle
clip), which was added to the design during the Vietnam War to keep
grenades from exploding accidentally if the pin got caught on a branch.
Meinert
was arrested in the apartment complex parking lot. She was later
convicted as a party to the attempted capital murder of Officer
Villegas. Powell was arrested a few hours later, around 4:00 a.m. on
May 18, after he was found hiding behind some shrubbery on the grounds
of the high school. Powell’s .45 caliber pistol was found on the ground
near where he was hiding, and his backpack containing methamphetamine
with a street value of approximately $5,000 was found hanging in a
tree. Law enforcement officers searched the Mustang and recovered
handcuffs, a book entitled “The Book of Rifles”, handwritten notes
about weapons, cartridge casings, the AK-47, a shoulder holster, and a
gun case. Following a search of Powell’s residence, officers seized
another hand grenade, methamphetamine, ammunition, chemicals and
laboratory equipment for the manufacture of methamphetamine, and
military manuals. In September 1978, Powell was convicted and sentenced
to death for the capital murder of Officer Ablanedo.
UPDATE:
In his first comments to the family of an Austin police officer he
fatally shot more than 30 years ago, Texas death row inmate David Lee
Powell took responsibility in a hand-written letter and apologized for
“the evil I have done. I am infinitely sorry that I killed Ralph
Ablanedo,” wrote Powell, who shot Ablanedo 10 times with an AK-47,
according to court records. “I stole from you and the world the
precious and irreplaceable life of a good man.” Powell, whose execution
date could be set within days, said he has no excuse for what happened
May 18, 1978, in the 900 block of Live Oak Street near Travis High
School in South Austin, but wrote that his actions happened “in a few
frightened seconds.” He said that he wrote the four-page letter, dated
Dec. 31, after years of consideration and that he wanted to address the
enormity of his action. “I felt a spiritual need and a moral
obligation to offer you whatever little I could,” Powell wrote.
“I’m
skeptical of the sincerity at this late date,” said Bruce Mills, who
was Ablanedo’s patrol partner and later married his widow and adopted
his two sons. “His taking responsibility or apologizing doesn’t change
anything for me.” In the letter to Ablanedo’s family, Powell addressed
Ablanedo’s mother, siblings, widow, two sons and Mills. Powell told
Betsy Ablanedo that “in your son’s place, I left a deep and enduring
sorrow. I know this because I left a different, but related sorrow in
what had been my place in my mother’s life.” He wrote to Irene and
Armand Ablanedo that they must miss their brother each day: “I placed
an empty chair at the family table forever.” In his comments to Judy
Mills, Powell said, “because of me, you had to explain to your sons
that their father would never come home again. Because of me, you had
to overcome the sorrow of your bereavement while starting life over as a
single parent.” Powell told David and Steve Mills, Ablanedo’s sons,
that “I stole from you a hero.” David Mills said Wednesday that “it was
a good gesture to at least acknowledge to the family that he admits
guilt, that he is apologetic. I guess I hope that maybe it was
something that would bring him some closure as well.” But to Mills, the
letter doesn’t change the facts of his father’s death or his opinion
that Powell’s death sentence should be carried out.
