Flesh Collectors (25 page)

In the second note found among his possessions, Lawrence hinted at his schizophrenia:

“Me again. I’m hearing voices all the time now like goddamn Aztecs singing. For some reason, they won’t shut up. It’s a slow beat every two or three seconds.… Pretty weird huh?”

Another expert who testified for the defense, Dr. Sam Collins said, “He [Jon] finds himself unable to disagree with others for fear of being criticized and/or rejected. Because he often experiences anxiety when placed in social situations, coupled with his feelings of inadequacy, this man has failed to develop any significant friendships or close friends.”

Psychologist Dr. Seth Bennett testified, also for the defense. He said that “[Lawrence] was afraid that that other young man was either going to kill him or steal his truck, and he didn’t know what to do, and that he had to go along.… I think he was dominated.… Certainly a person with that type of brain damage is very easily dominated because of their lack of reasoning and judgment. Withdrawn people easily and routinely fall under the influence of stronger people.”

Lawrence was a follower because he was “almost incapable of sustained initiated prolonged activity on his own volition or on his own planning.… And so he is vulnerable for that reason to the domination of other people.”

Perhaps the most persuasive mitigating testimony came from Jon Lawrence’s friends and family. What they laid out for the court was Lawrence’s bad childhood that turned into a nightmare adulthood. The Job-like history of the Lawrence family became public knowledge as the testimony from the experts and those who knew Jon Lawrence was delivered. By the eighth grade, Jonathan’s IQ had dropped to 78 because of all his travails. His teachers observed him becoming increasingly distant.

In 1990, at age fifteen, Jon started getting in trouble with the law. He was arrested numerous times, primarily for nonviolent offenses and was referred to a psychologist, Dr. Ted Post. Dr. Post found Jon to be in the low average range of intelligence, with borderline-to-low average abilities; he was depressed and confused; he had poor self-esteem; he was learning disabled, causing more frustration and was diagnosed as suffering from the following: conduct disorder undifferentiated type severe, dysthymia, developmental arithmetic disorder, and poor adaptive functioning within the past year.

Finally, in November 1993, Jon went to prison for defacing the church in Pace. On November 17, after being sent to his cell block, he slashed his arm in a suicide attempt. The Department of Corrections reported that he had a history of attempts to commit suicide with “at least fifty suicidal gestures in the past.”

Dr. Olga Fernandez diagnosed him as suffering from adjustment disorder with depressed mood, and antisocial personality disorder. Lawrence remained in the regular prison environment for six months, repeatedly being diagnosed as mentally ill until he was committed to Chattahoochee.

During his year there, he was repeatedly evaluated as being mentally ill and suicidal. The evaluations began to report that he was experiencing intermittent command hallucinations and he was diagnosed as having, among other disorders, schizotypal personality disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is a major mental illness that includes the same hallucinatory features as schizophrenia, with the addition of a serious depression coinciding with the periods of hallucination.

Lawrence returned home after his release from Chattahoochee around August 1995. His mother, Iona, said that he seemed isolated and depressed. He told her then he had been placed on medication in Chattahoochee, but his eyesight suffered and he would not take that medicine anymore. He became paranoid that it would cause him to go blind.

Iona took Jonathan to the Avalon Center of Baptist Health Care, Inc. for psychological help in September 1995. That was where Douglas evaluated him for Social Security benefits. Iona knew her troubled son needed to do something, so she got him into a vocational technical-school program. But he couldn’t function there. He lost interest, failed to ask questions and more or less stayed to himself.

Then Iona was hospitalized for her knee surgery and Lawrence stayed by her side the whole time, only leaving to get a change of clothes. When she got out, Jon took care of her day and night; he was so devoted. Occasionally he did odd jobs around the area, but, for the most part, he stayed in his home, drank and watched movies.

It was while he was in Chattahoochee that Jon Lawrence had made friends with Jeremiah Rodgers. In March 1998, Rodgers showed up at Lawrence’s house. He said he’d been having a lot of problems with his girlfriend, Lisa Johnson, and it was an escape for him to go down and sit and watch TV with Jon. That, of course, led to what the defense described as “the crime spree led by Jeremiah Rodgers.”

April 7, 2000

Killam had mounted a brilliant defense. He had literally presented to the jury a “how to make a psychopathic killer/mutilator” bible. By showing how the facts of Lawrence’s life had led him to his participation in Jennifer’s murder, he was trying to take responsibility away from the killer and put it squarely on the shoulders of his background, which he could not control, and society, which did not treat him correctly. If the jury bought the argument, they would have to vote for life in prison.

They didn’t. By a vote of eleven to one, the jury recommended death. At the sentencing hearing that followed, Judge Bell had the option of reducing the penalty or going with it.

“This was a senseless, merciless murder,” said Bell, who promptly sentenced Jon Lawrence to death, by electrocution or injection, his choice. Lawrence did not show emotion. To anyone who knew him, that was no surprise. Asked after the verdict was rendered if that was enough for her, Diane Robinson said: “Why do I want to lower myself to be on their standards? I made a promise that whatever the jury came back with, I’d accept. But you know, I see all these people who want to run to death row and forgive, but I don’t have to forgive them.”

July 2000

What could the defense possibly submit as mitigating circumstances in Jeremiah Rodgers’s favor? There really was nothing. In the end, the state had been right—it was a no-brainer. Strangely enough, Rodgers got three votes in favor of mercy from his jury. As always, Rodgers had been a con man.

Jeremiah Rodgers had lied, right until the end. Even as he faced his Maker, he continued to lie about what really happened to Justin Livingston. In the ME’s postmortem report, it said that Justin was stabbed twelve times.

“Three of the wounds entered the right pleural [lung] space posteriously [from the rear]; nine stab wounds entering the left pleural space posteriously.” Both lungs and the liver were stabbed numerous times.

Rodgers claimed the first time he stabbed Justin, “I tried to stab Justin in his chest, but the knife didn’t go through. It just hit his breastbone and the force of that knocked him down.”

Not according to the autopsy report, which stated Justin had “twelve stab wounds to the posterior back.” Yet there was no stab wound on the front of Justin’s body. Jeremiah Rodgers is, therefore, lying. Second, Rodgers said that the second time he stabbed Justin, “I stabbed him between the shoulder blades with all the blade going through.”

That could certainly cause massive bleeding. But since both convicted killers agreed that Justin took a long time to die, he certainly didn’t seem to be bleeding to death.

Considering that both killers agreed that Rodgers strangled Justin because he just wouldn’t die, it therefore seemed likely that the subsequent nine stab wounds were postmortem. Unfortunately, because of the decomposition of the body, and the absence of any trauma to the trachea [breathing tube] or hyoid [throat] bone, which frequently breaks upon strangulation, the ME could not establish that in addition to being stabbed, Justin was smothered or strangled.

Justin Kyle Livingston’s death certificate reads “homicide” as “probable manner of death.” The “immediate cause of death” is listed as “stab wounds to the back.” There is no mention of smothering or strangulation.

Epilogue

Jennifer Robinson

To her friends at Pace High School, Jenny didn’t die on May 8, 1998, at least literally. They were determined to resurrect her in their yearbook, which was distributed after her death.

At first, it is very confusing, especially considering that most of the dated entries say “5/12/98” and “5/13/98.” What makes it even more confusing is that the person the entries are addressed to is dead, and the students writing the inscriptions know that too.

What the class had decided to do for Diane Robinson and her family is give them a signed yearbook from all of Jenny’s friends and even some who didn’t know her. The idea was to write the entries to Jenny, as if she had survived.

Jennifer:

Hey girl! What’s up? Nothing much here, I hope u have a great summer. Remember the good time we had over spring break and on senior skip day (your 18
^th
birthday)
.

Love
,

Laura Dow

That was when Jenny and her friends should have gone to the beach and had a great time—graduating seniors who thought they were indestructible.

Jennifer
,

You have been a great friend all these years we have been together. Remember Motel 6 on Friday and Saturday. Do not forget Murphy’s
.

Your friend
,

Sandi Ballion

Jennifer
,

Hey girl! How’s it going? I’m doing ok! I’m just writing to you to tell you that I miss you
.

Love always
,

Sidney Johnson

Jennifer
,

Hey girl. I’m goin’ to miss you and I’ll always think about you. Oh, remember this, “Friends threw thik and thin
.”

Friends 4-ever and always
,

love ya always
,

Justine

Most were like that, playing the game, going along as if Jenny were still alive, gone away on some trip someplace, maybe to Fort Walton and Disney World. Maybe she was on a shopping trip to New York and would come back loaded with stuffed animals. Or maybe she was just around the corner taking care of some stray that had wandered her way. It was an interesting conceit to make like nothing had happened. But it had, and not everyone who wrote could keep up the facade.

You and your family are in my prayers. Being a great person to everyone was a quality I loved, everyone else loved, about you
.

Love always
,

Coral Diamante

Jenny
,

I’m so sorry this happened to you! You deserved so much more in life. I’ll never forget all the great times we had together. I know we weren’t on the best of terms and I’m sorry for that!!! I just can’t believe you are gone.… We all know that you’re in a better place now
.

Doris says that she love you and prays for you each and every night. She also prays the guys will never see the light of day again!! The gates of heaven will never spin for them! I love you
!

Love always
,

Millie and Doris

Jenny, have a good time in heaven
.

Love
,

Susan

Diane Robinson

Diane Robinson had a breakdown after Jennifer’s death. For three years, it was couch to bed to couch. She wasn’t able to work. Then one day she woke up and decided it was time for a change. She began a part-time job. She went into grief counseling and began medication.

She said, “If I have to cry, I cry.”

One of the ways she chose to cope with her pain was by increasing it.

“I like the physical pain that comes from tattooing,” she said. “I put three tattoos on my body. There’s a redheaded angel on my right shoulder.” That symbolized her daughter, Jennifer, with her always. “The second is a moon lady’s face coming out of it. It’s on my left shoulder. You can’t see it when the hair hangs down over it.”

The third one was on Diane’s neck. It is an angel’s face, with wings and really beautiful hair. The tattoo was in purple ink because “purple was Jenny’s favorite color.” She talked about a new tattoo she wanted to get along her spine with the names of her children.

“There’s nothing I can do,” she concluded. “I can either lay down and die or pick up and go on. You have no idea. You have no clue. I had to let go of revenge.… I would have given my life for her.…”

Diane put up a purple cross where Jenny was killed.

“I went down there the spring after Jenny died. The river runs across the road. There’s a big pond that the river feeds into covered with purple wild-flowers. She was killed on the bank of that little pond. You know, there are still red police [evidence] flags there.”

Evidently, the cops hadn’t cleaned up completely after processing the crime scene.

“I go up there regularly and think about Jenny.”

Elizabeth Livingston

Elizabeth Livingston had a difficult time.

Despite the fact that she had so much tragedy in her family, nothing had prepared her for the loss of her son. While her religious beliefs have helped her survive, revenge had been an overriding thought.

On the first anniversary of Justin’s death, Elizabeth had what might be termed a temporary break from reality. The way she recalled it, “I guess I started a riot in the neighborhood.”

Elizabeth Livingston spray-painted the corpses of dead dogs red. Then she hung them up on the trees that bordered her front lawn. “I was doing this crazy stuff,” she remembered, “and this preacher came down and helped me out.”

Like Diane Robinson, she too had a nervous breakdown and was put on medication that has helped her considerably. She too can no longer work at all and has no immediate plans.