THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505310454
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
Two days after his administration dismissed a gun found inside the typewriter of executed inmate Willie Lloyd Turner as a possible ``elaborate hoax,'' Gov. George F. Allen on Tuesday ordered the state police to conduct a ``thorough and independent'' investigation.
``I'm concerned about the safety of our correctional officers as well as the general public,'' Allen said. ``If there are guns somehow getting . . . into a high-security or maximum-security facility, that's completely unacceptable.''
Also on Tuesday, two lawyers who spoke to Turner in the hours before his death said Turner told them - in cryptic fashion - that he had the means to escape but had decided against trying.
``For months, he was talking in very vague terms that he had options,'' said Julie McConnell of the Richmond American Civil Liberties Union. She had known Turner since 1989.
``On Thursday (the day Turner was executed) in the afternoon, he said, `I just want you to know it's all right. I had choices. I decided I didn't want to hurt up a bunch of peoples. I decided that wasn't the right way to handle this. But I'm just letting you know that I'm letting them do this to me. . . . I know you don't understand this now, but you'll understand it later.''
After speaking to McConnell, Turner called Alvin J. Bronstein, director of the National Prison Project in Washington. Bronstein met Turner in 1980 while working on a prison-conditions lawsuit in which Turner was a plaintiff.
``He said he just wanted to say goodbye to me,'' said Bronstein.
``I remember him saying he wasn't sure if he was going to go to heaven or hell but that he was trying to do the right thing. . . . He said had a way to change things but he decided he didn't want to hurt any of his friends or hurt any of the people who had trusted him, and he was going to accept death. He was ready for it.
``I got off the phone and I told Jan (Bronstein's wife), `He was saying something. He clearly had some plan that he has given up. . .he had something he could have done, but he's not going to do it.' ''
Turner made similarly cryptic remarks just before six death-row inmates broke out of the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in 1984, Bronstein said.
Neither McConnell nor Bronstein was interviewed by Department of Corrections officials who last weekend conducted a 36-hour inquiry into the incident. An investigator spoke to Turner's Washington-based lawyer, Walter Walvick, for half an hour, and to Walvick's wife, Kathy, for five minutes, Walvick said.
In a statement Saturday, state prisons head Ron Angelone speculated that the gun incident was possibly an ``elaborate hoax'' by Walvick and said he saw ``no reason for further investigation.''
Turner's fingerprints were not found on the gun, Angelone said. ``There is no substantiated evidence to validate the allegations. . . that the gun was ever inside the facility,'' he concluded.
Angelone's statement came a day after Allen called the incident a probable ``stunt by the defense attorney.''
The Allen administration's statements about Walvick were ``outrageous and defamatory,'' said Peter Greenspun, president of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.
``To have the failures of Gov. Allen's corrections department tossed off as a defense attorney's stunt is as irresponsible as the actions by the governor's own prison guards,'' said Greenspun.
``By which I mean someone employed by the Department of Corrections somehow allowed a firearm to be either smuggled into death row or else actually brought it in themselves.''
Greenspun said his organization plans to lobby Virginia legislators to hold hearings on the matter. Bronstein, of the Prison Project, also accused the Department of Corrections of scapegoating Walvick to save face.
``I have no doubt. . . that either Gov. Allen or (Secretary of Public Safety Jerry) Kilgore or Angelone gave instructions to wipe the gun clean and then test it for fingerprints,'' Bronstein said.
``Walvick had nothing to gain. No one had anything to gain by perpetrating a hoax about a gun. What would be the point? The Department of Corrections had everything to gain by trying to cover up the existence of a gun because it was a reflection on their sloppy security procedures and their recognized lack of professionalism. They had the only real reason to cover this up.''
Sen. Richard J. Holland, D-Isle of Wight, who criticized Angelone's investigation Monday and threatened to drag prison officials before the Senate Finance Committee's subcommittee on public safety, said he was pleased that Allen has reopened the investigation.
``This is what should have happened in the first place,'' he said.
An hour after Turner's execution Thursday, Walvick unscrewed part of his client's typewriter to reveal a secret compartment containing a loaded
``Look in the back of the typewriter when you get home,'' Walvick said Turner told him shortly before the execution. ``I didn't use it because of you.''
Walvick examined the typewriter in his Emporia hotel room in the presence of his wife and two reporters. The color of the plastic compartment appeared to vary slightly from the rest of the typewriter.
After finding the gun, the lawyer called the Emporia police, who confiscated the typewriter and removed the gun. Underneath it, they found a plastic bag containing 12 bullets and a note containing a single word: ``Smile.''
``That was a trademark of his,'' McConnell said Tuesday. ``Every letter I have from him, he signed it that way.'' MEMO: Staff writers Greg Schneider and Robert Little contributed to this
report.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Julie McConnell, ACLU: Turner told her he ``had options.''
Alvin J. Bronstein, activist: Turner said he had ``a way to change
things.''
KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT VIRGINIA DEATH ROW MURDER
HANDGUNS INVESTIGATION by CNB