Posted on 12/07/2005 3:35:04 PM PST by SmithL
One victim was a young convenience store clerk and military veteran who moved back to California to fight for custody of his daughters. The other three were family members who owned a motel they were hoping to sell because the neighborhood had grown too rough.
For all four, plans to change their lives were cut short by the sawed-off shotgun of Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams during a pair of 1979 robberies in Los Angeles County that have put him on death row.
Their stories are part of the pitch prosecutors have made to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to deny clemency and let Williams die by lethal injection on Tuesday, but most of the news coverage has focused on the criminal, not the crime.
Family members say too much attention is being paid to Williams and too little is focused on their loved ones who got no second chances, no opportunities to turn their lives around.
With the help of prosecutors and victims' rights advocates, they plan to urge the governor Thursday to consider their loss — store clerk Albert Owens, 26 and motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76 and Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter Ye-Chen Lin, 43, who left behind shattered families and changed lives.
Williams claims he's innocent and his supporters say he is more valuable alive than dead as he works behind bars to keep young people away from gangs. They want Schwarzenegger to reduce Williams' death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Williams, 51, co-founded the Crips gang in Los Angeles with a high school buddy when he was 17. He has since renounced his gangster past, spoken to community groups by phone from San Quentin State Prison and co-written a series of children's books warning them about the dangers of a criminal life.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
...and too little is focused on their loved ones who got no second chances, no opportunities to turn their lives around.
They WANTED to turn their lives around, but Tookie needed $$$$.
heeehehee
Then they will ask a future governor or president to grant a pardon to the Nobel Laureate at the urging of His Excellency, Kofi Annan.
I should have looked it up before I posted originally. It was the basis for Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and the movie "A Place in the Sun" with Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters.
About a pregnant girl killed by her boyfriend in 1906. Several articles ... some with great pictures. But one here:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/entertainment/13312429.htm
BTW, Tookie took out a one page ad in the LA Times today.
Is that true? If so, ROFLMAO! Talk about "make my day!"
He killed more than 3 people? (I'm sorry, but I'm hopelessly behind on some of these stories.)
He did not! Can you tell me what it says?
That reply from the Governor's office is total unmitigated CRAP!
Half the page was a photo of Tookie. The other part was a long tirade about the good he is doing and will continue to do if allowed to live. Then the place on the web to go to sign a petition to keep him alive.
Frankly, I never saw anything like it ... anywhere.
LOS ANGELES -- Clemency should be granted condemned killer and Crips co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams so at-risk kids can continue to learn from him about the horrors of gang life, defense attorneys said Wednesday.
That's really rich, isn't it?
I have an idea: let's make him an EXAMPLE.
I'm sure it's the same canned message they sent even his supporters. The clemency hearing is tomorrow.
I hope that Arnold's heart scare today doesn't influence him.
Good Lord, he is the founder of the Crips, one of the most murderous gangs in modern history.
May he burn in Hell.
Which is my point as well. He writes these books saying crime doesn't pay. The only way he can truly teach kids this lesson is by paying the ultimate price ... not getting off on a technicality.
The whole thing is a sham! Listening to Rita Cosby's interview with him shows he's onyl semi-literate. He's had numerous run ins in prison and hangs with the Crips in the prison yard.
He refuses to testify against the Crips saying he doesn't want to give up his last shred of dignity.
He needs to die to let his children readers know that this is the end result of a life of crime.
Lovely poem.
Here's a 10 page article with lots of historical photos. The town does an annual rememberance every year.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/chester_gillette/
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