Re: Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape
Genesis of a killer
- Carl Isaacs' attorney sheds light on his client's life before the infamous Alday murders.
MARK PASSWATERS
STAFF WRITER
ALBANY ? Atlanta attorney John R. Martin thought it necessary to remind the state Board of Pardons and Paroles last week that his client "is not the devil."
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SECOND IN A THREE-PART SERIES
SUNDAY: Seminole Countians still ache after 30 years.
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TODAY: Carl Isaacs: Profile of the killer and his impact on society.
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COMING TUESDAY: A look at Carl Isaacs' final day and the execution process.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> As Carl Isaacs' date with Georgia's death chamber looms, his lawyer is working diligently to put a human face on a man the news media have portrayed, in Martin's words, as "the embodiment of evil."
For the Georgia Department of Corrections, Isaacs is inmate No. 380006 and is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. Tuesday for six murders, all committed in a single afternoon 30 years ago this month at the Alday family farm near Donalsonville.
Isaacs is thought to be the longest surviving death row inmate in America. Having represented him for the past seven years, Martin says he wants the world to know that today, at 49, Isaacs is not "the same damaged, out of control youth who committed awful crimes at the age of 19."
Isaacs' mother, Betty, already had five children by another man when she married George Isaacs. They had seven more together. The 12 children grew up dirt poor in more or less dilapidated housing in Maryland and Pennsylvania, according to Martin. Betty and George Isaacs were both heavy drinkers, and Martin says Betty Isaacs would often disappear for days at a time to "carouse with male friends."
The children's teachers occasionally sent them home to wash their clothes because the smell was disruptive, Martin said. They rarely got enough to eat and never saw doctors or dentists.
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THE OTHER 3 Carl Isaacs was traveling with three others when he led the murders of the Aldays. Here is what has happened to the others:
WAYNE COLEMAN:
? Half brother of Carl Isaacs
? Age: 56
? Escaped from Maryland minimum security prison with Isaacs and George Dungee in April 1973.
? Sentenced to death by Seminole County Jury in 1974 for his role in the Alday murders.
? Had murder sentence thrown out by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1985.
? Retried in 1988; received a life sentence after DeKalb County Jury deadlocked on giving him the death sentence.
? Currently in prison and eligible for parole.
GEORGE DUNGEE:
? Friend of Isaacs and Coleman
? Age: 65
? Sentenced to death in 1974 by a Seminole County jury for his role in the Alday murders.
? Had his murder sentence thrown out by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1985.
? Retried in 1988, received a life sentence.
? Remains in prison, but is eligible for parole.
BILLY ISAACS:
? Younger brother of Carl Isaacs; joined group after they escaped from prison.
? Was present at the murders of the Aldays, but claimed he did not to play a role in the killings.
? Turned state's evidence and testified against his brother, Coleman and Dungee
? Received 40-year prison sentence for armed robbery and burglary; served nine years before being released in 1993.
? Also served a prison sentence in Maryland for murder.
? Has been released from prison and is believed to be living on St. George Island, Fla.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> George Isaacs, fed up with his wife's infidelity, abandoned the family when Carl was 10. Not long after, Betty Isaacs turned her children over to a social services agency in Maryland, leaving Carl and his siblings and half siblings to move from one foster home to another.
In asking the parole board to commute Isaacs' sentence to life without parole ? a request the panel denied after about an hour's deliberation ? Martin said Isaacs discovered sometime later that his mother was living near one of his foster homes and sought her out.
"She told him to go back to the foster home and not to contact her again," Martin wrote in his petition to the board. "Although she lived within a half mile, she never contacted her children."
Struggling in school, Isaacs found something he was good at when he was 15: breaking the law. A year later, he was imprisoned for breaking and entering and stealing an automobile.
When he was 19, Isaacs was sent to an adult prison in the wake of another breaking and entering arrest in Maryland. Only two days after he arrived there, a riot broke out at the prison, Martin says. Young and inexperienced, Isaacs was raped repeatedly by the rioting inmates from 6 p.m. until 2:30 a.m., according to his lawyer, whose petition notes that, after treatment at the prison hospital, Isaacs was transferred to a "non-secure facility," Poplar Hill Correctional Camp.
Isaacs' half brother Wayne Coleman was already serving time at Poplar Hill. Coleman, 26 at the time, had befriended another inmate there, George Dungee. The three escaped together on April 25, 1973.
They decided to go to Florida, picking up Isaacs' 15-year-old brother, Billy, before heading south. "They supported themselves with burglaries and robberies along the way," Martin said.
After about three weeks on the road, the four men were driving through rural Seminole County and were nearly out of gas. As they passed a mobile home owned by Jerry Alday and his wife, Mary, the escapees thought they saw a gas pump.
There was no pump, but the trailer was empty and they decided to break in and steal what they could. Isaacs and Coleman were inside when Billy Isaacs warned them that two men were approaching in a Jeep. Jerry Alday and his father, Ned, were met at the door by Isaacs, who ordered them inside at gunpoint.
After emptying their pockets, the two men were taken to bedrooms at either end of the mobile home. Isaacs shot Jerry Alday to death, then walked to the north bedroom, where Coleman was waiting with Ned Alday. Both Coleman and Isaacs shot Ned to death, according to a court summary of the facts, which Isaacs does not dispute.
Not long after the first two murders, Jerry's brother, Jimmy Alday, drove up on a tractor, went to the back door of the trailer and knocked. Coleman opened the door, stuck a pistol in his face and ordered him inside. He was taken to the living room and told to lie on the sofa. When he did so, Isaacs shot him to death.
Isaacs then went outside to move the tractor, which Jimmy Alday had parked in front of the killers' car. As he did, Mary Alday ? Jerry's wife ? drove up.
Isaacs forced her inside and began to "accost" her, according to Georgia Supreme Court records, but was interrupted ? for a while at least ? when Ned's brother, Aubrey, and another of Ned's sons, Chester Alday, drove up in a pickup truck.
Leaving Coleman and Dungee to watch Mary, Isaacs and his 15-year-old brother went outside to confront the two. At gunpoint, Aubrey was taken to the south bedroom (where his nephew had been murdered earlier) and Isaacs shot him to death. Chester Alday was taken to the north bedroom and killed by Coleman.
Both Coleman and Isaacs then raped Mary Alday on the kitchen table.
"Mary was the only one who put up a fight," Isaacs said a year later during a series of interviews with former Albany Herald State Editor Charles Postell. "The rest just lay down and got shot. They just lay down and died."
After raping their final victim at the mobile home, the men drove Mary Alday to a thickly wooded area several miles away. She was beaten and raped again, then Dungee killed her.
Leaving their car in the woods, the men drove Mary Alday's car to Alabama, abandoning it there and stealing another vehicle.
They were captured a few days later in West Virginia. They still had the guns they had used to slaughter the Alday family, as well as some of the family's belongings.
Martin claimed in his petition last week that Isaacs had expressed remorse for the murders, but The Herald could find no record of any direct statements by the killer that he regretted his actions on May 14, 1973.
His opportunities to do so now are limited by law. Georgia death row inmates are barred from speaking with the media ? an opportunity Isaacs seemed to relish in the mid-1970s.
At that time, he expressed anything but sorrow for his actions.
"I'd like to get out and kill more of them. They represent the type (of) society I don't like," he said in 1975. "(The Aldays) loved church so damn much. ... Working people don't do a damn thing for me."
While discussing another murder for which he admitted responsibility, Isaacs had this to say: "I don't think of him or any other bastard I've killed, particularly the Aldays. Why should I feel sorry for them? They should feel sorry for me. I'm the one on death row."
In another interview, Isaacs said: "Now, there may be a God, but he ain't got no bearing whatsoever on my case or my life at all. If he did, I wouldn't be on death row. I'd still be on the street."
After his first conviction and death sentence in a 1974 trial ? a trial in which his brother Billy testified for the prosecution ? Carl Isaacs said he would like nothing better than to kill Billy.
"If he were free and I were free, he would be the first person I would kill," Isaacs said. "Have I told you how much I'd love to kill little Billy? I started to kill him several times, but I didn't. I should have killed him."
Billy Isaacs received a 20-year sentence followed by an additional jail term in Maryland. He has since been released from prison and is thought to be living on St. George Island, Fla., ? about a two-hour drive from the site of the murders.
During another interview, Isaacs said he would kill any inmate who attempted to change the channel the night the annual Country Music Awards show was telecast from Nashville, Tenn.
"I sure hope nobody gives me trouble about what channel we're going to watch," he said with a laugh. "I'd hate to kill anyone over Loretta (Lynn)."
Isaacs also appeared to enjoy the notoriety he had received from the murders, comparing himself to John Dillinger.
"Damn, did he terrorize people. ... If they got in his way, he killed them. And they made a damn movie about him. He killed 16 people before the FBI killed him. I killed 15 myself," Isaacs said, "and I ain't near as old as Dillinger." At the time of this interview, Isaacs was 21. Dillinger was 32 when he was killed.
Isaacs' ego took over if he was compared to other murderers.
During a critique of other infamous killers, Isaacs rejected any comparison to Charles Manson, saying Manson was of "low intelligence."
"If I'm of low intelligence, how come I've got my (GED)?" he said.
Isaacs, Coleman and Dungee were found guilty of killing the Aldays by a Seminole County jury. All three were sentenced to death in 1974.
He tried twice to escape from prison ? in 1980 and again in 1985. Neither attempt succeeded.
Just more than a decade after the original convictions, all three men were granted new trials by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The court ruled there was no way the men could have received a fair trial in Seminole County duty to the publicity surrounding the crime.
Isaacs was retried in January 1988, and his runaway mouth helped land him back on death row.
"In some cases, we actually had more evidence than they had at the first trial," said Pataula Circuit District Attorney Charles Ferguson, who prosecuted Isaacs at his second trial. The jury at that trial not only heard the comments Isaacs made to The Herald, but also a TV interview and other taped conversations in which he said he would kill the Alday family all over again if given the chance.
"We had the tape this producer, Flemming 'Tex' Fuller, made. He interviewed some inmates on death row in North Carolina and Georgia, and fortunately, one of those was Isaacs," Ferguson recalled. "They heard him talk about it in his own words."
The second trial took six days. Isaacs' lack of remorse, both during the trial and as evidenced by the tapes, helped seal his fate.
"(The death sentence) was for the simple fact that not once in the trial ... did the man ever stand up and say he was sorry," said jury foreman Fredrick Eggler of Warner Robins in 1988. "Say, if Carl Junior Isaacs had gotten up there, just stood at his desk and told us he was sorry, I'd have to think it might have had an impact on some of the jurors."
Ferguson says he thinks the death sentence was entirely appropriate.
"By far, that was the worst case I've ever been involved in," he said. "I really haven't heard of one worse than that one, and I sincerely hope there hasn't been one worse."
At two separate retrials, Coleman and Dungee received life sentences for their roles in the murders.
Fuller used the tapes as the basis for the movie, "Murder One," which was one of two films made about the killings.
Postell, meanwhile, wrote two books about the murders. He refused to be interviewed for this article.
Isaacs' mother, when contacted by a reporter in 1979, washed her hands of any responsibility for her son's cold-blooded acts.
"I don't want them around me if they're gonna kill people," she said. "Just because they came from my body doesn't mean I got to put up with them killing people."
Martin says Isaacs has cancer now and has had his bladder removed. He concluded his appeal to the parole board by saying that "Carl Isaacs himself ... has expressed sincere remorse for his involvement in this horrible crime."
That would be a major change in attitude from Isaacs' words in one of the last interviews he granted, in 1977.
"I don't really give a damn," he said. "And if you turn me loose, I'd probably kill again if I could."
That a man like this last more than a week on
death row is a crime against the human race. I'd fry his ass in a second.