Indiana death row inmate at 16, later freed, couldn't escape past
INDIANAPOLIS — She slipped out of the house before dawn, leaving behind four handwritten letters.
She'd bought a new outfit at a Wal-Mart the night before — gray pants, a black-and-white knit shirt, black sandals. She always wanted to look nice, especially this Tuesday morning.
She drove to a street where her fiance, a landscaper, had planted her favorite red begonias. There was a parking lot there, where the two of them liked to tool around on his father's old Harley that he was refurbishing. She left a tape recording on the front seat of her Toyota Corolla.
Paula Cooper had a plan. Doing what she wanted was still new to her. For most of her 45 years, prison officials had dictated when she could eat, sleep and shower. At 16, she'd become one of the nation's youngest inmates on death row for her role in the shockingly brutal stabbing of an elderly Bible teacher.
Spared from execution, Cooper served 27 years. On a June day in 2013, she was released, a smiling but scared middle-aged woman riding off in a van, watching the prison razor wire fade in the rearview mirror.
She was thrilled to be out, but she wrestled with an ugly past that shamed her and a present that, at times, overwhelmed her.
She learned to write a check, use a cell phone, manage a household. She found a good job, and was respected by her co-workers. She was championed by a wide circle of supporters, including the city's Roman Catholic archbishop and even, amazingly, her victim's grandson. She fell in love and was embraced by her fiance's family.
But she also knew some people would never forgive her. She understood. She couldn't forgive herself.
"I have taken a life and never felt worthy," she wrote her fiance.
Cooper sat down near a tree. Her letters written, her last words recorded, she pointed a .380-caliber Bryco handgun at her head and pulled the trigger.
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If not for the bitter ending, this could have been a story about the most improbable redemption.
If not for the demons in her head — the guilt and torment — it could have been what Paula Cooper wanted: the story of a triumphant second chance, of a woman who'd proven she could do good and was nothing like the rage-filled teenager at the center of a horror three decades ago.
On May 14, 1985, Cooper, then 15, and three other girls cut school, drank and smoked marijuana. Armed with a 12-inch butcher knife, they knocked on Ruth Pelke's door in Gary, a fading Indiana steel city beset by crime.
Cooper and two friends entered, pretending to be interested in the Bible lessons she offered. While one girl stood lookout, according to court records, Cooper grabbed the 78-year-old woman from behind, pushed her to the floor, smashed a vase over her head, then repeatedly slashed her in the stomach and chest, arms and legs. She had 33 stab wounds.
The girls ransacked the house, taking $10 and stealing the widow's 1977 Plymouth. Cooper said robbery was the motive.
Prosecutor Jack Crawford sought the death penalty for Cooper. Authorities had identified her as the ringleader — a characterization she denied.
In 1986, Cooper pleaded guilty to murder. Before sentencing, her sister, Rhonda, testified about the girls' turbulent upbringing: She said her stepfather, now deceased, had disciplined them by pummeling them with his hands and whipping them with extension cords while they were naked. Cooper ran away repeatedly.
Her sister also recalled a day — she was about 12 and Paula, 9 — when their mother took both girls into the garage, turned on the car and announced they were going to heaven. They passed out and woke next to each other on a bed. (Cooper's mother declined to be interviewed.)
A defense psychologist who'd interviewed Cooper found "evidence of a major personality disorder" and a "strong tendency to be aggressive, hostile and vindictive." But he also noted her traumatic childhood.
Pleading for her life, Cooper asked the Pelke family for forgiveness and expressed hope she could one day start life over.
"I have remorse," she said. "What can I do? I can't explain what happened. ... I can't just sit here and say I'm sorry. ... Sorry isn't good enough for me. And sorry isn't good enough for you."
Judge James Kimbrough had the final word. A vocal opponent of capital punishment, he seemed Cooper's best hope. But he saw no choice. He asked Cooper to stand, then declared:
"The law requires me, and I do now, impose the death penalty."
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As a 16-year-old inmate, Cooper knew nothing of the law and feared that any day she might be taken from her cell and strapped into the electric chair.
That is, until she met Monica Foster, a young appellate defender, who explained the legal process to her sobbing client.
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