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| South Carolina Killer Wants Death |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/29/2002 |
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Michael Passaro planned to die more than three years ago when he doused his van with gasoline outside his estranged wife's home and set it ablaze with his 2-year-old daughter strapped inside. But Passaro jumped out after igniting the fire, leaving behind a typewritten suicide note and the toddler. He was in the van long enough to suffer severe burns but survived, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death. Now, Passaro is again ready to die. He has refused to appeal his sentence and urged the courts to ignore the efforts of well-meaning attorneys to spare him from a lethal injection. 'You do not have to live this life. I do,' he wrote in a letter to South Carolina's Supreme Court. 'The state says I should die for what I did, and I am not going to stand in their way.' The state's high court is set to hear arguments Wednesday on whether Passaro can be executed without ever having his case reviewed. Prosecutors say if the 39-year-old killer succeeds in dispensing with the lengthy appeals process, he could be executed by the end of the year. 'If the state and the defendant really want the same thing, is that punishment?' asks Passaro's lawyer Joe Savitz. In the letter written to the justices five months ago, Passaro left no doubt about his intention to die. He also left no doubt of his intentions to kill his daughter in November 1998 to get back at his estranged wife, Karen. 'Whatever anyone does, please make sure that Karen doesn't kill herself over this,' Passaro wrote in his suicide note, salvaged from the blaze by investigators. 'I want her to live in pain for the rest of her life.' He met his second wife at a hospital where she worked. The two were married and by 1996 had a baby girl, Maggie. But the marriage soured. Passaro's wife asked for a divorce and got a restraining order. Passaro got to see his daughter one weekend a month. It was after one of those visits he parked his van outside his wife's condominium and set it on fire. 'It's pretty funny how the system works,' Passaro wrote in his suicide note. 'I get visitation with my daughter, and I'm allowed to end our lives from existence with the help of the courts and my wife. I guess that I'm getting the last laugh now, Karen.' Passaro is far from the first death row inmate to waive appeals and ask to die. According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., 16 prisoners who volunteered to die have been executed in the past two years. Passaro has hardly made himself a sympathetic character. His temper in prison has been well documented. One officer testified Passaro got angry when he was told he couldn't have orange juice. 'I have burned my child to death, and I'll burn you,' Passaro told the officer. 'I'll burn your house down with your family in it.' A psychiatrist has ruled Passaro is competent to waive all his appeals. He told Savitz he was willing to ask the courts to look at his case only if he would spend 15 years or fewer in prison because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life behind bars. 'I really miss the electric chair because lethal injection is literally a painless way to go,' Savitz said. 'And if you don't want to be in prison, it looks like an easy way out.' |
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