Woman touched by violence believes in murderer s redemption

Transcription

1 Sunday, October 27, 2013 Woman touched by violence believes in murderer s redemption Jeanne Bishop BY COLLEEN MASTONY She waited to hear from him for 23 years. Then one day last winter, Jeanne Bishop was sorting through a pile of mail at her office when she spotted a Manila envelope with a postmark from a downstate prison. On the return address was the name David Biro. When she saw that name, she sat down in her chair, too stunned to do anything but stare. In 1991, Biro went to prison for the murders of Bishop s pregnant sister, Nancy, and her sister s husband, Richard. Now, Bishop held a letter from the killer in her hands. David Biro attest photos For two days, she couldn t bring herself to open it. She brought it home and put it on a dresser in her bedroom.

2 I just felt terrified that I d open it and it would be something awful, she said. All of these years she had preached forgiveness. She gave interviews to reporters for stories that ran under headlines such as, An act of grace. She traveled the world to speak at conferences. She told anyone and everyone that she had forgiven the man who killed her sister. Except she never told Biro himself. She wanted, as she would say later, for him to be forgotten in the dust of time. Then, in fall 2012, she ran across a short passage in a book on forgiveness that said this: Every Christian has the responsibility to reconcile with those who have wronged them. Over the next 12 months, that simple passage would compel Bishop to confront herself and her faith. It would take her inside prison walls to meet face to face with her sister s killer. It would drive a wedge between Bishop and her family. And it would force her to consider a question that she had once found abhorrent: Did David Biro deserve a chance to walk free? She was 54 years old, the mother of two boys. All her life, the tall, thin woman with the razor-sharp intellect had carefully walked a path of faith. Faith was why she became a Cook County public defender, and why she worked tirelessly against the death penalty. It was why, in the aftermath of the murders, she forgave Biro. But the passage in the book demanded more than mere forgiveness. It asked for reconciliation. That was something different. It required two people to reach toward one another. It required agreement and understanding. At first, the idea repulsed her. Sometimes what faith tells you to do sounds impossible, almost irrational, she says. Jesus said love your enemies. For 23 years, she never spoke Biro s name. She called him the killer. Biro was just 16 years old when, on April 7, 1990, he used a glass cutter to break into the town house of Nancy and Richard Langert. He waited for them in the dark and, when they got home, he took them to the basement, where he shot Richard in the back of the head, execution style, and then shot Nancy twice in the torso as she cowered in a corner. The murders stunned Winnetka, a wealthy North Shore suburb where crime is virtually nonexistent. During a far-ranging investigation, the details of the case had baffled detectives. Robbery didn t seem to be a motive. There was $500 in cash strewn on the living room floor. Nancy had scrawled a message in blood that her family believed was a heart and a U -- a final message of love. But others wondered if the message spelled out IRA. For a time, the FBI delved into the bizarre possibility that the slayings could have been committed as a warning to Jeanne Bishop, who had worked on human rights issues in Northern Ireland. Even more startling than the details of the crime was the eventual arrest of Biro. When police took him into custody, six months after the murders, he was a senior at New Trier High School who ran track and who had bragged about the killings to a friend. Investigators found the murder weapon, a.357 Magnum, under his bed. Also found in his bedroom were a glass cutter and a pair of handcuffs similar to those found on Richard Langert s wrists. A jury took two hours to find Biro guilty. But no motive was given. Biro never admitted guilt. There was no evidence that he knew, or had ever met, the Langerts. Some wondered if he had killed for the simple thrill of it. The friend who turned him in to police testified at trial that Biro told him the Langerts had begged for their lives and for the life of their unborn child. He said that the Langerts deserved to die, Phu Hoang, then 18, testified at trial. He said they were annoying. In the years after Biro s conviction, a raft of new research showed that the adolescent

3 brain is not fully mature and that teenagers lag adults when it comes to the ability to make decisions and foresee the consequences of their actions. The research, in recent years, had begun to reshape how the justice system treats juvenile offenders. That shift in the legal approach culminated in June 2012, when the Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling in Miller v. Alabama that struck down mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles. But the justices did not spell out whether the decision should be applied only to future cases or retroactively to the roughly 2,000 inmates around the country who were already serving the sentence. Did people like Biro deserve new hearings? Life sentences for juveniles were still constitutional. They just couldn t be mandatory. Judges now had to look at the circumstances of each defendant. By fall 2012, state courts and legislatures around the country had begun to consider whether the Miller decision should be applied retroactively. And prisoners, including Biro, began filing appeals. Jeanne Bishop was among those who carefully followed the Miller ruling. She was a lawyer, well versed in the politics and legal wrangling that surrounded such cases. She had lobbied the Illinois legislature to stop a bill that would have abolished juvenile life sentences. And she had long argued that Biro, and others like him, should be locked up forever, even if they had been forgiven. One evening over dinner, Bishop was chatting with a friend about the Miller ruling, prisoners and remorse. Then Bishop mentioned, offhandedly, that Biro was remorseless. Her friend replied: How do you know that? The question stunned Bishop. I thought. I don t know, she said. For weeks, she thought about her friend s question. I ve been talking about forgiveness for all these years, but I ve never extended that to him, she said. Then I started to think about how I was waiting for an apology. In January 2013, she sat down to write a letter to Biro. She and her surviving sister, Jennifer, had spent years working as opponents of the death penalty. Jeanne Bishop had heard vague rumors that inmates because of the sisters high-profile work on their behalf might have been cruel to Biro in prison. Dear David, I scarcely know how to write this, how to begin. I have given it much thought. You know who I am: one of the sisters of Nancy Bishop Langert. I have heard news of you: how prison has been hard at times because of your association with me and my sisters. I am sorry for that. Nancy was above all about love; she never would have wanted her death to result in more brutality, even to the person who took her life. You have heard news of me: how I have forgiven you for killing my family members. I never conveyed that forgiveness to you directly; I am sorry for that, too. It was wrong to tell other people and not the most important person of all: you. Biro s response arrived a week later. On that winter day, Bishop couldn t bring herself to open it. Instead, two days later, she asked a friend to read it first. He sent her on an errand. When Bishop returned, he smiled and said, It s good. Dear Jeanne, I know that for a long time you and your family have been looking for me to confess to the murders I committed years ago. Of course, as you know, in the past, I have always maintained my innocence. Well, for a lot of reasons which I ll get into in a little bit, I think the time has come for me to drop the charade and finally be honest. You re right, I am guilty of killing your sister Nancy and her husband Richard. I also want to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences and apologize to you. Bishop broke down and wept. She took long, deep breaths. For years now I have felt guilty and remorseful over my crime. I believe that had I been given a determinate sentence for example, 20 years I would have

4 apologized and expressed my remorse years ago.... I only held back... because of my reluctance to give a full confession which I know from this point on I can never retract. That s exactly what this is. I am sure you realize that from this point on I can never again say I m innocent. You have my handwritten confession right here. The letter continued for 15 pages. Biro explained that he had struck up a correspondence with a woman while in prison and eventually married her. But their relationship soured. She stopped visiting, and he never understood why. The situation, he said, made him empathize with the Bishops. I believe that you are like me in the sense that you have something burning away inside of you and you want some answers. Even after all of these years, this eats away at you and won t leave you alone. I know losing my wife really doesn t compare to you losing your sister. But still, I believe I understand your feelings, and I hope that my confession and apology helps to bring you some peace of mind. Bishop called her mother and sister and asked them to meet in her mother s spacious, brick town house in Winnetka. Sitting at the dining room table, Bishop explained that she had written to Biro. She opened his letter and slowly began to read. For Bishop, the letter was profoundly moving. It was proof, she thought, that reconciliation was possible. Maybe, just maybe, Biro was capable of change. Her family was astonished by the confession. But they viewed Biro s motives differently. Bishop s sister, Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, was deeply skeptical. She had written to Biro years before and, she pointed out, he had maintained his innocence. Fast forward to 2012 and there is a Supreme Court ruling, and now the killer is anxious to do anything that will make him look good, Bishop-Jenkins said in a recent interview. The Supreme Court decision had opened the door to the possibility Biro would someday have a chance for resentencing. Bishop-Jenkins believed that Biro s sudden confession and apology was a thinly veiled attempt to prepare for a time when remorse might be considered a prerequisite for release. She was furious that Jeanne would allow herself to be manipulated. Nothing has changed, said Bishop- Jenkins, who, in the years after the murders, had become one of the most well-known victims advocates in the country. He s still a sociopath. Their mother, Joyce, 84, reacted with similar distrust. I don t think he is the least bit sorry he killed them. I think he s terribly, terribly sorry he got caught, she said. Though her family remained unmoved, the letter had given Jeanne hope. At church one morning, she listened as the priest talked about mercy. She thought about juvenile life sentences without parole. This is a merciless sentence, she thought. It says no matter how redeemed you are, no matter how sorry or rehabilitated, we are never going to let you out. At church, she realized she no longer believed in that. Even Biro, she thought, deserved a chance. For years she had worked with her sister to keep Biro in prison forever. But in February 2013, Jeanne Bishop switched sides and joined a coalition of juvenile advocates to lobby in favor of resentencing for those convicted as juveniles. That change of heart would split her family. The resulting strain with her sister was especially difficult because, Bishop said, I already lost one sister. In early 2013, two bills about juvenile life sentences were introduced in the Illinois legislature. In March, Jeanne Bishop and her mother made the 31/2 drive to Springfield in separate cars so that they could testify on opposite sides of the issue. Both bills eventually died, but watching the women testify was kind of tragic, frankly. Kind of sad, said Matt Jones, associate director of the Office of the State s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor. Jones, who was there that day as lead lobbyist for a bill supported by law enforcement, said his heart

5 went out to the Bishop women because it was clear, this has torn these people apart. David Biro had been a boy who seemed to have every advantage. He grew up in a beautiful, three-story home in Winnetka, the youngest of three children. His father was a successful partner in a public relations firm; his mother worked for a leasing corporation. In the years after he went to prison, Biro s mother died of cancer. But his father, Nicholas Biro, 83, stood by him and visited every two weeks. I still to this day I know he said he did it but I still have difficulty accepting it, his father said in an interview. As for why his son committed the murders, he said: I ve talked to him. I ve talked to his lawyers. I ve talked to the family. I don t think we ever came up with a satisfactory answer. David Biro had been in trouble as a teenager, but his parents thought it was just mischief, his father said. Court records show he used a BB gun when he was 13 to shoot at a 7-year-old boy; later, he shot at the windshield of a car and was accused of stealing a bicycle lock from a sporting goods store. Just after Biro s 14 th birthday, his family found a stolen motor scooter in the basement. Around the same time, they noticed a strange substance in their milk. It was never proven what happened to the milk, but that incident along with the discovery of the stolen motor bike prompted the family to call police. David was admitted to an in-patient psychiatric facility in Chicago, where officials felt he might require long-term placement because of his behavior and, what a report from the time called, his lack of empathy with others. After several weeks, David left the hospital on a pass and refused to return. His family took him home, and in October 1987 he entered his freshman year at New Trier High School. In the three years that followed, there were other minor scrapes with the law. But nothing in the public record gives an inkling of what was about to happen in early 1990, when Biro forged an application for a state firearm owner s identification card, which would allow him to buy a gun. The state sent him the card, but David s mother intercepted it and gave it to the family s attorney. Furious, David called the attorney and demanded the card. The attorney refused. A few weeks later, David broke into the attorney s office. He was looking for the ID card. He opened a desk drawer, and he found a gun that the attorney kept in his office for protection. Biro took it. It was a.357 Magnum. It is a scorching hot day at the end of August, and Jeanne Bishop sits in a small, white-walled visiting room at Pontiac Correctional Center. Dressed in a black cotton sundress, she feels a sense of anticipation like when you re about to unwrap a present, she says. Twenty minutes tick past. A friendly guard in a baseball cap opens the door and says, with a smile, It won t be long now. I can see him coming. Bishop stands and moves toward the door. It is her third visit to see him. Because of the Miller ruling, Biro could potentially seek resentencing, and Bishop could work for or against his release. She wants to know: Does he truly feel remorse? If he went free, could he kill again? (Bishop and Biro allowed a reporter to observe the August meeting. Later, Bishop revealed her reactions to Biro in interviews.) Biro steps into the room, his large frame filling the doorway. Standing 6 feet 5, and weighing about 215 pounds, he stoops slightly, with his shoulders rolled in, as if embarrassed by his size. Still, he towers over Bishop, who reaches out her hand and says warmly: How are you? They take their seats on either side of a worn wooden desk. Their first moments are awkward, their conversation halting. But Bishop works hard to put her companion at ease. She praises a series of short stories that Biro wrote and sent to her, calling one aspect genius. Biro blushes.

6 He is 40 now. His buzz-cut hair is receding and graying at the temples. He has a wide face and a long aquiline nose. He is no longer the gangly, fresh-faced teenager with longish brown hair who sat on trial two decades before. He has been in prison for more than half his life. She notices the wrinkles starting to form around his eyes and the expressions on his face. This is a human being, she thinks, not the monster she had built up in her mind. As they talk, Bishop deftly steers the conversation toward issues of crime and punishment. All of her experience Northwestern journalism school, Northwestern Law, a year at Yale Law, more than two decades as a criminal defense attorney has prepared her for this conversation. Within a few minutes Biro begins to talk nonchalantly of committing the murders, but he adds: That isn t how I define myself. Across the table, Bishop simply nods. He doesn t get it, she thinks. He s not where he needs to be. But she will not allow herself to show even a flicker of emotion. They begin to discuss life sentences for juveniles. Bishop asks: How much time is a human life worth? Biro doesn t miss a beat. That s a good question. Let me start off by saying 20 years, he says. Is that 20 years for one life? Bishop asks. Or 20 years for three lives? The exchange goes on like this. Bishop pleasantly asking pointed questions and Biro batting them back. The conversation takes on the air of a debate. Then Bishop s voice softens as she begins to talk about Nancy, the theater geek who fell in love with Richard, a jock from the South Side. All Nancy ever wanted was to be a wife and a mother. Bishop s voice rises in a way that shows how much she loved her sister and how much she wants Biro to understand what he took. She had a dream husband, a dream job. I saw her the night you killed her. She was starting to gain the baby weight. She was so excited to become a mom, she already had the baby bottles on her shelves, she says. Biro seems uncomfortable. He looks down at the floor. She wonders, does he understand? She tries a different angle, steering the conversation toward Phu Hoang, the young man who turned Biro in to police. She talks about forgiveness and asks Biro if he has forgiven Hoang. Biro shrugs. Truthfully, in my opinion, he s a weasel, he says. She mentions Burke Abrams, a teenager whom Biro at trial had accused of the murders. She talks about the seriousness of such an accusation. But Biro calls this a minor incident. There were no outward damages. I slandered Burke s name, Biro says. But no one believed me. She does not hide her shock. Her mouth drops open. He doesn t understand, she realizes. She gathers herself and finally says, with kindness, Is there anything you d like to ask me? Biro shrugs at first. Then his face seems to brighten. He does have a question. It s about something, he says, I ve been struggling with for a couple of years. He wants to know: What do you think of my writing? Bishop talks about the importance of giving back, and of writing something that will be a blessing to others. She wants to help him to think beyond himself. She thanks Biro I ll always be grateful for your honesty and promises to visit again. But the interaction has left her feeling deeply uncertain. She wonders if she is expecting him to do something he can t. Maybe he simply can t grasp the enormity of his crime and the impact it had on so many people. Maybe, she thinks, expecting so much is not even fair to him. The door opens, and Biro shuffles away. With a wave of his hand, he says, Adios. In the weeks since their August visit, Bishop has visited her sister s killer again.

7 They have talked about the details of the murders. Some of what Biro says makes sense. But other aspects don t ring true. He told her, for example, that he broke into the town house to commit a burglary. But why, Bishop wonders, would he wait for the Langerts to come home? Why would he bring a gun? Bishop believes he went there to kill. Biro said he shot the Langerts because he felt it was the only escape and, I just wanted to finish it. He described his terror in the hours after the attack when he worried that Nancy had lived and would identify him to police. And he spoke of his relief to learn of Nancy s death. But the detail that meant the most to Bishop was to learn how Richard had tried to protect her sister. She had always imagined Nancy begging for their lives. Biro told her it was Richard who did most of the talking and who had suggested ways that Biro could escape. It means everything, Bishop says, just to know what a hero (Richard) was. After so many years of attempting to piece together what happened, she was grateful to finally have some answers. I think it s brave of him to face me, she says. The book passage she had read on reconciliation made her see that she is no better than Biro. We re both flawed and fallen, she says. Bishop wants to find a way to reach across the void past the memory of the blood on the basement floor to make a connection and help him understand. I want him to change, she says. And the reason for that is connected with Nancy. Because now I really grasp that this sentence is too small for the magnitude of what he took; the only thing big enough would be for him to be redeemed. That s the only thing that seems momentous enough, impossible enough. Her faith continues to guide her to a place many people wouldn t go and don t understand. I m not going to change (Biro s) heart. That s too big for me. But God can do that, she says. The Illinois Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments early next year on the issue of mandatory juvenile life sentences. Until then, Biro s appeal and that of about 80 other people in Illinois who are serving that sentence will remain in legal limbo. Biro s case will be complicated because, in addition to two mandatory life sentences, he is also serving a discretionary sentence for the murder of the fetus. Whether the discretionary sentence could be successfully appealed on the basis of the Miller ruling is uncertain. Do I have to be remorseful in prison? Why can t I be remorseful and free? Biro asked in August. Bishop thinks he s not ready for freedom yet. But she will continue her quest, even if understanding always seems just beyond her grasp. There are moments when, she says, I see in his face when I talk about the suffering of my mother or my father, I see this dark shadow flit across his face. I think, There s something in there that this is touching. And if I really believe that nothing is impossible for God then I cannot give up on him. I m still learning and putting all of these pieces together and that s why I m really grateful that I haven t yet had to go to a resentencing hearing, she says. I know that s coming.