Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • 2

A2 Albuquerque Journal Tuesday, Octcclr 30, 2001 T7V, 71 Terry Clark comments over trm years on punishment, reaempaon and death. frm PACE A1 In a letter to his lawyer after his nrst aeatn sentence naa Deen iiqiiwu uumi yiiw ww fVu irt h4 not vet overturned the sentence: They are building ai; new death house here, and I reaP ry don't feel like breaking It i 1933 At his second sentencing heaK Ing: "It's my fault I'm to 1. iimi -I 4J I sorry, win my aeaui criu suTienngr aom ininK so. X. 1999 In a letter to the New Mexico Supreme Court: "I simply do TWt' wish to landiish awav in orisoivv for years and years.

1 do not want' to die of old age In prison, orT 'rt become the vlctlm.of some yiOP' lent attack by other Inmates. I do not wish to live in a place where1 you must constantly look over-1! i mentally or physically. Prison Is1' prison and Is a horrible place for any human to live In. I simply do- not want to live this way anymore. "ThA onlv chance of total freat dom I Will ever have is that whjch I rrA tiaa nuAmleiiA mA mil .1 A.

II. 'T filEPhoto PURSUSN3 TKS DEATH PENALTY: Terry Clark, pointing to a clutter of newt media camera In a Portalea courtroom last year, hat successfully argued that he should be able to drop hit appeals and be allowed to die. i uie peaue I win novel navo mino on this earth. I am a man who made a terrible mistake. I feet the shame of what I did everv- two months after he was charged with Gore's murder and as part of a psychological assessment, he wast asked to complete some sentences.

When asked to finish "I regret dark answered "being vin prison. He completed the phrase "I failed by saying "to be a good person," i While jurors deliberated during his sentencing hearing in 1987, Clark gave a rare interview and i displayed a similarly conflicted self-image. The crimes that Tve committed or have done, that's what they fv depict me as," Clark said. "But I dont see myself as a child killer or rapist I just cant come to terms with myself being that, knowing bow I was before." Since then, Clark has wavered between fearing the death penalty I and accepting it After spending years fighting to have his life spared or his execution delayed, his latest legal battle has been to win a speedy execution date. Clark set out his change of heart in a letter to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1999.

"I simply do not wish to languish away in prison for years and years," he wrote: "I do not want to die of old age in prison, or become the victim of some violent attack by other inmates. I simply do not want to live this way anymore." -Clark's desire to die, which he has maintained for more than two years now, comes at a time in his life when many men feel at the top of their game. His children are grown. He has been in a relationship with a divorced mother of two from Roswell for more than five years while he has been imprisoned near Santa Fe. And he has become a Christian.

Clark has said he is asking to die because he wants to end the Gores' ordeal and because he does not want to live the rest of his life in In'his last public statement, Clark said, "I have a personal, moral and social obligation to take responsibility for what I did." After Clark made that statement in a courthouse in Clovisin August, the judge set his execution date i and his girlfriend, Jean Ortiz, was allowed a few minutes with him. She emerged from the back room with tears in her eyes. Ortiz was one of hundreds of people who volunteered to help Colleen Gore, Dena Lynn Gore's mother, lobby for a change in the law that had allowed Clark to remain free on an appeal bond after his first conviction. After losing touch with Gore, Ortiz wrote to Clark in prison, was impressed by his reply and began visiting him. The two have been engaged for 7 years and have no plans to marry before Clark dies next week.

Ortiz, Clark's most frequent visitor, is expected to be one of bis -witnesses when he is executed The one puzzle over IS years has been how to reconcile dark's lackluster life and ordinary demeanor with his unspeakable crinics. "All of a sudden, his behavior goes all out of control and his crimes are Just horrifying," said Brian Fori, one of the statepaid lawyers who has been arguing Clark's appeals. 1 "How does this Navy guy, this normal Roswell dude, turn from Dr. Jekyll into Mr, Hyde? lb me, that's always been the most fascinating and troubling -question." His lawyers trace the changes in Clark to a summer night when, drunk and high, he says, he banged his head on the door of his car. His brain suffered trauma, they say, and he became a different man.

Prosecutors don't think Clark ever suffered a serious head injury. They say he developed a sexual attraction to children when he was in the Navy and that his perversion escalated into attacks. Clark has bristled at the -suggestion there is anything wrong with his brain or that he is a -pedophile. He has characterized his attacks on children as two anomalies brought on by stress lapses he says he is embarrassed by and regrets. Ufa In Roswell Born in a hospital on Main Street in Roswell in 1956, Terry Doug Clark was the fifth child of Calvin Clark, a respected city worker, and his wife, Viera.

Clark's childhood was ordinary in a small-town way. He was a Boy Scout and more comfortable working with his hands than he was reading a book. Clark has described his high school achievement as a average, but a review of his high school transcript made as part -of a neuropsychological exam showed Clark was a 0 student and failed math, speech and American studies. Clark performed well only in a building trades class, where he received a B. 1 -ir- Clark began drinking and smoking pot in his junior year of high school in Roswell, was suspended for truancy and dropped out in the spring before completing his junior year.

He experimented with LSD methamphetamkes and heroin and he used cocaine about 20 times, i Clark earned a GED and went to work for Ros well's Transportation Manufacturing the bus i building company. He was fired within a year. His only previous brush with the law came when he was arrested for possessing a small amount of marijuana, for which he paid a fine. Clark worked in construction before joining the Navy just before he turned 20. According to Clark, he went absent without leave several times time 1 waxe up in mis piace.

rt'is a constant remimder (sic) of why I am here, simply will not hava.to endure such shame and tion if I am executed, as Is the just and fit punishment for what I have done." 1: March 2000 In a letter to the court "I will -fcr not allow my attorneys to make, excuses-for my actions, as there 'IS NO' excuse for what I did. To Hn unm ilH laeeon rha ImnaM a what my actions did to the victim, and the victims (sic) family. Mexico Court of Appeals. His appeal bond continued in effect while his lawyer asked the state Supreme Court to review that decision. Two weeks later, Clark's father died.

And within a week of Calvin Clark's funeral Dena Lynn Gore was dead. Steve dark had called police and reported his younger brother, Terry, as a suspect in Gore's disappearance after he found freshly disturbed dirt on the ranch. Terry Clark first denied having anything to do with the kidnapping or even being in Artesia. After he was arrested, Clark met with his mother's minister at the jail and broke down. He asked the Rev.

Larry Foster whether he thought a person could be possessed by a demon. Why? Foster asked. "Because he said he had a terrible urge to see the child's genitals," Foster told jurors during Clark's first sentencing hearing in Tucumcari. Clark said he grabbed Gore in an alley, tied her up and took her to the ranch where he was living. She cried when he raped her, he said, and Clark began to panic.

When the 9-year-old told him she would tell -on him, Clark shot her. will not allow mvself. mv fami- I .1. I 1 iv aiiu uib viuum a lciiiiiiv iu lk put tnrougn any more. 1 am unaer no auress in wrrang mis lener 10 the court, I feel that I must put during his Navy years, which were spent stationed in Honolulu and at sea near Southeast Asia.

Clark was -punished once with extra duty and another time with 30 days in a correctional barracks. He also received commendations and left the Navy after four years with an honorable discharge. Clark came home to Roswell, got married and landed a job as a carpenter for the city of Roswell with his father's help. Clark married Dana, now a nurse, and they had two children, a boy and a girL yii, Clark has told psychologists that September; 1984 he went to a party, got drunk and hit his head on a car door as he was He says he went to St. Mary Hospital in Roswell for treatment, -but the hospital was not able to find a record of treating Clark, The severity of his injury has been debated for the IS years Clark's case has been in the judicial system.

His lawyers have argued that the injury caused brain damage, altering Clark's personality and leading to his crimes. Prosecutors have downplayed the injury as a "bump the head." However severe, the injury was followed by a series of events that led toward Clark grabbing Dena Lynn Gore off a bike in Artesia 22 months later. .5. Into the depths According to the lawyer who pleaded for Clark's life at his first death penalty hearing in 1987, Clark stayed home from work several weeks after the 1984 injury and watched a rerun of "Fallen Angel," a 1981 inade-for-TV movie about a 12-year-old latchkey kid who is seduced by a child pornographer. The movie stirred up a mixture of memories from his Navy days frequenting child prostitutes in the Philippines while on shore leave and the horror he saw helping rescue Vietnamese boat people, his lawyer explained.

Clark, walked out of his house and found his first victim, the 6-year-old girl, walking home from -schooL 1 The girl was found later that afternoon, her clothing torn and bloody, wandering on a rural road west of town. Clark was convicted and re sentenced to.24 years in prison. He was allowed to remain free on a $50,000 bond while he appealed the conviction with a stipulation that he stay out of Roswell. His wife, Dana, told the judge, TU give him all my love and support and stick by him." Clark moved in with his brother, Steve, on a ranch outside Artesia while Dana and their two children stayed in Roswell By the next May, Dana had divorced him an event Clark described as the first in a string of stressful experiences. The day after the divorce became final, Clark asked for help at a counseling center in Artesia.

-He was upset about his divorce and was worried about being raped in prison. Six weeks later, Clark's conviction was upheld by the New tnis case to rest 1 cannot continue and at the same time keep my conscience clear before God and Man." 1 TV July 2301: In an Interview with a psychoto Mil A I gisi. 1 111 icouy tu gu iiume. man should take responsibility for his actions, and that's what I'm trying to do here," At his last rnnrt hpnrinC hpfnra Kit avttitirtlnn Hate uiao cAf ff 1110 bAbVUUVI I UUIQ WWJK9 OWk would like to take the ODDortunttv to anoloeize once more to the vk tim's family, the Gore family. -They New Mexicans first saw Clark, an ordinary-looking guy with wavy black hair and dark-ringed eyes, staring from newspaper photos shortly after his arrest in July 1986.

Clark met with a psychologist your honor. There Is no excuse for miai 1 uiu. S-' "I do not have a death wish. I am 1 not suicidal. I am not depressed; I am not brain damaged.

I am doing this so I can take back con ACtU "Loses BiiKI-Isive top ExecepQEi trol of this case and do what ls right for the Gore family. I have a personal, moral and social obligation to take responsibility for. whit I did. I have to do what's right by. the family, your honor, and for myself." other death row inmates, the gover- nor relieves they have clearly committed the crimes" Kinderwater said.

Also Monday, attorneys for the ACLU submitted a clemency petition to Johnson, requesting him to impose a moratorium and establish a review of the' death penalty in Mexico while staying the execution of Clark. Johnson has said that he wouldn't declare a moratorium on executions in New Mexicd. "(Johnson) said he would not com- mute the sentence," said Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU in New Mexico, after meeting with the governor at the CapitoL Clark is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov, 6 at the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe.He has told a judge that he wanted to die and directed his lawyers to stop all appeals. Clark pleaded guilty in 1986 to raping and killing 9-year-old Dena -Lynn Gore of Artesia. ty doesnt.

deter crime, that it is biased toward minorities and that the issue needs to be reviewed. "It does ring hollow that the governor acknowledged all troublesome issues," but yet declined to commute or delay Clark's execution, he Diane Kinderwater) Johnson's spokeswoman, said the governor supports debating the capital pun-: ishment issue, but at the same time is convinced that Clark is guilty. "In the cases of Terry Clark and Simonson said Clark's execution would set New Mexico on the path of executing more people, while some states are reconsidering capital punishment and placing moratoriums on "This is not about Terry Simonson said. "This is about New Mexico and whether or not New Mexicans should return to the dubious business of putting people to death." 1 The governor, Simonson -said, acknowledged that the death penal By S.U. Mahesh Journal Capitol Bureau SANTA FE Gov.

Gary Johnson on Monday rejected another plea to commute the execution of convicted rapist and child killer Terry Clark to life imprisonment without parole. 1 Members of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico met with Johnson in' an effort to "appeal to his libertarian sensibilities," they said, and to stop Clark's execution. They were not successful. irap 1 HUtr norjTO nnACH us TODAY; 111 HISTORY IF YQM PAPER IS LATE, 1 Your home-delivered Journal should arrive by 7 a.m. If it hasn't, call our circulation department before 10 am.

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There are 62 days left In the year. Cn tfht date In 1733, the second president of the United States, John was born In Bralntree, Mass. In 1S3S, poet Ezra Pound was born In Hailey, Idaho. 'v In 1933, the radio play "The War of the starring Orson Welles, aired on CBS. (The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked some listeners 1 who thought Its portrayal of a Martian invasion was true.) In 1944, the Martha Graham ballet "Appalachian Spring," with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at the Library of Congress In Washington, D.C., with Graham in a leading role.

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