[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., UTAH

[Rick Halperin]

July 23



NORTH CAROLINA----book review

Bryan Bliss' latest YA novel spends time on death row


"It's easy to forget people on death row, to demonize them," says Bryan Bliss, 
whose widely praised 3rd young-adult novel, "We'll Fly Away," is about a 
teenager named Luke facing execution.

"We see death-row prisoners pictures on TV and think there is no way they could 
ever be a good person again," this affable St. Paul-based author continues. 
"That's why redemption is a huge theme in my book. I wanted to make the reader 
care about Luke, to know who he is, to have the feeling they know him, how he 
became seen as a monster."

"We'll Fly Away" earned starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist and 
Publishers Weekly and was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year.

It's the story of friends Luke and Toby who grew up together in the little town 
of Hickory, N.C. All their young lives they looked forward to leaving, talking 
about it in their "clubhouse," the body of an old airplane. Luke, who has 
Toby's back in life, is a champion wrestler whose skills on the mat earned him 
a college scholarship that will get him and wise-cracking Toby out of their 
dead-end town.

Both are from broken homes. Luke has to care for his little twin brothers while 
his inattentive mother works or plays. Toby's father, a petty criminal and 
violent alcoholic, beats Toby so badly he's teased at school about his visible 
wounds. It's Luke who always bandages him and gives him a place to stay.

And then comes their senior year, when everything falls apart and ends in a 
horrifying burst of violence.

Luke falls in love with a young woman who lives with her trucker stepfather and 
naive Toby is lured into sex with an enigmatic 20-something woman who hangs out 
at a bar with his father and his creepy friends.

How and why Luke ends up on death row after refusing to defend himself is the 
heart of this story, in which Luke writes letters to Toby about life in prison 
and what being incarcerated is doing to him.

Bliss arrived in the real Hickory, a former hub of furniture manufacturing, 
from Chicago for his senior year in high school. After writing for the high 
school and college newspapers, he got his 1st job at the Hickory Daily Record. 
He loved being a reporter, until he was assigned to be a press witness at the 
execution of a man found guilty of killing his landlord.

Although Bliss had always been intellectually against the death penalty, seeing 
the real thing hit him emotionally. His life changed when the death chamber 
curtains parted showing the strapped-down man on the other side of the 
soundproof glass, mouthing words that asked forgiveness from his victim's 
children.

"I don't want to sensationalize it, but knowing this man was going to be dead 
in 3 or 4 minutes was the moment I knew I wouldn't be a reporter much longer. I 
couldn't be objective," he admitted.

A few months later Bliss was enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School to study 
theology, adding to his undergraduate degree in political science and 
government from Appalachian State University in North Carolina and his master 
of fine arts degree from Seattle Pacific University.

Bliss also wrote supportive letters to isolated death-row inmates to give them 
a sense of normalcy. And he researched capital punishment, including re-reading 
Sister Helen Prejean's classic "Dead Man Walking," about which he'd written a 
report in high school.

"I thought Sister Helen's book was amazing. It totally knocked me on my butt," 
he recalls, adding he hopes his book can have the same effect by telling a good 
story with a point of view.

Sister Helen was also the model for the nun in Bliss' novel. She keeps visiting 
Luke in prison even when he's rude to her. Luke refers to her in his letters 
only as Sister.

"There were so many male characters in the book I wanted Luke to have a female 
friend who would have regular access to him," Bliss explains. "Sister has a 
vested interest in helping Luke transform. She doesn't have to be there. She 
chose to care about Luke even when he didn't care about himself. His worth as a 
human being is still there no matter what he's done."

Another thread running through "We'll Fly Away" is social class. Luke and Toby 
are poor and Bliss knows what that's like.

"Sometimes the chips are stacked against you from the beginning," he says. 
"When you grow up in poverty with no stable network, these things happen to 
you. It's hard for some to understand that environment. My wife and I grew up 
the that way. There was no trauma in my family, but the education of growing up 
that way influenced me now."

Bliss lives in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood with his wife, Michelle, an 
oncology nurse and graduate student at the University of St. Catherine studying 
to be a nurse practitioner. Their son, Ben, just celebrated his 12th birthday 
and daughter Nora is 14.

Writing young-adult fiction is 1 of Bliss' 3 jobs. He is director of Faith 
Formation for Children Youth and Families at St.Clement's Episcopal Church in 
St. Paul. During the day, he works as a product designer and developer at 
Sparkhouse, an ecumenical curriculum company where he has helped develop Sunday 
school and confirmation resources for a variety of ages and denominations.

"We'll Fly Away' (Greenwillow Books, $17.99), is Bliss' 3rd YA novel, all with 
challenging themes. His 1st, "No Parking at the End Times," is the story of 
twin girls living in their van with their parents, who sold everything to 
follow a charismatic preacher who convinced them the world is going to end. 
When it doesn't, they are stuck in a loop of handouts and hopes in a strange 
place. His second, "Meet Me Here," takes place in a single night in which the 
protagonist has to decide if he's going to leave for the army in the morning, 
running the risk of suffering the fate of his brother, a war hero suffering 
from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"So I've written books about religion, PTSD and death row. I have to be careful 
I don't become 'that guy,'" Bliss says.

Bliss, who wasn't sure this novel would get published, agrees he writes about 
tough topics but he believes reading a novel gives a young person the chance to 
try out beliefs and opinions. He also points out that good YA fiction can be 
read and enjoyed by readers of any age.

The compassion and possibility of redemption in "We'll Fly Away" is summed up 
in the novel's epigraph by Sister Helen Prejean, who admires Bliss' novel:

It is easy to forgive the innocent.

It is the guilty who test our morality.

People are more than the worst thing they've ever done.

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING

What the critics are saying about "We'll Fly Away" in starred reviews:

Kirkus Reviews: "A poignant story of loyalty, abuse, and poverty. ... This 
compassionate and beautifully rendered novel packs an emotional punch."

(source: The Dispatch-Pioneer Press)






UTAH:

Death penalty sought for parents accused of killing daughter, covering her in 
makeup


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a Utah couple accused of 
taunting their malnourished 3-year-old daughter with food before she died.

The state filed the notice Tuesday in the case of 25-year-old Miller Costello 
and 23-year-old Brenda Emile.

The Ogden couple is accused of recording cellphone videos of themselves 
taunting Angelina Costello as her condition worsened before her July 2017 
death.

According to Fox 13, the couple was arrested July 6 after police received a 911 
call reporting the girl was not breathing. Prosecutors say she had been dead 
for some time when police arrived.

She had bruising, contusions, lacerations, burns, open sores and abrasions all 
over her face, hands, legs, head and neck.

"The child victim's facial features were also sunken in, void of definition 
from muscle or fat. Some of the child victim's injuries appeared recent and 
acute while other injuries appeared to be in various stages of healing," a 
probable cause statement said.

Emile allegedly admitted to covering the child in makeup to conceal some 
injuries "so they didn't look as bad."

"It's the worst case of child abuse I've ever seen," Ogden police officer Chris 
Bishop said at the hearing, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Another officer 
said the child "looked like a Holocaust victim."

Horrific evidence has been shown depicting what prosecutors call "a life of 
torture."

In one video shot months before the girl's death, Angelina is seen eating 
slices of an onion as blood runs from her nose. In another video, the girl is 
offered a forkful of scrambled eggs before it is taken away.

"Haha, no food for you," the mother tells the child.

Both Emile and Costello pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder charges. 
Costello has told investigators that he knew of Angelina's deteriorating 
health, but said his wife would get mad at him if he fed her.

Emile's attorney Martin Gravis has also argued there was no definitive evidence 
to suggest she caused the girl's death. A judge, though, disagreed and pointed 
to the allegation that Emile used makeup to conceal the girl's injuries.

If the couple is convicted, prosecutors would push for capital punishment in a 
separate sentencing hearing.

(source: Associated Press)