Despite All, He Opposes Death Penalty

The state of Illinois recently put a moratorium on executions. Bernard Kastin is a retired businessman who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes. His 21-year-old daughter, Elissa, was one of the Hillside Strangler’s victims in 1977. He recently spoke with MAURA E. MONTELLANO about his views on the death penalty.

My daughter was a victim of the Hillside Strangler, so obviously I followed the case very closely. At that time, I was strongly in favor of the death penalty for the killers, but they were given life sentences. I wasn’t too happy about that. It wasn’t just because of my daughter; they killed 12 young women, with no cause. They really had no justification whatsoever. They were joy killers, thrill killers. I felt that they deserved the death penalty and nothing less for the number of killings, the brutality and because of the wanton [nature of the] killings.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the death penalty. Around the time of my daughter’s death, I felt that extreme cases, extremely brutal and horrible cases--rape-murderers, serial murderers--should be given the death penalty. I didn’t feel it should just be a blanket thing for all convicted murderers.

I felt it applied, for example, to the Charles Mansons, Richard Ramirezes and Jeffrey Dahmers. I thought that type of person should not be allowed to live and should pay the ultimate price.

Recently, I’ve heard so much about police misconduct--to put it mildly--with the planting of evidence, the lying and distorting of facts to justify the police’s arresting suspects and testifying so that they receive the maximum sentence possible, including the death penalty, that I started to really turn the other way.

It’s not just going on here in Los Angeles. You hear of it going on elsewhere. In light of this, I believe there are a number of people in jail, serving time, who don’t belong there and even people who have been executed for crimes they didn’t commit.

It’s a gross miscarriage of justice. The death penalty should be disallowed. The wrong people are getting the death penalty.

If it’s all true what this officer, Rafael Perez, says about what’s been going on, it causes me to have doubts about the police’s position in any of these cases.