"I Want the Death Penalty": Edward Wayne Edwards Confesses to the AP, June 2010 (Part 1)

Name: "I Want the Death Penalty": Edward Wayne Edwards Confesses to the AP, June 2010 (Part 1)
Uploaded: 2010-06-18
Duration: 7 min 27 s
Description: Days after pleading guilty to four murders, Edwards told an AP reporter in a Wisconsin jail how he shot his foster son, Dannie Boy Edwards, in Ohio in 1996, and said he wanted the death penalty.

Days after pleading guilty to four murders, Edwards told an AP reporter in a Wisconsin jail how he shot his foster son, Dannie Boy Edwards, in Ohio in 1996, and said he wanted the death penalty.

Subject: Edward Wayne Edwards
Recorded: about June 16, 2010
Runtime: 7:27

Content warning: Edwards describes, step by step, how he shot his foster son; the page refers to the murders of five people.

The Interview

In June 2010 Edward Wayne Edwards, then 77 and using a wheelchair, gave an on-camera interview to Todd Richmond of the Associated Press in the Jefferson County jail in Jefferson, Wisconsin. In it he said that he had killed his foster son, Dannie Boy Edwards, in Ohio in 1996, a killing for which he had never been charged. Madison's NBC15 posted the AP footage on its YouTube channel on June 18, 2010, in parts; this is Part 1. It begins mid-sentence and is almost entirely Edwards speaking; the reporter's questions are barely audible.

Historical Context

Edwards, born Charles Wayne Murray in Akron, Ohio, had a long criminal record and had once been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. In 1972 he published an autobiography, "The Metamorphosis of a Criminal", and appeared on television as a reformed man. He was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2009 and charged with the 1980 murders of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, both 19, who disappeared after a wedding reception in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. In 2010 he pleaded guilty to those murders and to the 1977 murders of Billy Lavaco and Judith Straub in Norton, Ohio, and received life terms. Dannie Boy Edwards, born Dannie Law Gloeckner, had lived with Edwards and his wife and taken the family name; he disappeared in 1996 and his body was found in a shallow grave near Burton, Geauga County, Ohio, in 1997.

Circumstances of the Interview

According to the Associated Press, the interview took place the day before its June 17, 2010 story, days after Edwards's guilty pleas and shortly before his Wisconsin sentencing for the Hack and Drew murders. Wisconsin has no death penalty; Ohio does. Edwards says in the clip that he had already told investigators about the killing, that they had not acted on it, and that this is why he decided to contact the reporter. NBC15 reported the same evening that Geauga County authorities were still trying to corroborate his account.

What the Interview Covers

Edwards describes luring Dannie to a secluded spot with a duffel bag, telling him there were cigarettes at the bottom of it, and shooting him twice with a sawed-off, single-shot shotgun held over his shoulder while he searched the bag. He says he then went home "as if nothing had happened" and that his wife did not know Dannie was in town. He says Dannie did not know he was going to be shot, gives as his reason that Dannie "was stealing from my children", and calls himself a lifelong criminal who would not go back to prison "for just, you know, anything". He lists his illnesses, says he deserves and wants the death penalty, and talks at length about what "closure" means for Dannie's relatives and for his own family.

What Makes the Recording Significant

This is the confession interview that preceded Edwards's prosecution in Ohio. He was later charged in Geauga County with Dannie's murder, convicted on March 8, 2011, and sentenced to death, the outcome he asks for here. It is one of the few filmed interviews with him, and it records his own account of the killing in detail.

Important Caveats

Everything Edwards says about the killing, his motive and his wife's knowledge is his own account. His stated motive here (that Dannie was stealing from his children) is not the one the record emphasises: Dannie's life was insured, and reports put the insurance Edwards collected at about $183,000 or $250,000 (the Associated Press reported both figures). His account of shooting Dannie twice with a shotgun agrees with AP's report of the case. NBC15 reported that in the interview he said he had killed five people and no more; investigators suspected others, and none has been proved. The clip is Part 1 only and begins mid-sentence. No captions exist, and the transcript comes from a single machine pass that has not yet been checked by a human listener.

Edward Edwards: [recording begins mid-sentence] ...committed there in Geauga County, and I'm responsible for it, and I am wanting the death penalty. But it seems that everything that I tell them, I mean, it's substantiated, they know it's the truth and stuff like this here, but they, they don't want to, for whatever reason, follow it up or... And it's just, that's why I decided that I would talk to you, to try and get my point across.

Edward Edwards: The kid that was killed, he was... Well, I told [him] that this ride will be coming [inaudible], and that there's some cigarettes in the bottom of the duffel bag. I said, "You go ahead and get them out so you'll, you'll have access to them." And so the duffel bag is, for example, down here with my feet, and Dannie is squatted down, and he's taking his hand, he's going through the bottom of the duffel bag trying to find the cigarettes.

Edward Edwards: And I'm standing right here, and I had the sawed-off shotgun, and I eased it out of the bag. Dannie's down there looking, and I put the shotgun kind of right here over his shoulder, right down here, easy, and I pulled the trigger. And it was a single shot, and so I put another shell in it, pulled the trigger, and he fell on over. And so I then backtracked. I left him there, I left the duffel bag there, and it [inaudible].

Edward Edwards: And it was well covered, I mean, nobody could see it, way back in there. And I went, backtracked, and we went back to the car, and changed clothes [inaudible]. And I went on home as if nothing had happened, and my wife, as I said, didn't even know that Dannie was in town.

Edward Edwards: Well, he didn't know it was coming. He did not know that he was going to get shot. I didn't threaten him in any way. I felt bad, but apparently not bad enough that I kept from doing it. He was stealing from my children, and I'm very close to my family in that respect.

Edward Edwards: And so I just let my mind... I'm not new to crime. I've been in crime all my life. I've written that book there, and so I've been a criminal all my life. And so I made up my mind, I guess, a long time ago, that I wasn't going to go back to a penitentiary for just, you know, anything.

Edward Edwards: But no, I did not feel good about it, and I don't feel good about it now. Otherwise, why? I wouldn't be asking for the death penalty. And what I can't understand... I deserve it, and I want the death penalty.

Ap Reporter: You don't want [unclear: "us" / "to"] to be in prison for a long time on everything else that's going on.

Edward Edwards: Right. I'm not a healthy man. I have a pacemaker, I have a defibrillator, I'm a diabetic, I have neuropathy, I can't walk, my back and neck's been broken, my neck is fused, and I'm just turning [unclear: "75" / "77"], and I'm just turning 77. And I deserve... I mean, his family, what family he has, stepbrothers and stuff like this here, I don't think he has a mom and dad, they're entitled to the...

Edward Edwards: Also, you've got to remember something else, too. I'm thinking also of my family. I have put my family through God knows what. They don't deserve it. They're good people. They've been kept in the dark, like, for example, my wife and things like that. They've been kept in the dark about all of this. And so, not only does Dannie's family, what he has, [get] closure, my family gets closure, if closure can be brought about.

Edward Edwards: I have a different view on what closure really is. You know, you keep hearing people say, "Well, now you've got closure." Okay, is closure, is closure knowing the person who did it got caught and is being sent to the penitentiary? Is that closure? Or is closure... If it were one of mine, closure, I would want to know: what did my, did my child say anything prior to dying? Did he ask for me? Did she or he ask for me? Was he pleading?

Edward Edwards: In other words, I would want to know what was going on at the very end. That would be the closure that... That's what I describe as closure in that respect, coming from a parent. Not just knowing that, okay, I committed the crime, so I'm guilty. I'm guilty, and that, to me, it's just that. Well, there was nothing. Dannie didn't know he was going to get shot, so he did not plead. He didn't know he was going to get shot.

Edward Edwards: But yes, I want to provide the closure to my family in that... I've done it, and I, I really, I deserve the death penalty, as a matter of fact. I have a daughter. But I did this.

Ap Reporter: What is so [inaudible]

Edward Edwards: Okay, I'm, well, I'm sure, I'm sure that there's, no, matter of fact, it's, it's happened many, many times over and over again. It's going to continue to happen, where people will come up and [unclear: "say" / "pay"] they killed somebody, they're [unclear: "confessing to" / "committing to"] a crime and stuff like this here. This is a little bit different. They know that I did this. They've got the gun. They've got the shells. Dannie lived at the house. I had the reason for it. I've told them what the reasoning was. And [inaudible] so...

Edward Edwards: But they keep [saying], "We need the [unclear: "head" / "AG"], we need the [unclear: "head" / "AG"]," and that's why I got [unclear: "picked off" / "pissed off"] and decided I'm going to call you, and which I did. [recording ends] ---