Da'rryl Durr

What happened to sixteen year old Angel Vincent was heinous and grotesque. That she was murdered is beyond any doubt. Whoever did it behaved in the worst possible manner towards a fellow human being. That she was so young and had her whole life before her exacerbates the crime that was committed against her. She and her family had an absolute right to demand and expect justice towards whoever killed her. The pain that her murder left behind must have been unbearable and everlasting. As anyone would, now that I know about the case I feel deeply for Angel Vincent and her family. And I wish them peace.

 Da’rryl Durr was convicted unanimously by a jury of Angel Vincent’s murder. He was also convicted of kidnapping her, robbing her and raping her. But there was no physical evidence against him – the tests on Angel Vincent’s remains for evidence of rape were inconclusive. Durr was convicted on the sole testimony of his former girlfriend Deborah Mullins. He may indeed have been guilty as charged. But though Mullins’ testimony was strong and her recollections feasible – should that have been enough to warrant the state extinguishing Durr’s life?

 In news reports about his case Durr is invariably described as a, “serial rapist and murderer.” He was initially arrested on suspicion of committing two rapes – only then did Deborah Mullins come forward and tell the police that Durr had murdered Angel Vincent, almost nine months after Vincent disappeared and five months after Vincent’s remains were discovered in a park. On the advice of his lawyers Durr pled guilty to the rapes – but later denied that he had ever raped anyone. He continued to deny that he had murdered Angel Vincent for the whole of the twenty one years and three months he was on death row. Right until the end – he said he was innocent.

 In such cases, where the original evidence has an element of vagueness and there has been such a long passage of time, the only people who can ever really know the truth are the people involved. In this case that means Durr and Mullins. But when I spoke to Durr on Saturday 17^th April and then again on Tuesday 20^th April three and a half hours before he was executed, though I felt obliged to ask him, his innocence or guilt did not seem relevant. It was clear to me that whoever Da’rryl Durr had been in 1988 when Angel Vincent was murdered, this was a different man. We were almost four thousand miles apart and our conversations were brief. But there was enough information in our exchanges to convince me that the Da’rryl Durr who was executed on that Lucasville gurney at 10.36 local time was a man of dignity and courage.