Levi King, Again

 

by Pa Rock

Witness to History

A couple of weeks ago while I was visiting in my daughter's home in Oregon, Molly asked out of the blue, "Dad, did you know Levi King?"  The question caught me by surprise and I hesitated as I tried to form the best answer.  Finally I went with, "Yes, I knew him well.  I even testified at his murder trial in Texas."  That was followed by me asking why she had brought up the fairly infamous spree killer, and she responded by pulling up Episode 1 of a new documentary on murderers that is currently running on Prime called "The Killer Speaks," in which the focus is on extended interviews with people who commit the act of murder in an effort to ferret out what brought about their actions.

The first episode, which Molly was in the middle of watching, was on Levi King of McDonald County, Missouri, who had killed an elderly couple in McDonald County in 2005, stolen their pick-up, and driven to Texas where he killed three members of a family there (a husband, wife, and 14-year-old son) before later being arrested as he tried to cross into Mexico at El Paso.  Levi was 23 at the time of those murders, and he was already an ex-con having served time in prison for second-degree arson and burglary.  He was arrested for murder in Texas exactly one week after being released from a halfway house in St. Louis following his first imprisonment.

To say that Levi King was well on the way to life behind bars (or worse)  when he committed those murders would ba a serious understatement.

Levi was tried first for murder in Missouri in 2008.  He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.  Then he was sent to Texas to stand trial for the murder of the three family members there.  Texas was known for its bloodlust, and there was a strong assumption that the Lone Star State would execute him.  His murder trial there was in the fall of 2009 in Lubbock.

That is where I entered the picture.

In 2009 I was working as a civilian social worker with the United States Air Force at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix.  I received a call out of the blue one morning from a lady who identified herself as an attorney in Texas who was representing Levi King in his murder trial.  She asked me a few basic questions about my history with Levi King and his family (parents and siblings) while I had been working as a child protection official in McDonald County, Missouri, and then informed me that I would be receiving a subpoena to come to Lubbock to testify in his murder trial.

Levi pleaded guilty in the Texas trial, just as he had in Missouri, so his court-appointed defense team was not trying to get him off, but they were focused on saving him from the death penalty.  A big part of their defense seemed to be showing the jury the awful circumstances under which Levi had grown up, and to that end myself and one of my former co-workers from Missouri were called in to testify regarding our numerous interactions with Levi and his family.  I guess we must have been effective to some degree because he was eventually sentenced to life in prison by the Texas jury - instead of being given the death penalty.

In a blog entry in this space on October 7, 2009, entitled simply "Levi King," I had the following (among other things) to say:

"I have much that I would like to say about this young man, the crime of murder, and the subject of capital punishment.  I must, however, remain rather circumspect on discussing Levi because I knew him on a professional basis through my work in child protection for the state of Missouri.  Let me describe him thusly:  Levi King was a child who grew up in a very isolated location under less than optimal circumstances.  It would be fair, I believe, to conclude that his childhood was aborted by his circumstances in much the same manner as his adulthood was aborted by his crimes.  Yes, he grew through childhood and he will probably grow through adulthood, but in both cases he was (and will be) tragically shortchanged."

(And yes, before you loose the hounds on me, I also fully realize that the lives of five innocent people were also tragically shortchanged by the actions of Levi King.   I am not condoning his actions or trying to apologize for them - but I am just simply trying to shine some light into the dark recesses of the mind of a man who chose to end the lives of people whom he did not even know.)

I sat with Molly and watched most of that episode.  Levi is in his forties, now, but I could still see the boy that I knew as a young teenager inhabiting the visage of a long-term, hardened prison inmate.  I hope that he is doing well, and I also hope that it was the families of his victims who reaped the financial benefit from his involvement in the crime documentary - and not Levi.