Billy & I

A year ago last August, a slight, 18-year-old California ranch hand named Billy Rupp committed an appallingly brutal murder. He cornered a 15-year-old baby sitter named Ruby Ann Payne in the television room of his boss's Orange County home, slugged her with a hammer and then shot her twice with a .22 rifle. He was found cutting the dying girl's clothes off with a pair of scissors. He fled, was captured, tried, found sane, and sentenced to die this month in the gas chamber at San Quentin Penitentiary.

A Damaged Brain. Last week California's Governor Goodwin Knight received an extraordinary letter from Billy Rupp's 25-year-old sister, a senior at the University of California:

"The law," she began, "is archaic. The condemned is often the burden bearer for the . . . unblamed. Let me tell you a little of the background of this boy with his tortured and twisted mind and spirit.

"One doesn't become insane in one day, and Billy's present condition stems from circumstances beyond his control . . . I can remember seeing him in convulsions when he was a tiny child. The spasms were so violent that it took both my parents to hold him while they gave him hot baths to ease the tension. The results of this condition were discovered when electroencephalographic tests were made recently: the area of the brain was damaged which controls the inhibition animal impulses. A child with this handicap would have had difficulty adjusting to a favorable environment. But it is hard for anyone who has had the blessing of a loving family to realize the nightmare Billy and I lived in.

"I am myself an example of this environment . . . Unlike my brother, I was born with a good mind and an intelligence considerably above average. This is no time for false modesty; these are the facts. But the effect of the insecurity and terror caused by constant quarrels of my parents [filled us both] with bitter loathing. I was able to find some refuge from the ugliness . . . by reading incessantly and in being able to make some close friends. For Billy, such outlets were impossible.

"At school, the other children teased him and made fun of him. At home, my mother, purporting to help him with his reading, would beat him on the head with the book and scream at him that he was no good, stupid, and would surely end up in prison. This would go on for hours . . ."

A Damaged Spirit. "When I was 16 I became increasingly depressed, until I wasn't able to concentrate in school. My mother beat me on my bare back with a leather belt. That night I attempted suicide by jumping from the pier at Long Beach. I was rescued. I turned to another form of antisocial behavior . . . a kind of amateur prostitution. I never received money for it [but] I understand now that I was taking payment in affection and a kind of revenge against my parents. The human need for affection . . . is an overpowering emotion.

"Several years later I met a young man who was kind and gentle. I married him to escape. I began college. I underwent two periods of treatment by psychotherapy . . . But I still had and now have a long way to go [in healing] the scars of my family relationships.

"[Several years ago] Billy assaulted a woman . . . trying to satisfy his sexual curiosity. He was unable to have a satisfactory relationship with another human being on any level, either social or sexual, [but] thought only in terms of violence. This is a pattern which was repeated in the crime for which he is now to die.

"There were ample warnings after this first crime that Billy was dangerous and in need of . . . help . . . Is another life to be taken because we didn't carry out our responsibilities? I have told you about my own life as a basis of comparison. What penalty can you lay upon him who slays in the flesh, yet is himself slain in the spirit?"

Last week in San Francisco, Federal Judge George Harris issued a stay of execution for Billy Rupp on the ground that his constitutional rights may have been violated because the jury did not get certain psychiatric evidence during his trial. But at week's end, this seemed only a temporary respite. The governor was both moved and troubled by the girl's letter, but he indicated that he would disregard it . . . "If her sad request be granted," he said, "and the sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, [Rupp] would probably get out of prison in ten or 15 years. This man is a sex killer. I see it my duty to see that [society] is protected."

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