Flesh Collectors (11 page)

Criminologists constantly speculate about killers’ personalities and motives. Frequently they don’t go back far enough to find the root cause. In Jon Lawrence’s case, the real turning point in his life was when he was four years old, in the car with his parents, on a dark night in the canebrake.

Elbert was driving. He got drunk and forced Iona, dead tired, to drive. She fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into a ditch. Hospitalized for three months, Iona was plagued for years thereafter with severe leg damage. Meanwhile, Huey’s head hit the back of the seat as the car went up.

Huey measurably declined after that accident.

“He was just kind of like in a dreamworld,” Iona said in court papers. “Kind of dense, slow. Slow to respond, slow to react. I felt like he could not understand.”

Huey’s sister, Laurie, said he became very shy, slow, withdrawn, nonconfrontational, and kept to himself. Nadine Elizabeth Golson, his aunt, agreed. After the accident, she said, “he became real withdrawn. He didn’t play with the other brother [Ricky] or my daughter or with the other sister. And he started wetting the bed.”

When she would take her young children to play with Huey, they would climb all over the bed while Huey just stood there with his head down, looking like he had no reaction at all. He just wasn’t the same; that hit on the head during the car accident would later be diagnosed as having caused severe brain damage.

Huey started kindergarten in 1980, after the accident, but he was consistently slower than the other children. He was held back in the first grade. Some of the children made fun of him. On one occasion, children shot rocks at him with slingshots, and Iona discovered him sitting down in a ditch, crying.

Kids can be cruel. They sometimes have trouble curbing their primitive tendencies. The kids in Huey’s school were very cruel toward a vulnerable, already messed-up kid. By second grade, the ones that have not learned to be civilized are especially cruel.

When Huey was in the second grade, kids began making fun of his name, calling him “Huey Pewey.” He would come home and cry about it. Iona didn’t know what to do until finally she decided to give Huey what he so dearly wanted—a new name. His mother dubbed him Jonathan, and they kept Huey as his middle name.

In the third grade he was repeatedly paddled by his teacher and his principal because they thought Jonathan was not paying attention, but his problem really was that he had no ability to concentrate. One doctor diagnosed attention deficit disorder and prescribed Ritalin, but Jonathan developed a tic and had to stop taking the medication.

Through it all, mother and son developed a strong bond. He was devoted to her. He would do anything for her. Maybe, in some way, he might be able to get her a new leg to replace her injured one. It was a thought he had on more than one occasion. But there was nothing he could do about it, at least not yet. Jon imagined being able to replace his mother’s leg with a more functional one, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it.

According to court documents, Elbert continued to be abusive throughout Jonathan’s childhood, and not only to Iona. Around 1985, when Jonathan was ten years old, he learned that his father had been sexually abusing his older half sister, Laurie, when she was between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Iona had police come to the house and arrest Elbert. She divorced him while those charges were pending. Elbert was sentenced in 1986 to ten years’ imprisonment and served four years.

Jonathan seemed to become more withdrawn after Elbert’s arrest, although he had become so quiet and so much of a loner that it was hard to tell. “I think it really hurt him,” Laurie said. Iona agreed that he “took it hard. He was more withdrawn after his dad left because Elbert was good to the boys.”

To Jon Lawrence, the knowledge that his father had sexually abused his half sister was devastating. It made him angry, frustrated and impotent. He just didn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, Iona divorced Elbert. The boys drew together after that Wesley noticed how frequently Jonathan was humiliated and picked on by his peers for no apparent reason. He tried to ignore it, but on one occasion Wesley, who was much like his father, came to Jonathan’s rescue and “popped” the bully. This happened on the school bus. The driver got so angry at Wesley because he threw the first punch that he ejected him and told him he couldn’t ride on the school bus anymore.

“Mom, I can’t stand it anymore because kids are picking on Jon for no reason,” Wesley told Iona. “And Jon, he won’t fight back.”

Wesley liked to go on hunting and fishing trips. He was a real outdoorsman. Jon, though, never wanted to go. On the rare occasions when he did, Jon couldn’t bear to kill or clean the catch.

Around 1987 or 1988, Iona became involved with Ed Thronebery. Iona became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Kimberly, when Jonathan was about twelve. But Thronebery was a disaster. He was insanely jealous. On one occasion, Thronebery’s son—in front of Jonathan—told Iona that she was too good for his father and his father went off with another woman. That led to a confrontation in which Throneberry shoved Iona, breaking both bones in her already bad right leg.

In 1989, Iona’s septic-tank business, which she had been using to support her family, failed. She applied for public assistance, including food stamps and Medicaid. As hard as things were, she provided for the children as best she could. Then, in a final fluke of biblical proportions, their house burned down, destroying everything.

Elbert served his time and he was out on the street again by 1991. According to Elizabeth Livingston, Justin’s mother and a Lawrence relative, Elbert kept a shotgun in the house. One night in the trailer in the Lawrence compound, he took it out and began passing it around. A group of teenagers, including Jon and his brother Wesley, passed it around the table.

“Elbert let the teenagers hold it and gave them beer at the same time,” Livingston related.

Alcohol and guns never mix and they didn’t that night. As the gun was being passed around the table, each man slammed the gun against the floor. It was probably a pump action and by slamming it down, a round went into the chamber without anyone realizing it. The gun got passed to Wesley, who slammed it down on the floor; only this time, it went off.

It killed Wesley instantly, nearly taking off his jaw, and splattering blood all over the place. Jon was devastated. He didn’t know what to do with his feelings. He loved his brother and couldn’t figure out how such an awful thing could have happened. Jon had all these questions and no answers. Bad things kept happening. It all boiled up in his brain, looking for an outlet.

Like many disturbed kids, Jon Lawrence was vulnerable to “conspiracy nut” philosophies. Whether to the left or right, fascism or communism, it was all fueled by an underlying desire to get out the aggression that had been building up for so many years. Jon Lawrence became a white supremacist.

The racist literature that Hand and McCurdy found in the Lawrence home when they executed their search warrant had its roots back in Jon Lawrence’s teens, with his first major crime. Young Jon Lawrence was a troubled teenager who hated blacks. It was not surprising, considering his father’s alleged background in the KKK. But Jon Lawrence
really
hated blacks. But he still wasn’t a violent guy, not by himself anyway. It just wasn’t his style. Jon hung with two guys, Rob Palmer and Brian Terhune, and they saw things in the same skewed way he did.

Alone, he couldn’t act, but together, things became possible.

Chumuckla Highway is a small, two-way street. There’s nothing notable about it, except the New Macedonia Church, a distinguished-looking wooden edifice. Just before midnight, Jonathan Lawrence drove by the church and parked about thirty feet down on Guernsey Road. Doors slammed as Lawrence and his companions got out of the car.

Brian Terhune and Rob Palmer followed Jon Lawrence up the deserted street to the church. They were carrying a can of gray spray paint. Jon took the can and started spraying the side of the church closest to Guernsey Road. Brian then took the can and sprayed the other side and the church’s sign. Rob acted as lookout. His job was to raise the alarm if anyone came along.

They didn’t. The streets stayed deserted and the teens did their business. Afterward, they walked away as nonchalantly as they had come. They got in Lawrence’s car and drove off into the night as if nothing had happened. Back at the church, the walls shouted out at anyone who chose to look:

ALL NIGGERS MUST DIE

ALL NIGGERS MUST HANG

FUCKIN NIGGERS

KKK

Brian Terhune got nervous. He figured the cops weren’t stupid. They’d figure out who was responsible and come after them. He didn’t wait; instead, he fingered Jonathan Lawrence. He and Rob Palmer, who also made a deal, filled in the details for the prosecutor John Molchan. A former officer in the United States Navy, Molchan had become a lawyer in the service, serving with the judge advocate general (JAG), and then became a prosecuting attorney when his hitch was up.

“Did you know the church was largely a black congregation?” Molchan asked Palmer.

“Yeah, I did,” Palmer answered. “I think Brian and Lawrence knew also.”

“Did you warn Brian and Lawrence if someone was coming while they sprayed the church?”

“I would have.”

The police theory of the crime was that Palmer was the lookout while the other two did the nasty racist work. Unfortunately for Justin Livingston and Jennifer Robinson, the concept of punishing hate crimes harshly did not exist in 1993 in the state of Florida.

The principle behind tougher sentences for hate crimes is that by deliberately targeting a particular group—religious, racial or otherwise—a perpetrator is hurting all. The same holds true for the use of racial or religious epithets scrawled on religious buildings. By doing so, the vandal is not only hurting the individual congregation, he is hurting anyone who subscribes to that congregation’s beliefs.

By 2003, four states still had no hate crime laws: Arkansas, Indiana, South Carolina and Wyoming. Seventeen states had laws that did not include sexual orientation as a protected group, while twenty-nine, including Florida, had laws that do protect on the basis of sexual orientation. Seven states had hate crime laws covering gender identity. But in 1993, that was all in the future.

In 1993, when Jon Lawrence was eighteen years old, and at the emotional crossroads of his life, hate crime legislation was not common. What would, a decade later, be perceived as a hate crime punishable by a longer sentence would just be perceived as a regular felony punishable by a shorter one. Tried and found guilty on charges of criminal mischief and property damage, Lawrence was sentenced to four years in prison. The Department of Corrections (DOC) Report described him as “an eighteen year old Caucasoid property offender.” Ironically, in Florida, race mattered when filling out police forms.

On November 17, 1993, barely a few weeks into his incarceration, Lawrence slashed his wrist in a suicide attempt. The DOC reported that he had a history of attempts to commit suicide with “at least 50 suicidal gestures in the past.” Dr. Olga Fernandez diagnosed Lawrence as suffering from “adjustment disorder with depress mood” and “antisocial personality disorder.” The
DSM
defines adjustment disorder with depress mood as follows:

“… the development of clinically significant emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable psychosocial stressor or stressors. The stressor may be a single event or there may be multiple stressors.”

In Jon Lawrence’s case, there were multiple ones, stemming from his early childhood. The added part of the diagnosis—depress mood—meant that “the predominant manifestations are symptoms such as depressed mood, tearfulness or feelings of hopelessness.” That description fit Jon Lawrence to a T. But whereas most depressants only hurt themselves, the Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis was an ominous portent of things to come.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a lifelong pattern of not having a conscience, of not recognizing the boundaries of others, and of manipulating and deceiving others for personal benefit.

The diagnosis—coupled with the facts of Lawrence’s scarred background and, so far, brief criminal career—showed that he was a full-blown psychopathic criminal, the most dangerous kind. And though his crimes had yet to involve physical violence, they did involve violence metaphorically. It might only be a matter of time, unless treatment was successful, that Jon Lawrence acted out violently.

After about six months behind bars, the state finally got Lawrence the help he needed when they transferred him to the state mental hospital in Chattahoochee. While the state’s intentions were good, fate was about to take a hand in introducing two of Florida’s notorious future murderers to each other.

Jeremiah Rodgers was born on April 19, 1977, and hailed from the town of Altoona in Lake County, Florida.

The county is in the center of the state, in an area called the Central Highlands. While nearly all of Florida is at sea level, Lake County has a relatively high elevation of about 50 to 190 feet above sea level. It’s one of the few destinations in Florida with rolling hills to climb.

The place is like a picture postcard, a perfect place for parents to raise kids. The Rodgers family lived there and had two sons and a daughter. They also seemed to have a liking for biblical prophets. The youngest son was named Elijah.

According to the Bible, Elijah lived during the ninth century
B.C.
, in the reign of King Ahab. When Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, got the Jewish people to worship the god Baal, Elijah strode into action. He preached that there was only one God of Israel and that the people of Israel were going to suffer a great drought as a result of their polytheism. Turned out, Elijah was right; the drought that followed lasted for three years.

But Ahab and company didn’t give up. They wanted a contest of strength to determine the true deity, so 450 prophets of Baal placed a sacrificial bull on an altar. They called on Baal to consume it in fire. Of course, nothing happened. Then it was Elijah’s turn.