CHILD KILLER, MARTIN LINK EXECUTED IN MISSOURI ON FEBRUARY 9, 2011

            On this date, February 9, 2011, A child killer, Martin Link was executed by lethal injection in Missouri. I will post some information about the killer and my rebuttal to the abolitionists during the execution. To hear more from the victim’s family member, please go to my other blog post.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/link1239.htm

MissouriDeathRow.Com

State of Missouri v. Martin Link

25 S.W. 3d 136 (Mo. banc 2000)

Martin Link was executed on February 9, 2011. 

Case Facts: On Friday, January 11, 1991, just before 6:30 a.m., eleven-year-old Elissa Self left her house at 3844 Humphrey Street in South St. Louis to walk less than three blocks to catch her bus to Enright Classical Junior Academy, a school for gifted children. It was a cold, rainy morning, and Elissa’s mother insisted that she wear boots and carry an umbrella. Elissa never arrived at school, and at about 8:20 a.m. the school called Elissa’s parents to tell them that Elissa was not present. Elissa’s parents drove around the neighborhood looking for her, but they were unable to her, and they went home and called the police. 

During the next four days, police canvassed the neighborhood, interviewed possible witnesses, and investigated calls and letters on possible sightings. On Tuesday, January 15, 1991, two persons who were scavenging at the Black Bridge recreation area along the St. Francis River, 135 miles south of St. Louis in Wayne County, found Elissa’s body in a large pile of debris that had washed up on the river bank. Police soon searched the area and found Elissa’s boots, but none of her other belongings. One of the small boulders that defined the perimeter of the parking area had been pushed out of place, and there was a tire rut in the gravel leading up to that boulder. 

The cause of death was ligature strangulation. There were two long, thin bruises, about five to seven millimeters wide, around her entire neck. These bruises were consistent with a cord having been wrapped completely around her neck, with each end of the cord held in front of her. A pathologist testified that Elissa had been strangled to death slowly, losing consciousness after about five to ten minutes and dying after about thirty minutes. Although she still may have been alive when her body was dumped in the river, the amount of brain damage she sustained from the strangulation indicated that she never would have regained consciousness. Because the cold water had preserved her body, the time of death could be established only during the interval between the time of her kidnapping to twenty­four hours before she was found. 

At about 9:24 p.m., on January 26, 1991, eleven days after Elissa’s body was found, a City of Kirkwood police officer saw Martin Link driving with a headlight out and at tempted to pull him over. Link led the officer on a high-speed chase, eventually crash- ing his car into a telephone pole, and was then taken into custody. In a search of the car, officers found a jar of petroleum jelly with Link’s fingerprints on the jar and flecks of blood embedded in the jelly. In addition, officers took tape lifts from the inside of the car in order to obtain fiber evidence. 

During the investigation, officers discovered that Link had grown up five blocks from where Elissa was kidnapped and had attended the school near Elissa’s bus stop. In the early 19805, Link lived in a house less than a mile away from the Black Bridge recreation area, the place where Elissa’s body was found. At the time Link was arrested, he was living in South St. Louis, about 1 1/2 miles from where Elissa was kidnapped. 

Officers also discovered that Link was registered at a motel just outside of St. Louis from January 9, 1991 to January 11, 1991. Link checked out at an unknown time on January 11, the morning that Elissa was kidnapped. That night, at about 1:55 a.m. on January 12, Link checked into a motel in Des Loge, Missouri, which is about seventy miles north of Black Bridge on a direct route from Black Bridge to St. Louis. A witness noted that Link’s car was loud, “like a car that had a bad muffler on it.” At about 8:30 a.m., Link called the S & S Muffler shop and “was very insistent” that he get his car fixed that day. He was told to bring in the car that afternoon and did so at 2:30 p.m. He explained to the employees that he was coming from further south and that he had to get his muffler fixed or else he would get a ticket in St. Louis. While he was at the shop, he kept pacing in the waiting room and checking to see if the work on his car was finished. 

While a mechanic was working underneath Link’s car, clumps of orange clay of the same type found in the St. Francis riverbed fell from the bottom of the car. The tailpipe was bent and broken loose from the muffler, and the muffler had been hit by something that smashed and punctured it. The muffler of Link’s car had twelve inches of clearance, which was also the height of the rock that had been moved out of place at Black Bridge, where Elissa’s body was found. 

As part of the investigation, a special agent at the FB! crime laboratory compared three fibers found on the front passenger seat of Link’s car with fibers from the sweater Elissa had been wearing when she was kidnapped. The agent determined that the fibers found in Link’s car were “consistent with having come from the victim’s sweater.” 

DNA tests conducted by two different labs showed that Link’s DNA matched the DNA found in sperm cells on vaginal swabs taken from Elissa’s body. The state’s DNA expert set the odds of such a match at one in 6,600. The testing also revealed that Elissa’s DNA matched the DNA in the blood found in the petroleum jelly jar seized from Link’s car. The odds of that match were one in 48. The joint probability of both of these matches occurring by chance was less than one in 300,000. 

Link did not testify at trial, but he called two witnesses who had reported seeing Elissa after 6:30 a.m. on January 11, 1991. He also called a detective who had worked with one of these witnesses to make a composite drawing of a man she allegedly saw with Elissa, but who did not resemble Link. He also called two witnesses who worked as buyers in the clothing industry to testify to the large number of cotton/ramie sweaters, like the one Elissa wore, that were imported every year. He called two DNA experts to testify that the DNA tests performed by the other two laboratories were faulty. In addition, one of the DNA experts and a third expert testified that the state’s conclusions about the probabilities of Link’s DNA being found in the sperm on the vaginal swab and Elissa’s DNA being found in the blood in the petroleum jelly jar were incorrect. Finally, Link called an accident reconstructionist who testified that the boulder at Black Bridge could not have damaged the muffler on Link’s car. 

In rebuttal, the state presented its own accident reconstruction evidence. Investigating officers testified that they obtained a car of the same year and model, with the same kind of tires, bumper arrangement, and exhaust system as Link’s car. They backed the car up to the boulder that had been moved out of place at Black Bridge, whereupon the tailpipe and muffler made contact with the boulder, thus showing that the boulder could have caused the damage to Link’s car. 

At the close of the evidence, instructions, and arguments, the jury found Link guilty of kidnapping, forcible rape, and murder in the first degree.

—

Martin Link was born April 17, 1963 (unverified), in St. Louis, MO. 

On October 13, 1995, Link was sentenced in St. Louis City to death for the crime of Murder in the First Degree. He was originally ordered to the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections on November 23, 1993, for crimes committed prior to this sentencing structure. He has remained in DOC custody since that date. 

Legal Chronology: 

1991
January 11: Martin Link kidnaps 11-year-old Elissa Self as she goes to school. She is eventually strangled. 

January 15: Elissa Self’s body is found washed ashore along the St. Francis River. 

September 26: Link is charged by indictment with first degree murder, as well as other felonies. 

1995
July 17: The jury trial begins. 

August 10: Jury returns verdicts of guilty of murder in the first degree, rape and kidnapping. 

August 12: July returns death sentences as punishment for first degree murder conviction. 

October 13: The St. Louis City Circuit Court sentences Link to death and to a totaì of life plus 15 years. 

November 9: Link ñles a notice of appeal. 

1996
October 1: Link files a Rule 29.15 motion for post­conviction relief in the St. Louis City Circuit Court. 

1999
July 2: The Circuit Court denies post-conviction relief. 

2000
August 1: The Missouri Supreme Court affirms Link’s conviction and sentence and the denial of post- conviction relief. State v. Link, 25 S.W.3d 136 (Mo. banc 2000). December 4: The United States Supreme Court denies certiorari review of the direct appeal and post-conviction appeals. Link v. Missouri, 531 U.S. 1040 (2000). 

2001
December 4: Link files a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. 

2004
September 10: The District Court denies the petition for writ of habeas corpus in an unpublished order. 

2006
December 8: The Court of Appeals affirms the denial of habeas relief. Link v. Luebbers, 469 F.3d 1197 (8th Cir. 2006) 

2007
October 29: The Supreme Court declines discretionary review. Link v. Roper, 128 S. Ct. 488 (2007) 

2008
April 17: The state files a motion to set an execution date. 

2011
January 7: The Missouri Supreme Court issues an execution warrant setting February 9, 2011, as the execution date. 

Execution vigil evokes memories of long case, girl's short life," by Bill McClellan. (February 11, 2011)

A small cluster of high-schoolers from St. Louis stood in the snow and the cold outside the state prison in Bonne Terre Tuesday night and listened to a young priest. "We live in a throw-away society," he said, "but we do not believe in throwing anybody away." 

Martin Link was scheduled to die by lethal injection shortly after midnight Wednesday morning. 

The kids prayed for Link, and they prayed for the family of his victim, and they prayed for the people inside the prison who would soon carry out the execution. 

As the kids conducted their "Vigil for Life," a car cruised past on Highway K. It stopped near the driveway leading to the prison just long enough for Carl Kabat to hop out. He is a 77-year-old priest with a long history of civil disobedience. He once did almost 10 years in prison for attacking a missile silo with a jackhammer. Kabat wore a sandwich sign made of cardboard. "Thou Shalt Not Kill," was the message hanging down his chest. "Stop the Murder," was the message on his back. 

He approached the guards. They pointed toward the official protest area, which is where the kids were conducting their vigil. "I'm not going there," Kabat said. The guards detained him and called the state police. Within a few minutes, Kabat was on his way to the St. Francois County jail in Farmington. 

By 9 p.m., Kabat was gone, the kids had left and the area around the prison was quiet. The witnesses for the execution arrived at 10:30. There are three groups of witnesses. They are kept segregated. There are witnesses for the state, the victim and the condemned. I was one of the state's witnesses. 

On a January morning in 1991, 11-year-old Elissa Self-Braun left her home in south St. Louis and headed toward her school bus stop. Her umbrella was found in an alley she used as a shortcut. Four days after her disappearance, her body was found on the banks of the St. Francis River in Wayne County. 

Bill Roach and Mike Flaherty were the detectives from the juvenile division who had been handed the missing-child case. They drove to Wayne County. Elissa's body had been removed from the river and taken to a funeral home. She was lying on a table, still caked with mud. Roach ran his hand through her hair. "We never stopped looking for you, honey, and we'll never stop looking for the guy who did this." 

Because there was a question of jurisdiction — where was she killed? — the homicide division did not take the case, and Roach and Flaherty received permission to continue their investigation. Eventually, they arrested Link. 

Joe Warzycki was the lead prosecutor when the case went to trial in 1995. He was assisted by Jeff Hilliard. Roach, Flaherty and Warzycki also served as state's witnesses at Link's execution. Hilliard died from ALS in January 2004. The state's witnesses were taken to the office in the prison that is used for parole hearings. 

At 11:50 p.m., we were led toward the execution chamber. We walked past the "strip room," where inmates change clothes and are searched after visits. We walked past the empty visiting area. We were led into a small room. There were two rows of chairs facing a blue curtain. I sat next to Roach. He mused about the fact that had Elissa left the house two minutes earlier or two minutes later on that long-ago morning, none of us would be here. He said that once, when he was a young cop, he was at Fairground Park at 3 a.m. He saw headlights coming down Grand Avenue. Then headlights coming down Natural Bridge Avenue. They were the only two cars on the street and they were racing at each other like meteors. They collided. Sometimes that happens. 

Two corrections officials opened the curtains. Link was lying on a gurney. He was wearing glasses, but his eyes were closed. He looked serene. He was covered with a white sheet. His breathing was shallow. I could see two leather straps, one for his wrists and the other for his legs. Tubing for an IV came from a wall and snaked up under the sheet. 

Directly across from us was his family's viewing area. The curtains were closed. To our right, but out of our sight, was the viewing room for Elissa's witnesses. 

Three drugs are used in the execution. The first renders the condemned unconscious. When it was administered, Link coughed. He did not appear to be in distress. The second drug stops the respiratory process. The final drug stops the heart. I could see no discernible change in Link when the last two drugs were administered. 

A corrections official announced that Link's heart had stopped, and he had been pronounced dead. "The execution of Martin Link is complete," the official said. The curtains closed. 

Afterward, Flaherty, Roach, Warzycki and I went out for coffee with Elissa's family. I sat next to her mom. She did not talk about the execution or Link. Instead, she talked about family. Which still includes, of course, the 11-year-old who left for school one morning and never came home. 

REBUTTAL TO THE ABOLITIONISTS:

A small cluster of high-schoolers from St. Louis stood in the snow and the cold outside the state prison in Bonne Terre Tuesday night and listened to a young priest. "We live in a throw-away society," he said, "but we do not believe in throwing anybody away."

Martin Link was scheduled to die by lethal injection shortly after midnight Wednesday morning.

The kids prayed for Link, and they prayed for the family of his victim, and they prayed for the people inside the prison who would soon carry out the execution.

REBUTTAL: We live in a throw-away society but we throw away people who have no respect for life. I do not think the victim’s family accept your prayers when you pray for them. Were you praying for them when the girl was murdered on 11 January 1991? I doubt it.

As the kids conducted their "Vigil for Life," a car cruised past on Highway K. It stopped near the driveway leading to the prison just long enough for Carl Kabat to hop out. He is a 77-year-old priest with a long history of civil disobedience. He once did almost 10 years in prison for attacking a missile silo with a jackhammer. Kabat wore a sandwich sign made of cardboard. "Thou Shalt Not Kill," was the message hanging down his chest. "Stop the Murder," was the message on his back.

He approached the guards. They pointed toward the official protest area, which is where the kids were conducting their vigil. "I'm not going there," Kabat said. The guards detained him and called the state police. Within a few minutes, Kabat was on his way to the St. Francois County jail in Farmington.

REBUTTAL: Please learn more about the sixth commandment of the bible.