|
Sentencing Walter Iawan today, Judge Francis Delaney called him a cold, calculating, intelligent and brutal man who was nothing short of evil. After his much reported five month trial, Mr Iawan was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of his wife, Iris, and their five year old daughter Sandy.
The story began last spring when the New London police received a paniced phone call from their distressed house-keeper saying she had found her mistress and baby girl in the living room, lying in deepening pools of their own blood. Ambulances and police officers rushed to the scene, only to find the pair dead, each with two gunshots to the back of the head. After police were unable to locate Mr. Iawan, a state wide manhunt was launched.
From the beginning, Iris’ husband seemed an unlikely suspect. In public they had shared a fairytale marriage. Iris was the granddaughter of oil tycoon billionaire Sebastian Washington, who had made his money back in New London’s petroleum boom and had managed to hold onto it throughout the ensuing crash, and made sure that his family had wanted for nothing. Throughout her life, Iris had always said that the only thing she wanted was the one thing her estate couldn’t provide for her: true love. Seven years ago, it seemed that her prayers had been answered when she met Walter, a man from a poor background ‘who had a heart of poetry and a soul of love that swept me [Iris] off my feet and never put me down again’. A few years later, they threw a lavish party to celebrate the birth of their first child, and it seemed as though nothing in the world would separate the couple. In all their marriage, they never spent a night apart.
But, during the trial, Mr. Iawan painted a very different picture of their marriage. On his first day in the witness box, Mr. Iawan shocked the court by declaring, ‘I don’t care much for your laws, but I’ve sworn on a bible, so every single word is going to be the God’s honest truth, and you can like it as much as you want.’
He went on: ‘In my honest opinion, the world’s a better place without her. She was insane. Truly insane. All I wanted to do was play my guitar and write my words. That’s who I was when I married her. I dunno what she thought, but going down the aisle with her didn’t change who I was. Every time I went to pick Bessy [his guitar] up, she started screaming. She said things that would make a whore blush. She just wanted me to follow her around and dote on her the whole time. She should’ve just brought a damn dog.’
When questioned about the million-dollar insurance policy on her life, which would pay out even if she was murdered, Mr. Iawan seemed nonchalant. The prosecution put it to him that he was tired of not having control of his own life, that he felt trapped by his financial independence on her, and being from an under privileged background became ‘drunk on the idea of being a millionaire’.
‘I guess a million bucks would be nice’ he answered.
Throughout the trial, he failed to show a single emotion, even when the details of the murder of his wife and child were read out to the court.
On leaving the courthouse, he was asked what he thought of the sentence.
‘Everyone’s got to die sometime’ he answered. ‘At least this way someone’ll find me before I start rotting.’
He was remanded to the Sheriff’s department to be placed on death row, to await execution.
| 
