Scandal

25 years ago today a precursor of the ‘Me Too’ movement claimed a very important victory in an unlikely place. Morocco, at the time, was seen as a place where police officers, especially male ones, were entitled to do as they pleased. Nothing emphasised this culture more than the Tabetgate Scandal. Over a period of many years a top police officer, who ended his ‘service’ in Casablanca, had committed several crimes against over 500 women. The offences included rape, deflowering virgins and kidnap, among many others.
Tabert had been aided and abetted in his crimes by other officers including his superior Ahmed Ouachi, who covered up for Tabet and destroyed evidence. Police Commissioners, Abdessalam Bekkali and Mustapha ben Maghnia were also complicit in Tabet’s crimes.

Tabet could and should have been stopped many years earlier. Rather than submit to his unwanted advances a young woman in the historic city of Beni Mehall – near Jbel Tassemit in the High Atlas Mountains – threw herself out of the window. Scandalised, the area’s member in the House of Representatives fired off letters demanding action against Tabet to the Governor of the province, Ministry of the Interior, the Director of National Security, and the relevant prosecutor in 1980.

The action that followed illustrated the entitlement culture at its worst – Tabet was transferred to Rabat. The best opportunity to stop the serial rapist early had been lost. Hay Mohammadi-Ain Sebâa, the Chief of Security of that prefecture, enters the story there.

The Culture of Entitlement

This culture of police entitlement continued unabated for over a decade. Tabet, encouraged by the lack of consequences, became reckless, especially when in Casablanca, retaining incriminating evidence. This was to be his undoing. In 1989 he was appointed Casablanca’s Chief Police Commissioner. Colleagues and even civilians and, worse still, a gynaecologist were involved in national scandal that was exposed in a sensational trial of the high-ranking, self-confessed sex addict police officer whose litany of crimes were covered up by colleagues. It continued so long partly due to the law of the time requiring eyewitnesses to corroborate a woman’s word.

Casablanca’s Chief Police Commissioner El Hajj Mohamed Mustapha Tabet, 54, took advantage of that to rape and sexually assault several women. He felt so secure that he videoed his crimes and kept detailed notes. Over the years he was assisted by several police colleagues: Ouachi, Bekkali, ben Maghnia and Sebâa were the most senior officers involved. However, others ranking Inspector or below were implicated too. Azii Sebbar, Abderahim Bouddi, Abdellatif Abbad, Lahcen Jaâfari, Zouheor Fikri, Aït Si Mustapha, Slimane Jouhari and Sellam Fedali were joined in the dock by Dr Driss Lahlou and civilians Abdelkader Dou Ennaim, Abdllatif Boussari, Monhamed Rabii and Abdelahad Mrini.

Lahlou’s crimes were shocking. The doctor performed unwanted abortions on the victims and repaired hymens to conceal the rapes.

Downfall

Tabet’s crimes ended after two of his victims brought a civil action against him. It resulted in a 25 day criminal trial beginning on February 18th. After 25 days Tabet was convicted of multiple counts of rape, deflowering virgins, sexual assault, abduction and other sexually-motivated crimes. At his trial 118 videos of his attacks on 518 women, some of which were committed with friends, were shown. Tabet’s detailed confession, computerised records of his victims’ identities and proof of identity of many victims that were found in the flat in Casablanca that Tabet used for his attacks also provided strong evidence against him.

He demanded sex in return for issuing documents including passports, and offered a defence that stretched credibility to absurd lengths. He claimed that he had had sex with about 1600 women over three years – more than one per day throughout his job in Casablanca, but according to him all were consensual. His denials of using violence on the women was proved false by some of the videos.

Crime and Punishment

On the Ides of March 1993 the sentences were handed down. Tabet received the death sentence. Ouachi was jailed for life for destroying evidence of Tabet’s crimes. Ten other officers were jailed for up to 20 years. Bekkali received 20 years and Ben Maghnia, ten. Lahlou was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment but with one exception the sentences were not served in full.

Bekkali died in prison in 1994 and was pardoned posthumously in 1997. Lahlou was released after serving just two years of his 15 year sentence. Ouachi, Sebâa, Boussari, Abdelkader and Rabii – the only ones remaining in prison by the turn of the century, were pardoned by the King on March 16th 2000, having served 7 years of their sentence, some still protesting their innocence.

Over a decade later the pardons process was brought into disrepute when a convicted Spanish paedophile Daniel Galván was released just two years after being convicted of raping 11 children. The pardon led to a peaceful protest that was attacked and a review of the pardons system – Galván was a particularly unworthy recipient.

Tabet was executed in Kenitra Central Prison – near Rabat – by firing squad on August 9th 1993 after his final appeal was dismissed. It was the last execution in Morocco to date and eleven years after it was last used when two people were executed over the Moutachawiq case.

Lessons Learned?

The USA restored the death penalty after a four year break in 1976. In fact, there had been no executions since 1967 – the Supreme Court ruled the statutes unconstitutional in 1972 (Furman v Georgia). States amended their statutes and in 1976 the Supreme Court ruled Georgia’s new death penalty statute was constitutional (Gregg v Georgia).

Anyone on Death Row prior to the Furman decision had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The first person executed since restoration was Gary Gilmore (Utah January 17th 1977).

Somewhat surprisingly, all of the first five executed since restoration were white – only one fought against his fate. The other four, including Gilmore, abandoned their appeals and demanded to be executed. One – the first in Virginia for twenty years – was a former police officer turned armed robber and murderer.

Cops and Robbers

Frank Coppola was the first person executed by Virginia since 1962 (Carroll Garland on March 2nd for murder). Among the careers Coppola had in his short life (38 when he died) was police officer in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was forced to leave in 1967 after making false statements about an assault on a prisoner committed by a colleague. He had also tried to become a priest – quitting after a year – and a sports scholarship that he did not complete. He joined the police in 1965.

In the 1970s he had a new career in crime, having been sentenced to four years for burglary in 1971. Seven years later, the former prisoner committed the crimes that cost him his life. He robbed and viciously beat Muriel Hatchell to death in her home.

Donna Mills and Joseph Miltier – also an accomplice in the 1971 crime – were involved in the robbery and Coppola’s wife, Karen, was an accessory. Hatchell’s husband, Peyton, arrived during the robbery and was viciously clubbed over the head. He was severely injured, but survived.

Cops Turned Robbers

Coppola was convicted of robbery and murder on September 26th 1978. He was sentenced to death. His accomplices received long terms in prison. Coppola chose to waive appeals and went to the electric chair on August 10th 1982, over 20 years since the last execution in that state. Coppola’s execution was botched, requiring two jolts of electricity.

He was not the only former police officer to turn to crime before committing a further crime that resulted in execution. During his career as a police officer, which began in March 1920, James Power disgraced the profession (http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=899). He was thrown out just shy of three years later. He made a living by impersonating a police officer and demanding money with menaces from courting couples. On July 2nd 1927 he raped and murdered Olive Turner, the offence that sent him to the gallows on January 31st 1928.

Infamous

Over 55 earlier an even worse example occurred in Northern Ireland. Sub-Inspector Thomas Montgomery, a seemingly respectable police officer, was anything but. The officer needed money, so he tried to rob the Northern Bank on June 29th 1871, as it was closing. He murdered cashier, William Glass, with a spike. Montgomery then took charge of the investigation into Glass’ murder.

Eventually witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime an hour earlier, and colleagues discovered his financial woes. They built a case against him which resulted in his conviction after two mistrials. Montgomery was the last person executed in Omagh jail – going to the gallows on August 26th 1873.

Deterrence?

Article 50 has been triggered, but it has emerged that many Brexit supporters want more than tighter immigration controls – they want the return of capital punishment too, but what does it achieve? Deterrence?

If anyone should be deterred, it should be those aware of the consequences – police, lawyers, prison offices, for example, so let’s see whether it works in practice. It has been over half a century since Britain carried out its last execution. The 1950s was an important decade for executions in Britain – four serious miscarriages of justice and the only serving police officer at the time of his offence hanged for murder.

A Unique Place in Infamy

James Robertson was hanged on December 16th 1950. He was the only police officer to suffer execution in Britain in the 20th Century (http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=635) although former officers had been hanged in both that century and the preceding one too. But Britain is far from alone in executing police officers whom the death penalty failed to deter.

Robertson’s crime was callous, but Mohamed Mustafa Tabet was the Poster-boy of Infamy. His litany of crimes and the cover-up that was attempted disgrace any notion of justice.

Tabet was executed by firing squad on August 8th 1993. He was a serial rapist, believed to have claimed as many as 518 victims, mostly school-girls. Tabet had abused his position as a Commissioner of Police in Casablanca, and been allowed to commit these heinous crimes through the complicity of colleagues – later jailed – and a doctor who disgraced his profession, Dr Driss Lahlou (http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=1339).

Heinous

Despite terrorist atrocities in 2003 and 2007, Morocco’s last execution was that of Tabet. So what about countries that retain and use the death penalty? Has the death penalty deterred law enforcement officers from committing capital offences?

Tabet and Robertson are not the only examples of police officers who have been executed. Resenting the loss of his position as Vice-Chairman of the Brigade Revolutionary Committee, for failing to adhere to family planning policy, the Brigade Militia Company Commander Wang Xiwen’s became a mass murderer. His shooting spree killed seven and wounded 12 in Handan on November 17th1980.

His support for the notorious Gang of Four, and actions in support of them made clemency even less likely. The trial of the Gang of Four had been due to begin that month. Xiwen broke into an armoury and stole weapons, including grenades. He returned to stock up on weapons too. His rampage left six dead – another fatally wounded – and 12 more injured, five of them seriously.

Found guilty on April 1981, Xiwen’s appeals proceeded quickly – the last of which was dismissed on June 10th 1981. He was immediately executed by firing squad in front of a 50,000 crowd at the Handan Municipal Stadium.

Elite Assassin

On January 4th 2011 the Governor of Punjab (Pakistan), Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard Malik Mumtaz Qadri, because Qadri a fundamentalist Muslim, objected to Tasseer’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Qadri shot Taseer 27 times with an AK-47. Qadri was convicted at an Anti-Terrorism court in Islamabad on October 10th 2011. His appeal against the death penalty was dismissed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court on December 12th 2015. He was hanged on February 29th 2016.

Qadri had been a member of the Elite Police – ironically a domestic counter-terrorist unit in the Punjab – since 2010. It also provided VIP protection.

A Beast in Uniform

The death penalty is the ultimate deterrent, or so we keep hearing. Really? Then how do its supporters explain the actions and fate of former Casablanca police commissioner Mohamed Mustafa Tabet? On August 8th 1993 the 54-year-old serial rapist faced a firing squad. He was believed to have claimed almost 520 victims – some of whom were schoolgirls. Tabet had been convicted at an extraordinary trial five months earlier – one that laid bare a web of corrupt abuse of police and medical powers.

His crimes were despicable and only emerged because of the courage of some victims who demanded justice. Tabet’s downfall was self-inflicted – the price of incredible arrogance and belief in his privilege. Not only had the vile police commissioner committed a plethora of unspeakable crimes, but he had also video-taped the ordeals of his numerous victims secretly and kept the tapes.

Tabet’s video-tapes were discovered by investigators – 118 of them – documenting his bestial crimes in an apartment he kept for committing his sex crimes. They were recorded by concealed cameras, which Tabet had installed.
The sensational month-long trial disgraced Moroccan policing. Eighteen victims gave evidence behind closed doors. Their accounts were similar. They had been taken to the apartment by force or ruse and then subjected to vile sexually cruel ordeals. They received damages between $3500-16,000.

Scandal

The scandal came to light because two of Tabet’s victims took legal action against him. Morocco, to its credit, did not cover up for Tabet, or his colleagues. Tabet – married to two women and father of five children – was a vicious beast. However, his defence stretched credibility to absurd lengths. He claimed that the sex was consensual – all 518. Not surprisingly he was not believed. But even worse emerged.

Tabet’s numerous crimes, committed over several years, were appalling. That cannot be disputed, but how had he evaded justice for so long? The answer lies in colleagues who disgraced their profession and a gynaecologist who performed unwanted abortions and reconstructed hymens. Dr Driss Lahlou received 17 years. His crimes also included complicity in rape.

The Cover-Up

The cover-up was extensive and shameful. It involved civilians – five of whom were jailed for ten years. Eight police officers were sent to prison for three years. They were not alone. Police Commissioners Abdesalam Bekkali and Mustafa Benmaghnia obstructed justice and failed to denounce a crime. They were jailed for twenty and ten years respectively for these offences and for falsification.

However, the worst of the conspirators of silence was Tabet’s superior, Ahmed Ouachi. He was sentenced to life imprisonment – and rightly so – for trying to cover up Tabet’s crimes both before and during the investigation that finally exposed Tabet for the depraved beast that he was. The list of Tabet’s offences were legion.

Deterrence?

If capital punishment was the deterrent it is claimed to be, how did it fail to curb the criminal instincts of Mohamed Mustafa Tabet, a commissioner of police? Surely Tabet knew the consequences of his crimes and the risk of committing them, but that could not deter a senior police officer from committing heinous offences.

Tabet’s execution was the last to take place in Morocco, despite two terrorist atrocities – suicide bombings in 2003 and 2007. Despite Morocco retaining the death penalty – over a hundred prisoners remain under sentence of death – it has not carried out an execution for almost a quarter of a century and is considered a de facto abolition nation.

Vindication

Almost 20 years ago Zandra Mitchley and teenagers Shaun Nel and Claire Silberbauer were murdered in a notorious armed attack on a car approaching Eikenhof, which is near Johannesburg. All the occupants were white people with no connection to the Apartheid state.

The attack shook the country. It happened as South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to majority rule was taking shape. If its aim was to derail that process it almost succeeded, as the police and prosecutor tried to make political capital from the tragedy, accusing and falsely convicting three innocent men – men they knew were innocent.

The African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe had ended their armed struggle against Apartheid. This case was used to try to claim that the ANC were negotiating in bad faith – they were not. The interests of justice were disgracefully sacrificed to shameful political expediency and the perceived interests of a criminal regime – a crime against humanity, no less. In a system pock-marked by terrible affronts to justice this remains one of its worst ever miscarriages of justice.

It is the clearest of South Africa’s vindication cases – a difference-making travesty of justice that could and should have ensured that the new South Africa, the so-called Rainbow Nation, has a criminal justice system that is the envy of the world. Instead apathy, cynicism and political opportunism reign in a sorry tale of justice betrayed again and again.

Shameful

Three men were wrongly convicted of the three murders and the attempted murder of Norman Mitchley and Craig Lamprecht in the Eikrenhof attack. Siphiwe James Bholo, Sipho Gavin and Boy Ndweni (the Eikenhof Three) had strong alibis that they were in Wesselsbron, about 380 kilometres away when the attack occurred. It mattered not a whit to investigators and South Africa’s criminal justice system past and present.

Alibi witnesses were shamefully bullied. Perjury was committed. There was colossal non-disclosure of vital evidence that not only proved the Eikenhof Three innocent, but that the whole case was a gross conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. It was well known that the Eikenhof Three were members of the African National Congress (ANC) and that the attack had been organised and executed by the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) – the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC).

This information and more was ruthlessly suppressed. But even after it emerged the South African criminal justice system kept the lid on the scandal, denying innocent men the clear acknowledgement of vindication that had been proved beyond reasonable doubt – any really. Despite a plethora of causes for concern there has been no investigation of the notorious case to establish what went wrong and prevent repetition to date, let alone criminal sanctions of those responsible.

Precedent and Necessity

The convictions of the Eikenhof Three were eventually quashed on appeal. A retrial was ordered, but it has never taken place and almost certainly never will. It leaves an element of doubt about their innocence where no credible doubt exists. Their case is too important to be left in limbo. It is part of a wretched pattern of abuse of justice, even in vindication cases like this.

The case of the Eikenhof Three is the difference-making case for South Africa. During the transition from Apartheid the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established. Among those who applied for amnesty was Phila Dolo. He ordered the attack. A raid on a PAC (Pan Africanist Congress of Azania) ‘safe-house’ in Botswana yielded documents including Dolo’s report on the Eikenhof attack.

There is no doubt that it was an attack carried out by the APLA. Even weapons used in the attack were linked to Dolo and therefore the APLA. Gavin and Bholo had been sentenced to death and Ndweni to 17 years – only his youth saved him from a sentence of death for a crime the authorities knew full well none of the Eikenhof Three committed.

Despite a change in government – a landslide in favour of three innocent activists’ party the ANC – they remained in prison. Even after the TRC reported, giving amnesty to Dolo, meaning it believed his account of the Eikenhof attack, the Eikenhof Three were not immediately freed. Absurdly it was the PAC who picketed the jail they were held in, demanding their release.

And now over a decade after they were released on appeal with a retrial ordered they remain cheated of even an explanation of why they were deemed expendable casualties of a war that had ended and of a peace process that has yet to deliver justice and an apology to them. It is the very least that they deserve. In fact, it is the very least that the new South Africa deserves.

Injury to Insult

The Eikenhof Three are still waiting for apologies for what they went through almost two decades after they were subjected to a terrifying ordeal that could have ended on the gallows for two of them, even though police knew beyond doubt who was really responsible for at least four of the six years they were in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Siphiwe Bholo, Sipho Gavin and Titi Boy Ndweni were framed for the murder of Zandra Mitchley, Shaun Nel and Claire Silberbauer and the attempted murder of Norman Mitchley and Craig Lamprecht as Apartheid was coming to an end. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) quickly claimed responsibility for the Eikenhof attack, which occurred on March 19^th 1993.

The current President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Letlapa Mphahlele had documents verifying this seized by police when he was arrested in a raid in Lesotho in 1995. Despite this the Eikenhof Three remained in prison until 1999. Shamefully, these documents have gone missing along with much of the original docket.

“The time we have wasted before in prison, nothing can buy that, but I think there’s a lot that the State should have done for us”, Ndweni told me exclusively. “There are a lot of programmes that they could have done, like for instance, if you realise that you have wasted somebody’s time, you can assist that person. For example, take him to school and make sure that he has a roof over his head. Those are some of the things that they should have done. We had to get them for ourselves”.

Regret

However while the State and police have not apologised at least one organisation regrets what they endured. “On behalf of myself and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, I hereby express our sincerest regret that you were unjustly arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced following the Eikenhof Operation of March 19^th 1993”, Mphahlele wrote to each of the Eikenhof Three in December 2010.

The current President of the PAC and its only MP continued. “The operation was planned and executed by members of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the military wing of the PAC. We were taken aback when you and two of your colleagues were arrested and suffered for something you certainly knew nothing about. Although it is a long time since the incident took place, I hope you will accept our humble gesture of regret over what you subsequently went through”.

A Welcome Gesture

It was accepted by the Eikenhof Three. Disgracefully, it remains the only apology, or even expression of regret, they have ever received over their ordeal. “Regarding PAC and APLA I don’t have a problem about them, like they have apologised to us for us being convicted of their deeds,” Ndweni told me. “With regards to justice system, I think there’s a lot that needs to be done about it”. His sentiments are echoed by Gavin and Bholo, although the latter says the PAC don’t owe him an apology.

“I do accept their apologies”, Mr Bholo said. “Whatever happened then happened during struggle, so they were fighting a just cause … according to them they were doing the right thing. I don’t have a problem with their apologies. In fact, I would say, they don’t owe me any apology, because they are not responsible for my arrest. The only thing that was supposed to happen was the proper investigation and the proper presentation of the case in court and it could have resulted in the right people being arrested”.

The statement of regret by Mr Mphahlele remains the only apology that the Eikenhof Three have ever received for their ordeal, even though there is no doubt that they were completely innocent of any involvement in the Eikenhof attack.

Bholo calls for apologies from those he holds responsible. “They have to tell us exactly what happened, including the government, I would say so, because there are different heads to that – the head of Justice and the head of Safety and Security”, he said. “The ANC, they don’t, but the Justice Department, they do”.

Nevertheless, Ndweni believes that the African National Congress (ANC) hasn’t done enough to help them, but the apologies he wants most are not from them. “I would say the police, the prosecuting authority, the witnesses who gave the false evidence about us”, he says. Ndweni says that the Justice Minister owes him an apology too and that he is ‘disappointed’ that he has not received such an apology.

The twentieth anniversary of the Eikenhof attack is less than a week away. Even now it seems sorry is the hardest word to say.

Kafkaesque

If the great writer Franz Kafka had written the story below nobody would believe it could really happen!

Most wrongly accused people at least have the cold comfort of knowing why they are suffering an injustice. Imagine being arrested, tried and sentenced to death for a crime you didnʼt commit. An horrific experience – no doubt. Now imagine that you served 18 long years – all of them, knowing that any day you could be dragged off and hanged without even being allowed to bid final farewells. Imagine that you knew for a fact that you and your co-accused were innocent.

Now imagine that your co-accused, a cousin fell ill. You knew that his life could have been saved, but the prison authorities refuse to give him the treatment he needs. Why, they argue, should they waste precious medicines treating a man they are going to execute anyway? Cruel and callous, definitely, but the logic is there, except you know that they are allowing an innocent man to die slowly and cruelly – a man you know for a fact is innocent.

The Shameful Secret

There is nothing that you can do about it. Youʼre helpless as your cousin is claimed by malaria and complications from the lack of treatment. Thereʼs nothing you can do to help yourself either. You know that the regime that imprisoned you has fallen – it was venal, corrupt and brutal. But despite that you remain in prison, still on Death Row, waiting for the executioners to come for you.

And all this time you know something big, something enormous, something that exposes your case as among the worst travesties of justice that your country – the world even – has ever seen.You know that the man you and your late cousin were convicted of murdering was not only not killed by you, he was killed by nobody. And no, this is not a case of death by natural causes wrongly called murder. You know the big secret, but you are locked up unable to conduct the investigation to prove your innocence in the most incredible fashion.

The big secret, the one that disgraces the system that robbed you of your liberty and your cousin of his life is shameful – beyond shameful even. It is incredible. It beggars belief. The man you were convicted of murdering is alive and well! Canʼt happen? Think again. This was the nightmare that The Fitted-In Projectʼs International Committee Member Mpagi Edward Edmary was forced to endure for more than 18 years.

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Pioneering Executioner

The pioneer of the long drop¹ William Marwood hanged almost 180 people – some well known in their day, such as the notorious burglar and murderer Charles Peace. A small man Peace was a resourceful man. While on the run for murder from Sheffield, Peace committed a series of daring burglaries in London. When caught Peace admitted to the murder of a police officer two years earlier.

William Horry is perhaps Marwoodʼs most famous client – he was the first to suffer the long drop. He also hanged the National Irish Invincibles (NII)² responsible for the assassination of the Chief Secretary for Ireland Frederick Cavendish and his Under-Secretary Thomas Burke – they were stabbed in Dublinʼs Phoenix Park. Less known of those Marwood executed is another Irishman – the last man to be hanged in Omagh Prison – Thomas Hartley Montgomery.

Deterrence Failed

In 1950 James Robinson was not deterred by the fate of William Ennis, who had the infamous distinction of being the first police officer to be sent to the electric chair in 1903. Robinson was the only serving police officer executed in Britain in the twentieth century. If capital punishment worked as a deterrent then surely police officers, who knew the consequences of serious crimes should be deterred. But neither Robinson nor Ennis were the first.

A Royal Irish Constabulary Sub-Inspector, Thomas Montgomery was everything wrong with a police officer. Montgomery had previously worked at a bank. He knew his victim William Glass. Montgomery always needed money. He murdered Glass in a particularly vicious fashion on June 29^th 1871. He even led the investigation into his own crime briefly. Montgomery stabbed Glass from ear to ear with a filing spike.

Discovering his financial problems and that he had been seen by witnesses leaving the scene of the crime just before the victimʼs body was discovered, Montgomeryʼs colleagues in the force faced the unpalatable truth – the Sub-Inspector was the prime suspect. After two inconclusive trials, Montgomery, the son of a police officer was finally convicted of the robbery and murder.

On August 26^th 1873 Montgomery became the last person to be hanged in Omagh Prison. Knowing the penalty for murder, especially such a brutal one, was death and that there would be little hope if any for a reprieve in such circumstances failed to deter the Sub-Inspector, whose father had also been a police officer. Montgomery went to his death aged 33. Capital punishment had failed to deter him.