Not long after insisting Wednesday that he could persuade jurors to sentence him to death, Reinaldo Rivera gave them what some argue is the best reason not to execute serial killers.
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District Attorney Danny Craig talks with District Attorney Investigator Alfonzo Williams after a short recess during Mr. Rivera's testimony in his case.
Andrew Davis Tucker/Staff
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Mr. Rivera wipes his eye during testimony when he was asked to describe the first time he "acted out sexually" as a child.
ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER
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"There are still 20 to 50 of us. ... We have to figure out why. ... We've got to be able to do something to able to stop it," Mr. Rivera said in Richmond County Superior Court.
"This trial's not for me," Mr. Rivera, 40, told the jury and a nearly full courtroom.
The trial is to convince everyone that his mental illness is real and to give his doctors a chance to study it further, he testified.
Earlier, Mr. Rivera was about to tell the jury to find him guilty but mentally ill and impose a death sentence when Assistant District Attorney Ashley Wright objected to what was becoming a "soliloquy." Defense attorney Jacque Hawk had not only stopped asking questions but also sat down next to co-counsel Peter Johnson.
With the jury out, Mr. Rivera stared at Ms. Wright and District Attorney Danny Craig, saying: "I'll get them to kill me, just give me a second. I'll convince them to do it, I've got no doubt."
Judge Albert M. Pickett explained to Mr. Rivera that he wasn't allowed to make a speech to the jury from the witness stand but that he was entitled to act as his own attorney and say whatever he wanted in closing arguments. The judge also told him that on cross-examination, Mr. Rivera had the right to explain his answers.
With the jury present, Mr. Rivera insisted that he wasn't trying to manipulate anyone with his testimony. In less than an hour on the stand, Mr. Rivera went from tearful, when asked to describe the first time he "acted out sexually" as a child, to unemotional while describing how he raped and killed four Augusta-area women and tried to kill a fifth.
He testified that he has developed a better understanding of himself by working with defense psychologists, that he is remorseful, and desires to "make my peace with God."
Mr. Rivera described himself as "living proof" of why pornography is wrong and railed against the now closed adult bookstore in Augusta. Pornography factored into every aspect of what he did, gave him the idea of how thrilling rape would be, and gave him the blueprint of how to hunt for women, he testified.
He raped hundreds of prostitutes, and in a way that was worse than raping and killing Melissa Dingess, Tiffaney Wilson, Tabitha Bosdell and Army Sgt. Marni Glista because he didn't intend to kill them, Mr. Rivera testified.
"There are times in my life I've been a sexual predator, purely evil," Mr. Rivera said. But he insisted he felt no anger toward his victims.
He also testified that he didn't target the victims, including Mrs. Dingess, the 17-year-old Graniteville girl he saw at a pay phone on July 17, 1999. She willingly talked with him behind a convenience store while he masturbated and then agreed to go with him and be photographed, Mr. Rivera said.
Mrs. Wilson, 17, was another chance encounter. She willingly got into his van with her infant daughter still dressed in her red velvet dress for a photograph with Santa on Dec. 4, 1999. He had been to Kmart already and - along with a Big Wheel for his son's birthday - he had bought the duct tape, knife and rope that he would use on the Jackson woman.
Sgt. Glista, 21, also was a chance encounter in a grocery store parking lot, Mr. Rivera testified.
"An hour later Marni was dead," he said.
But she wasn't dead. Doctors have testified that she was choked until unconscious and that her brain was slowly dying for 24 hours.
"I never hit her," Mr. Rivera insisted in the courtroom where last week jurors saw photographs of Sgt. Glista's injuries - the flesh torn off her wrists in what doctors described as an attempt to free herself.
Other pictures showed her body covered in bruises and friction burns, which caused a veteran emergency room physician to nearly choke up as he described them on the witness stand. They kept her on life support until her family could get to the hospital to see her one last time. Sgt. Glista wouldn't be declared dead until Sept. 9, 2000.
Mr. Rivera testified that he learned Sgt. Glista had lived and that he feared arrest.
In his next attack, on Dec. 10, 2000, he went back into the south Augusta home of the victim, Chrisilee Barton, to see whether he had left any incriminating evidence, Mr. Rivera testified.
"She just popped right up. I jumped on her again and tried to finish it. I finally just gave up" and went and got a butcher knife and stabbed her, Mr. Rivera said. He said that he covered her with a blanket before the stabbing so he wouldn't have to watch, although the victim, who survived that attack, didn't mention finding a blanket over her body or head when she awakened afterward.
He answered "guilty" when asked about each of the 14 counts of his Richmond County indictment. The trial is "because we're trying ... to get everyone to accept the idea, the theory, the belief, I have a mental illness," Mr. Rivera testified.
He said that he is convinced that everyone wants to learn why he did what he did, that the victims he killed are not in pain now and that their families deserve to know the truth.
It would be crazy for someone to believe he enjoys being what he is or proud of what he did, Mr. Rivera said. But he also testified, "In fact, I loved it."
He doesn't know why he couldn't stop, but he fully intended to continue to get away with the crimes by avoiding arrest, he testified.
"I'll do it again if you let me out. ... I'll do it again and again."
After his testimony, the defense rested its case.
Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.
