This has been reprinted with the permission and blessings of the author, who has asked that his statement be posted. The links were added with promises to the author that they would be limited to specific concepts only.
My name is Owen Juan Roberts. I am currently on death row after being found guilty of nineteen counts of first degree murder. I am what they call a serial killer and I do not deserve your sympathy or your pity, but I feel it is important to tell my story so that others may learn from it. I make no excuses for what I have done, for there are no excuses for murder.
I grew up in the city of Chicago, the first born son of an immigrant factory worker who was angry with the world. The only thing he loved in life was the game of baseball, as I know well. He took me to many games played by the Chicago Cubs when I was young. He also named me as he did because of baseball. And after my mother left him, he used it as a tool by which he tormented and caused me pain.
As a boy I was subject to much discipline. When my father called out my name I was to report immediately to him, kneel before him and say, "Yes, sir?" He would always call me by my first and middle name, these being "Owen Juan," for I was never known as simply Owen. Like Pavlov training his famous dog, I was trained by my father to respond to the calling of my name with blind obedience and expectation of humiliations and beatings if I did not comply. I would kneel as told to avoid those beatings. As such I did kneel before my father and many of his friends and do as I was told. It made me very angry.
This began before he took me to baseball games. After he began taking me to baseball games I learned the pain of watching pitchers throw strikes with their first pitch to a batter. If the batter would not make contact with the pitch, or even if he fouled off the first pitch, I would cringe, kneel and speak the required "Yes, sir?" to my father. This would make him laugh, but if the announcer were to tell of the "Oh and one" pitch and I did not respond as required, punishments would be brought upon me.
I was able to elude police and criminal investigators for a number of years. They always sought the pattern of my crimes, and could never make a connection between the nineteen murders I committed. The answer which eluded them was that I always killed during the seventh inning stretch of whatever game was on the radio in my car. As soon as the people would begin singing "Take me out to the ballgame" I would stop my car and find the first available weapon and the first available victim. I carried no grudge. I carried no particular anger towards any group of people. It was simple. Once that seventh inning stretch came upon me, I killed. It was how I released the anger I held towards my father, who died before my killing began.
If you pity me or feel sorry for me I have no patience for you. If you condemn me, then I must ask you to look inside yourself. Those who feel they must heal themselves by reaching out to a monster, which is what I am, deserve my sympathy, for they are empty in themselves. If you haven't been where I have been, done the things I have done, or felt the things I have, then you are incapable of understanding me. Do I deserve to die? Sure. Thanks for giving me the easy way out. Is the death penalty a penalty? I think not. It keeps me from having to continue living in this hell hole with fucking scumbags for the rest of my natural life. For thou art so holy that thou can decide the end of my life because you judge me for my decision to end the lives of others. I could have gone out on the bottom, but when you kill me I will come out ahead. I can only say thank you.
Think of me the next time you are at a baseball game and the pitcher throws a first pitch strike. I'll be there beside you, and please, tell them to stop waiting to kill me. Get off your asses and kill me, you fucking wimps. How long must I wait?