SAN QUENTIN — For more than nine years, Bill Bradford's days have been so empty, he slept through most of them. He prefers the night, when a condemned man can be alone with his poetry, his television set, or his demons.
Now a calendar hangs on the wall of Bradford's "house," Cell No. 9 on the 34-man, windowless tier that is part of the nation's most populous death row.
The man whose long history of violence toward women culminated in his conviction for the 1984 strangulation murders of two young Venice-area acquaintances has marked a large, dark "X" over Tuesday, Aug. 18, his chosen execution date. He is volunteering to die, literally numbering the days.
"If anybody deserves the death penalty, it's Bill Bradford," said former prosecutor David P. Conn, who described Bradford as a "scary" thrill killer who kept body parts for souvenirs.
Today marks Day 13 on Bradford's countdown toward oblivion. Suddenly, his hours are filled with strange new rituals and unexpected reunions. His dance card, empty for so long, is full.
Consider Monday, Day 16: He was reunited with the longtime friend who will handle his final affairs. He was asked to decide what is to be done with his tired, 52-year-old body--deciding to accept the state's free offer to cremate his remains and scatter them at sea. He received an emotional visit from a striking young woman who has his eyes, the daughter he last saw when she was 10.
And, he spent four hours with a Times reporter.
In a rare and wide-ranging death row conversation, Bradford explained why he has abandoned his appeals.
If he can't be free, Bradford says, he'd rather be dead.
He also provided a glimpse of the numbing routines of death row, where society's most feared outcasts spend years without receiving a visitor.
As for the outside world, "I don't know what grass is anymore. I don't know what dirt is. It's stuff like that," Bradford said, that makes his life in prison intolerable.
Complaint Is With the Legal System
The condemned men at San Quentin fill their days with domestic routines: tending to their "houses," resting on the buckets they use as chairs, creasing their prison-issued jeans by hand, using soap or sugar water as starch.
Bradford used to lift weights on the roof with fellow inmate Tommy Thompson, he said. Then, prison officials took the weights away. As for Thompson--he was executed last month.
"I am tired of it," Bradford said. "There isn't a standing chance under today's laws for me to have freedom. The best I can do is life without [parole]. That's not acceptable to me. It has nothing to do with my living conditions.
"I'm sure not beat up," he said with a grin. "I'm not uncomfortable with the people I'm living with. I've been living with the same 34 men for the last nine years."
Instead, his beef is with the legal system. "What gets to me is the not knowing. The waiting."
He is wiry and pale, and wears his hair in a flattop. Above a droopy mustache, his eyes are intensely blue, and the light flooding into the cell from a window shrinks the pupils to pinprick size. His arms are decorated with tattoos, including the names of three of the seven women he says have been his wives.
Sipping from a can of Coca-Cola, he seemed relaxed as he leaned against a sticky wooden table and talked in a 7-by-12-foot cell covered with clear plexiglass for soundproofing.
Because he is next in line for execution, the biggest and best visiting room cell belongs to Bradford. Also present was Jack Leavitt, the attorney Bradford says now represents him.
'It Doesn't Matter, Guilt or Innocence'
With his hands cuffed behind his back, Bradford walked in shortly before 9 a.m. He backed into the cell door and placed his hands through a slot, where a guard unlocked the handcuffs. He wore no shackles during the visit, and his hands remained free. At one point, discussing a knife police found during a search of his car, he turned to his visitor, made a stabbing motion, and said, "I could do more damage to you right now with that pen."
His manner was more joking than menacing, but the point was not lost.
Other condemned inmates conferred with their lawyers in nearby cells. A couple of condemned men slept on sofas in the family visiting area as cartoons blared on the television set. A crib stood to one side. In the background, banners depicted "The Little Mermaid" and Sesame Street characters.
When asked, Bradford maintained that he is innocent of the crimes that brought him here. He denies that he is a serial killer, although police believe he may be responsible for at least eight other murders, and perhaps more.
Bradford was convicted of strangling 21-year-old Shari Miller and 15-year-old Tracey Campbell. According to testimony at his trial, he lured the women to the desert near Lancaster by offering to photograph them so they could begin modeling portfolios.
