South Carolina Killer Wants Death

May 28, 2002

By JEFFREY COLLINS, 

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Michael Passaro planned to die more than three years ago when he doused his van with gasoline outside his estranged wife's home and set it ablaze with his 2-year-old daughter strapped inside.

But Passaro jumped out after igniting the fire, leaving behind a typewritten suicide note and the toddler. He was in the van long enough to suffer severe burns but survived, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death.

Now, Passaro is again ready to die. He has refused to appeal his sentence and urged the courts to ignore the efforts of well-meaning attorneys to spare him from a lethal injection.

 "You do not have to live this life. I do," he wrote in a letter to South Carolina's Supreme Court. "The state says I should die for what I did, and I am not going to stand in their way."

 The state's high court is set to hear arguments Wednesday on whether Passaro can be executed without ever having his case reviewed. Prosecutors say if the 39-year-old killer succeeds in dispensing with the lengthy appeals process, he could be executed by the end of the year.

 "If the state and the defendant really want the same thing, is that punishment?" asks Passaro's lawyer Joe Savitz.

 In the letter written to the justices five months ago, Passaro left no doubt about his intention to die. He also left no doubt of his intentions to kill his daughter in November 1998 to get back at his estranged wife, Karen.

 "Whatever anyone does, please make sure that Karen doesn't kill herself over this," Passaro wrote in his suicide note, salvaged from the blaze by investigators. "I want her to live in pain for the rest of her life."

 Defense lawyers say the seeds were sown nearly a decade ago, shortly after Passaro married his first wife. When she ran out of their house to help the victim of a nearby car accident, another car struck and killed her. "I want to be buried with my first and only love, Donna," he wrote in his suicide note.

 Passaro was devastated, turning to drugs and alcohol to ease his pain. Eventually, he regained control of his life and moved to South Carolina, becoming a paramedic near Myrtle Beach and studying to be a nurse.

 He met his second wife, Karen, at a hospital where she worked. The two were married and by 1996 had a baby girl, Maggie.

 "All he had ever wanted was a family and a home and someone to love him," Passaro's mother, Betty, said in court.

 But the marriage soured. Passaro's wife asked for a divorce and got a restraining order.

 Passaro got to see his daughter one weekend a month. It was after one of those visits he parked his van outside his wife's condominium and set it on fire.

 One of the first officers on the scene would later testify Karen Passaro heard the commotion and came outside. She recognized the van and demanded over and over to know whether her daughter was inside.

 Horry County Fire Capt. James Cyganiewicz stalled as long as he could but eventually broke the news. He said she collapsed in sobs.

 "It's pretty funny how the system works," Passaro wrote in his suicide note. "I get visitation with my daughter, and I'm allowed to end our lives from existence with the help of the courts and my wife. I guess that I'm getting the last laugh now, Karen."

 Passaro is far from the first death row inmate to waive appeals and ask to die.

 According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., 16 prisoners who volunteered to die have been executed in the past two years.

 In a case similar to Passaro's, Daniel Zirkle killed his 4-year-old daughter in August 1999 then attempted suicide by cutting his own throat. Zirkle pleaded guilty and asked for the death penalty. He was put to death in Virginia on April 2.

 Savitz doesn't have a lot of faith that he can save his client's life. "Mr. Passaro and I are stuck together by operation of law," he said.

 Beyond that, Passaro has hardly made himself a sympathetic character. His temper in prison has been well documented. One guard testified Passaro got angry when he was told he couldn't have orange juice.

 "I have burned my child to death, and I'll burn you," Passaro told the guard. "I'll burn your house down with your family in it."

 A psychiatrist has ruled Passaro is competent to waive all his appeals. He told Savitz he was willing to ask the courts to look at his case only if he would spend 15 years or fewer in prison because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

 "I really miss the electric chair because lethal injection is literally a painless way to go," Savitz said. "And if you don't want to be in prison, it looks like an easy way out."