The Stranger Beside Me

“Are you sure that you can tell the difference between a teddy bear and a fox?”

In the language of Florida state law, he had been convicted once again of a crime “extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile.”

she may have been the one woman in his life who helped to fill even a small corner of his barren soul. Although he could not be faithful to her, neither could he exist without her.

And, because that programming is often so cunning, this personality is extremely hard to diagnose. Nor can it be healed.

He is subtle, calculating, clever, and dangerous. And he is lost.

“The man’s about thirty-seven—looks fifty—and he handles about twenty capital cases a year.

He enjoys playing the game. He appears to enjoy watching law enforcement people muddle in their ignorance.”

When a reporter asked him at one hearing why he wore the brace, he grinned and said, “I have a problem with my leg—I run too fast.”

According to Patchen, Ted raised up in his chair, crumpled a pack of cigarettes and threw it on the floor, saying, “But I’m the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.”

Poitinger had asked him why he had such a proclivity for stealing Volkswagens, and he’d said it was because they got good gas mileage.