Jack Trawick
Jack Harrison Trawick (born c. 1947) is a convicted murderer, serving a life sentence for killing Aileen Pruitt in June 1992 and on death row for the killing of Stephanie Gach four months later. He has confessed to the 1972 murder of Betty Jo Richards in Walker County, but was not prosecuted because he was already on death row.
Trawick had served prison sentences before, and was diagnosed in 1970 as "a paranoid schizophrenic with homicidal impulses."
In November 2001 Neil O'Connor, a resident of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, wrote to Trawick in prison, soliciting writings for a website. Trawick used the opportunity to revel in his crimes and elaborate his "philosophy" for raping and killing women. He also admitted to eleven other women in writings posted to the site. Those claims have been impossible to corroborate.
In 2009 the Alabama Legislature passed a bill prohibiting state inmates or their agents from profiting from the sale of works created in prison. The bill was sponsored by Cam Ward in the House of Representatives and by Zeb Little in the Senate.
Trawick is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2009.
References
- "Taped confession by Trawick vividly details Gach killing." (March 23, 1994) Birmingham News
- Bright, Taylor (January 11, 2003) "From death row, an Alabama serial killer Uses a New Jersey man and the web to torment the families of his victims." Birmingham Post-Herald
- Bright, Taylor (January 15, 2004) "Is Jack Trawick still a ... menace to society?" Birmingham Post-Herald
- "While on Death Row, Inmates Find Freedom on the Internet" (January 25, 2004) New York Times
- Gordon, Tom (May 9, 2009) "Alabama Legislature passes bill that would bar capital murderers from making money off creative works." Birmingham News
- Gordon, Tom (June 10, 2009) "Relatives of two Trawick murder victims to witness slated execution Thursday." Birmingham News