Three men walk up a cold muddy trail lined by tall pines. It’s an icy northern California morning in January, but the chill in the air isn’t the reason that one of the three is shaking so badly he can barely walk.
The young man, an Oregon-bound college student, spent the last night of his life in these remote woods fastened to a tree by a chain around his neck as his girlfriend was raped inside a shack by the two other men and their friend.
Words fail when trying to describe how piteous the man is — and who can blame him as his death approaches and the girl he cared for is brutalized back at the cabin. He knows there will be no reprieve for him; there is no reason to even hope that these barbarous savages who have so far shown no trace of humanity would consider being merciful.
Regrettably, this isn’t a Rob Zombie film script or some variation on one of those popular torture-porn movies. This is what happened to Kevin Thorpe and Laura Craig in 1981.
Even more regrettably, it gets worse. A lot worse.
But all is not lost. At least society has treated the killers with decency and humanity. One only had to serve 11 years for his part in the crime (chopping up Kevin’s body with an ax to make it easier to dispose of), while another was moved off death row and may even get out of prison one day because the prosecutor in his case didn’t play fair. After all, the killer only shot Kevin somewhere between 30 and 60 times (It’s hard not to empty the clip of an Ingram M-11 .38-caliber fully automatic pistol with a single pull of the trigger. It’s a machine gun: the magazine clip holds 32 rounds and the gun can discharge all 32 rounds in 1.6 seconds. No one can seem to recall whether the killer reloaded it).
Thankfully, the American justice system was able to overcome the prosecutor’s egregious conduct and repair the damage done. Justice perseveres.
What was that conduct that was so awful that it could make the crimes of Benjamin Silva pale in comparison and prompt his removal from death row, you ask?
Why the prosecutor and the defense counsel for Norm Thomas — the one who chopped up Kevin’s body with the ax — had a secret deal to wait until after Thomas testified before the defense scheduled a psych exam in preparation for Thomas’s trial.
You see Thomas had been in a motorcycle accident and had his head knocked around a bit and he tended to get a little mixed up about things. There was a possibility that if Silva’s defense counsel knew that the prosecutor was concerned about his chief witness’s ability to testify, the defense might exploit that fact during cross-examination.
Never mind that Thomas still could have faced murder charges if the prosecution wasn’t satisfied with his performance on the stand — a fact the defense could and did bring up on cross. That secret deal undermined the entire trial and cast a cloud over the jury’s verdict, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would find 20 years after murders of Kevin and Laura.
As a result the prosecution’s nefarious conduct, the judges tossed not only Silva’s death sentence but his murder conviction too.

In our justice system, the prosecuting attorney occupies a special position of public trust. Courts, citizens, and even criminal defendants must rely on these public servants to be honorable advocates both for the community on whose behalf they litigate and for the justice system of which they are an integral part. When prosecutors betray their solemn obligations and abuse the immense power they hold, the fairness of our entire system of justice is called into doubt and public confidence in it is undermined.

That’s how the judges finished their scolding of the prosecution for its terrible act.
Never mind that the question was never whether or not Silva was responsible for murdering Kevin and Laura. There was no doubt about that. He was present at both killings and was the one who started the whole squalid event in the first place.
He tacitly admitted those facts.
No the bigger issue was that the government had failed to treat him fairly and had denied him due process under the law. The state violated Silva’s rights far beyond the point that Silva had violated Kevin and Laura’s right to live.
And for that there must be redress. The state shall retry him or resentence him on the remaining kidnapping, assault, and robbery charges, the judges ordered.

I have to stop here and admit that the prosecution’s decision to hide Thomas’s mental state from the defense really was important to the defense’s case and a serious mistake. The prosecution should at least have told Silva’s defense team that Thomas had issues. Silva was a guilty piece of slime of the type that I usually scrape off the sole of my shoe, but I acknowledge that Thomas was a pretty shaky foundation on which to build a case.

It all began January 11, 1981, when Kevin and Laura left Ridgecrest, California, for college in Oregon. They were driving Kevin’s Ford north on Highway 395 and hauling a trailer through Madeline, California, when their trailer suffered a flat tire. They pulled into a gas station in town and Kevin set to work repairing the tire. Around 9 p.m. the operator of the gas station offered Kevin and Laura a place to stay for the night but they declined because they wanted to make it to Oregon that night and the repair work was nearly finished.
Meanwhile, Ben Silva, Joe Shelton and Norm Thomas also planned a trip to Oregon. The three men lived on Shelton’s property outside Madeline. They had been talking about finding some women that evening and when Thomas said he knew some women in Oregon, they decided to drive up and see them. They left in Silva’s truck around 8 p.m., and stopped at the gas station in Madeline to fill up the tank.
Silva saw Kevin working on the trailer’s flat tire. He also saw Laura and told Thomas and Shelton that they didn’t have to drive all the way to Oregon to get a girl.
Silva decided that they would wait for the Kevin and Laura’s car to drive by and then stop it by signaling with a red light. Silva stopped the truck and backed it into a side road adjoining the highway and waited about an hour before Kevin’s car drove by.
After following for a short distance Silva took a spotlight covered with a red lens and held it out the window, pointing it at Kevin’s car. Kevin pulled over and Silva pulled up behind him. Silva then walked to the driver’s side while Thomas approached the other side. Silva pointed a shotgun at Kevin’s face and commanded him to move over; Silva sat behind the wheel and Thomas, armed with a pistol, entered the back seat. Dropping the shotgun, Silva pulled out a handgun. He cocked it, pointed it at Kevin’s chin, and warned him not to try anything because the gun had a hair trigger. Silva then drove the vehicle to Shelton’s cabin and Shelton followed in the truck.
After arriving at the cabin, Silva picked up his shotgun and ordered Kevin and Laura out of the car. He told Thomas to drive their vehicle further up the road and to leave it there. Before Silva left the vehicle, however, he shot and killed a dog in the back seat of Kevin’s and Laura’s car.
According to Thomas’s statements and testimony (which in fairness to Silva’s defense are disjointed and filled with inconsistencies) when he returned to the cabin about half an hour later he found Kevin and Laura on the couch. Silva and Shelton left Thomas with the captives and went to loot the car and trailer.
Thomas, who was the only one who provided details of the events, said they decided to chain Kevin up for the night. Chains were placed around his body, secured by locks, and he was taken outside where he was chained to a tree by his neck.
Thomas then admitted that he and Silva disposed of Kevin’s car.
They did not return to Shelton’s cabin until early the following morning.
When they returned they found Shelton asleep with Laura; Shelton bragged that he had raped her several times while she was at the cabin.
Thomas went to sleep and then awoke refreshed enough after the events of the night before to rape Laura. Silva and Shelton were gone. Thomas said he went outside and caught up to the two men. Silva told Thomas to follow him and he led Thomas up the side of the hill where Thomas found Kevin’s body lying on the ground with a carpet thrown over it. There was blood everywhere. Silva told Thomas that he had some trash bags and that he wanted Thomas to cut Kevin’s body into pieces small enough to fit inside those bags. Thomas took two or three hours to accomplish the task as Silva watched, stopping just twice to throw up.
When Thomas was finished cutting up the body, Silva told him to clean the area and to burn the evidence. Kevin’s clothes, the ax, and some brush were thrown into a burn barrel. While the three men were standing around the fire, Shelton told Thomas about the murder: Silva and Shelton unlocked the chain linked to Kevin’s neck from the tree; the other end of the chain was still locked to the chains around Kevin’s neck. Silva left Shelton to watch him and went to a trailer on Shelton’s property to obtain a weapon.
According to Thomas’s testimony of what Shelton told him, Silva returned with an Ingram M-11. Silva walked up behind Kevin and shot him up and down his body at close range. Thomas’s disordered testimony makes it unclear whether 1 or 2 clips were discharged. But it is clear that Kevin was shot everywhere — “he had holes in his face, and all up his arms and legs,” he told the court.
Thomas said Silva did not interrupt or comment while Shelton described the murder; he simply looked at Shelton and smiled. Silva and Thomas later buried Kevin’s body in two shallow holes.
Laura was kept at the cabin for several days.
On January 16, Thomas saw Silva and Shelton drive off with Laura between them. Shelton later told Thomas that somewhere near Mount Shasta Silva shot Laura. According to Shelton, Silva pulled Laura out of the car by her hair and shot her in the head. The gun was thrown into a river and Laura’s body was kicked down the hillside. Silva and Shelton returned to the cabin a few days later.
Shelton related to Thomas the facts of Laura’s murder, and again Silva, who had been listening, merely smiled. The next day, Silva and Shelton again left the cabin, telling Thomas to hide all of the weapons in case the police came around. An hour or two after they left, a deputy sheriff arrived looking for Shelton. As he drove up, the cop saw Thomas place something in the truck. The deputy spoke with him for awhile and then asked if he could search the truck. Thomas declined and the deputy started to leave.
Before the deputy reached his car, Thomas stopped him and admitted that he had put a gun in the truck. When the deputy asked why Thomas had not simply admitted that earlier, Thomas said that he was on probation and that he was not permitted to possess a gun.
The cop left and ran a check on Thomas and, upon receiving confirmation that Thomas had violated the terms of his probation, returned to Shelton’s property with about 10 other officers and arrested Thomas.
Once in custody, Thomas told the police that he had been involved in some terrible crimes and he inquired whether he would receive police protection if he talked. Thomas was promised protection and the district attorney was called in to speak with him. Thomas detailed the fate of Kevin and Laura, including his own participation in the mutilation and burial of Kevin’s body.
Shelton was arrested on January 30. The boots Kevin had been wearing when he left Ridgecrest were found in Shelton’s possession. The next day, Shelton led officers to the location of Laura’s body. Silva was arrested in Fresno on January 23. He was informed of his rights but waived them, choosing to speak with police. When asked what he thought would be the outcome of his trial, Silva said he would either be sent to jail for a long time or be put to death. He also wrote on the walls of his cell that “Joe Shelton is a rat. Norman Thomas is a rat.”
Thomas pleaded guilty to “participation in the kidnapping, accessory after the fact to murder, burglary, and use of a firearm.” He was ultimately sentenced to 11 years and 4 months in prison, but had not been sentenced prior to Silva’s trial. Thomas also faced possible murder charges if he failed to cooperate with the district attorney’s office. Defense counsel placed these facts in evidence.
Shelton was tried and received a life term.
The jury deliberated for two days before finding Silva guilty of first degree murder of Kevin Thorpe, and also finding true the five special circumstance allegations relevant to that murder allowing for imposition of the death penalty. The jury also found the arming and use allegations true, and convicted Silva of kidnapping for robbery of Kevin and Laura, robbery of Kevin and Laura, possession of a machine gun, and possession of a silencer for a firearm. The jury additionally found each of the arming and use allegations in counts 3 through 6 to be true, and the intentional infliction of great bodily injury allegations in counts 3 and 5 (kidnapping for robbery and robbery of Kevin) to be true.
The jury acquitted Silva of the murder of Laura, and found that he did not inflict bodily injury upon her. Accordingly, the jury likewise rejected the multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation.
The penalty phase of Silva’s trial was held February 16, 1982, and the jury returned its verdict of death the same day. Silva’s motion for a new trial or modification of sentence was heard and denied March 15, 1982, and the court sentenced Silva to death the same day.
It was not until many years later that the fact of the special deal between prosecutors and Thomas’s attorneys came to light and Silva’s conviction for Kevin’s murder was tossed.
Eventually, in late 2005 Silva pleaded no contest to Kevin’s murder rather than face another trial. The prosecution wanted the murder conviction on the record so that the chance that Silva could get paroled would be reduced. It is a rare thing these days for a murderer to get parole in California.
Normally, I would say that a blanket denial of mercy even for killers is a poor reflection on society; in this case, though, it’s a good thing.
But not nearly good enough.