Penalty of Death, Part 4: Sanders family copes with loss of loved one, endures long wait for justice

The home of Jerry and Dorothy Sanders isn't exactly a shrine to their dead son, but mementos of Mike's life are everywhere.

Photos line the walls throughout their small house, tucked away along a back country road in Scopus, Mo. They still keep Mike's black six-string. They have pages and pages of the songs he wrote.

An intricate picture Mike drew of a mournful Christ, wearing that infamous crown of thorns, is among Dorothy's most cherished possessions. Ask Jerry, and he'll pull back his left sleeve and show you the dragon tattoo that Mike drew on his arm.

Fifteen years after the murder of their son, these mementos provide mostly pleasant reminders. But reminders can be painful, too. They also remind the Sanders family of everything it has lost: a son, a father, a brother, a friend. A lifetime of memories that have been stolen.

They have learned that sometimes it's not what's there, but what isn't.

"There's an empty spot," Jerry said during a recent interview. "He shot my only son. That never goes away."

The he, of course, refers to Russell Bucklew, the man responsible for Mike's death.

For the last 15 years, Bucklew has spent much of his day confined to a 14-by-6 cell at a maximum-security prison in Potosi that's home to 800 other high-risk criminal offenders. He shares the cell with another offender and has access to an open sink and open toilet. Bucklew goes to work most days and is paid $7.50 a month, performing menial jobs such as the prison laundry or the kitchen.

Despite those conditions, it infuriates most members of the Sanders family that Bucklew still lives.

"The hardest thing is to go on every day that he's not here," Dorothy Sanders said of her son. "And to know that guy's sitting up there on death row, putting his feet on the floor, walking around. ... He still gets to see some of his family. We don't get to see Michael."

Jerry Sanders shows off a dragon tattoo done by his son Michael. (Laura Simon)

Jerry Sanders thinks Bucklew should have been put to death years ago. So does Mike's sister, Mindy, who lives with her parents in Scopus. Both of Sanders' sons, John Michael and Zach, agree.

"I'm angry about it. Yeah, you bet," Jerry said. "It's gotten to where I deal with it easier, but to see him go would give me peace of mind. It would put me to rest. I really think it would."

That Bucklew still lives bothers Dorothy Sanders, but she is conflicted about it. Dorothy Sanders is a strong Christian and she doesn't think that her faith allows her to want another human being dead.

"I have more Jesus in me than Jerry," she said. "All I ever ask for was to put him behind bars so he couldn't hurt anybody again. I have no use for him. But hate? That's a hard thing to say. His judgment will come when he stands before God."

Still, as far as Jerry Sanders is concerned, the sooner the state can get Bucklew before God, the better.

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The state of the death penalty in the U.S. is in disarray.

Missouri has held 68 executions, the fifth most in the U.S., since it reinstated the death penalty in 1975. But one of the drugs used to carry out executions by lethal injection is no longer manufactured in the U.S. That has left prison officials scrambling.

Michael Sanders' grave marker.

"We're exploring all the options that are available to us," Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Cline said this week, though he would not elaborate what those options are.

No execution dates are set in Missouri, he said. Missouri's supply of sodium thiopental, which puts the death row inmate in a comalike state of unconsciousness before the lethal drugs are administered, expired March 1, Cline said.

Of the 34 states that allow the death penalty, 31 use sodium thiopental. In Texas, which has executed more death row inmates than any other state, prison officials announced last week they are switching from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital, a drug that is readily available in the U.S. There are 337 inmates on death row in Texas, while there are 47, including Bucklew, in Missouri.

Russell E. Bucklew, 28, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., looks at his parents during a break in his murder trial Thursday April 3, 1997 at the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Mo. (Southeast Missourian, Don Shrubshell)

The attorneys general of 13 states, including Missouri, wrote a letter in January to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for his help finding an approved source of the sodium thiopental or making supplies held by the federal government available to the other states.

All this is occurring at a time as some states are looking at doing away with the death penalty entirely.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn recently signed a law abolishing the death penalty in his state, commuting all death sentences there to life without parole. Before that happened, 14 states and the District of Columbia had already abolished the death penalty.

Discussions have started in Missouri, too. Earlier this month, state Rep. Susan Carlson, D-St. Louis, filed a bill for Missouri to repeal its death penalty. The bill has 34 co-sponsors and the House has read it twice. But no hearings have been scheduled and many are skeptical about the bill's potential.

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None of it happened: The murder of Michael Sanders. The abduction of Stephanie Pruitt. The jail escape of the killer Russell Bucklew.

Michael didn't die. He was never shot. Bucklew never came calling that day in March 1996, carrying two guns and a warped sense of vengeance.

That's the dream that John Michael Sanders has from time to time.

He doesn't dream -- not often, not anymore -- about the horrifying events that he watched unfold in that mobile home 15 years ago when he was 6.

In his dreams, he envisions a much happier world where he was raised by his father, who got to watch John Michael and his brother Zachary grow up, graduate high school and begin long and happy lives for themselves.

"I dream that because I guess there's a part of me that still wants to believe that," John Michael said recently, now 21 and living in Rolla, Mo.

For a year after Mike died, John Michael and Zach lived with their grandparents in Scopus. Their mother had taken off years before and has never really resurfaced.

"I don't know what it's like to have a real family," John Michael said. "I saw all of my friends that were real close with their moms and dads. I never got that feeling, so I always felt cheated."

At first, the murder of his dad was all John Michael could think about. A year after the murder, John Michael had to take the stand to testify at Bucklew's trial.

John Michael still remembers, at age 7, walking into the courtroom and telling a jury that the man sitting there was the man who shot his father. He saw Russell Bucklew for the first time since the murder and the sight of him made John Michael jump.

"It pretty much flipped my world upside down," John Michael said. "Everything came back, just this big, dark cloud. All these feelings. Being scared, all of it. I had to sit in the same room with the guy who killed my dad."

Shortly after the trial, John Michael and Zach went to live with their dad's sister Melissa Dotson in Bixby, Mo. Dotson's husband, Stanley, was their male role model and John Michael said he felt loved growing up.

But he always knew something was missing.

John Michael would sometimes go through his dad's old drawings and look at the songs he'd written. He just sits and think about his dad, trying to learn more about him, to feel closer to him.

Some of what happened carried over into elementary school. There were a few fights over it. He was taunted about his dad being dead. John Michael learned the defense mechanism of humor. He would crack jokes in class about anything and everything, he said.

There were days of depression, too, days where John Michael could barely bring himself to get out of bed.

John Michael has taken some college classes. He's taking a break, but he's thinking about furthering his education at Missouri State University in Springfield.

But what John Michael really wants to be is a rapper. He knows it sounds far-fetched, but he wants to make music like his dad did, even if it's a different kind of music. His dad loved heavy metal music like Iron Maiden and Megadeth. John Michael likes Eminem and Dr. Dre.

He's even used some of the lyrics his father wrote as part of a rap song he wrote called "Beat of My Broken Heart."

"It was cool to take something he had written and work in my stuff," he said. "I guess it helped me feel closer to him."

Over the years, he thought about Russell Bucklew from time to time. He kept waiting to hear that they were going to execute the man who had executed his father.

So far, that day hasn't come.

"I would like to watch him die," John Michael said. "I guess it might give me some closure. Finally."

John Michael also dreams of other things -- a family, perhaps, one day.

"At this point, I'm in no hurry," he said. "I think one day I'll have a family. If not, it is what it is. For now, I just want to live my life. Whatever that means."

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Jake Ritter is Zach Sanders' best friend. They've known each other since kindergarten.

Ritter has known about what happened to Zach's dad for a long time. He said most people know not to bring it up. They know Zach doesn't like to talk about it.

Zach Sanders inside his Salem, Mo. in February 2011. (Laura Simon)

Zach still lives with his aunt, now in Salem, Mo. Ritter says Zach has been a great friend who has always been there for him.

"If I didn't know what happened, you could never tell," Ritter said on a snowy day in February. "He's really just been like everyone else. He's headstrong. Very headstrong. But he's overcome just about any problem that he encounters."

Zach admits to having gone through some tough times, starting with the death of his father. Zach has no memory of his life before that.

He grew up like his brother, feeling like he missed out. But he always pushed thoughts of what happened out of his mind.

"I've always tried not talking about it," he said. "I told Jake what happened, but I don't think we've ever really talked about it."

Given what happened, Zach also thinks he's had a pretty good life. Not having a father may have affected his behavior somewhat growing up, though, he said. He's been told throughout his life that he has anger control problems. Sometimes, he admits, he still does.

"I've had some bad spots," Zach said, sitting on the couch at his aunt's house. "It was real a real shadowy time."

He doesn't want to go into much detail. For a time, early in high school, he dabbled in drugs, getting high before and after class.

"I was just trying to be cool in front of other people," he said. "It may have had something to do with what happened to my dad. Hard to say."

Thoughts about his dad haven't been nearly as frequent as people might think. He doesn't know why that is. He tries to live day by day, he said.

In a strange way, he may have thought more about Bucklew than of his father. But when he thinks about Bucklew, he thinks about Bucklew getting executed.

"I seen my dad get killed. I want to see him get killed," Zach said. "I see it as an eye for an eye."

When asked to sum up his feelings for Bucklew, he said: "Straight-up animosity. Rage."

Like John Michael, Zach wants to go to the execution. He feels he has a right to. But he doesn't think he would say anything to Bucklew, even if he had the chance.

"I would look at him, smile and wave bye-bye as he died," Zach said. "I wouldn't have to say a word."

Zach Sanders, for now, is moving on with his life. He has taken the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, and he has enlisted in the U.S. Army. He said he's just waiting for the call. He's been told he'll go to basic training at Fort Bening, Ga.

He plans to make a life of the military. He knows going overseas to fight is a possibility. But he doesn't mind.

The last thing Zach wants is to be defined by what happened 15 years ago. He's moving on.

"It's life," he said. "You can't change nothing. What's done is done."

But if Zach could tell his dad something, could talk to him somehow, he knows what he'd say: "I hope you're proud."

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Stephanie Ray Pruitt died June 8, 2009.

Her husband, John A. Shuffit, pulled into the driveway of Stephanie's home in rural Perry County, had a brief conversation with her, before shooting her once in the chest. Shuffit then drove 10 miles away, onto a rural gravel road, and killed himself.

Stephanie's obituary described her as an avid gardener and a devoted mother. It said she managed a restaurant and was of the Christian faith.

She left behind three children: two daughters, Charley and Cristin Ray of Perryville; and a son, Michael Pruitt of Perryville.

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There is one thing Dorothy Sanders wants people to know about her son: He was a good father.

Even after his wife left, he raised the boys alone. He loved their mother, even waited for two years after she left to get a divorce. But the boys always came first.

Wherever he went, they were toddling along behind him. On Halloween, he sewed their homemade costumes together. He enrolled them in a Christian day care, where the workers marveled at the single father dropping them off and picking them up after work.

"They came before everything," Dorothy said. "No matter where he was, he had them with him."

Jerry and Dorothy Sanders handled the death of their son differently. Jerry wanted to find Bucklew and do to him what Bucklew had done to his son. Dorothy told Jerry to go outside and hit something. Jerry blamed himself. Dorothy tried not to.

These days, after retirement, the days pass. Dorothy has her Tuesday night Bible study. Jerry likes to carve things out of wood.

Dorothy comes to Cape Girardeau frequently. Sometimes she's with friends. They'll stop and visit someone else's son. That's hard for her.

"It's hard to take," she said. "It's not easy."

They both have regrets. They wish they had told Mike they loved him more often. They try to make it up to Mike by telling their other children and grandchildren.

They think about the man who killed their son, but they try not to. They say that allows him to control their lives.

The years have made it easier, almost tolerable. But it's never gone away, Dorothy said.

"We're always living with it," Dorothy said. "You still want him to walk in the door. But I know that's not going to happen. It's just that he was taken away so young. That's what makes it so hard."