The Suicide of Paula Cooper, the 16-Year-Old Who Changed America

She had won back her life through words. Other people’s words. She had gained her freedom through cooking. Cooking for other people. Thirty years ago, every appeal, plea and intervention in her favor brought her an inch closer to the exit gate of death row. In the end, thanks to the force of an international campaign in which even John Paul II made his voice known, she managed to get out, leaving behind her the cold execution room and executioner. Then, for 28 years, until June 17, 2013, she had just one dream: to leave prison. She succeeded in doing so, thanks to the law which took one day off her sentence for each day of good behavior in prison.

Paula Cooper, 45 years old, was found dead today by the Indianapolis police. The theory, in view of the firearms weapon on her body, is suicide. The mature woman’s face looks very different from the adolescent portrait in her mugshot taken after her arrest for killing Ruth Pelk.

The teenage girl from Indiana was the ringleader of a female gang which, on May 14, 1985, knocked on the door of the elderly Bible studies teacher. While the others stayed outside, she went in, saying she wanted to talk about the Holy Scriptures, but then pulled out a knife and stabbed the woman 12 times.* That’s how the robbery went: she searched the drawers but didn’t find much — $10. They then took Pelke’s car and went shopping. After being arrested, the other girls pointed to Paula as the perpetrator of the murder. One year later, she was condemned to death. It was 1986 and she was 15 years old** —the youngest person to be held on death row in the United States. That should have been enough to pose many questions, but the law in Indiana stated that from the age of 10 you could receive capital punishment.

Luckily for Paula, then, not everyone thought it was normal for a 15-year-old** to be on death row. Even Bill, Ruth Pelke’s grandson, aged 30, wanted to understand more behind the murder and the conviction. He began to communicate with Cooper and this led him to become one of the main supporters for her case. His forgiveness was one of the driving forces behind the national and international campaign in favor of the young girl from Indiana. Not only human rights’ associations in the United States, but foreign organizations and figures also made their voices heard. The appeals to commute her sentence multiplied during those months. Even John Paul II intervened with letters and prayers. Italy played a leading role, so much so that Paula Cooper’s case even featured in the Raffaella Carrà’s Sunday show.

International pressure forced the judges to reopen the case. Indiana revised its laws and established that capital punishment could only be applied to those over the age of 16. Paula Cooper was allowed to leave death row and her sentence was commuted to 60 years in prison. And that’s not all. It was thanks to her and the uproar around the events that the U.S. Supreme Court decided that people under the age of 18 could not be condemned to death. But in reality, the effects of her case were even greater. Together with other, equally significant cases, it contributed to breaking down the solid wall of certainty which Americans had about the death penalty. The effects of those doubts which emerged can be seen now: Many states have decided to abolish or ban the death penalty.

Her story was seen as living proof that the death penalty doesn’t work. And that, instead, imprisonment could rehabilitate. For Paula Cooper, the years spent in Rockville prison were not easy. But, at a certain point, she decided she wanted to leave. In some interviews, she spoke about how the thought of her mother had kept her going: She dreamed about seeing her free. In prison she studied and graduated as a nurse. She worked hard to regain her freedom, spending her final period of time in the kitchen — “I like cooking for others,” she said. Each meal was one day less in prison. Her sentence was reduced. When she was first released she was helped and monitored. She lived in a special facility and was supported by psychologists. Paula Cooper had her second chance. Until today’s outcome which no one could have imagined.

*Editor’s note: According to other sources, Cooper stabbed Pelke 33 times, not 12.

**Editor’s note: According to other sources, Cooper was 16 going on 17 when she was sentenced to death, not 15.