I will begin
this post by saying that I believe in redemption – when that redemption is
earned. There are those who we permit to walk among us who have committed heinous
crimes but then paid their debt to society. The road to redemption should not
be a smooth one. In cases of murder, it begins by showing honest remorse to the
victims’ families – looking them in the eyes and asking for their forgiveness.
It continues
with years of showing repentance and demonstrating exemplary behavior, while
incarcerated.
And it ends,
decades later, only if those we have charged with protecting the safety of the
public are convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the murderer is no
longer a danger to the public at large.
Only after
those conditions are met, should murderers of innocent victims have their
freedom restored.
Allowing for
hard-earned redemption makes us human, and there are heart-warming stories of
individuals who turned their lives around and were welcomed back into society
even by the the families of their victims.
This is not
one of those stories.
This story
begins in Hillsborough County, Florida, ends in Oswego County, New York, and
connects to Watertown, Massachusetts.
William
Michael Branshaw is not famous so we cannot place him in the same category as Ted
Bundy, Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), Dennis Rader (the BTK serial
killer), and other psychopaths who grabbed national headlines as the number of
their victims and the cruelty of their murders became national news.
But there
are two possible reasons that Branshaw is not included in that category. First,
he was captured and imprisoned before he could spend the major portion of his
adult life adding to his victim count. And second, it’s possible that his previous
crimes of brutality (not listed below) have not been discovered or proven, so
remain unknown.
Here’s what
we do know:
In 1984, Branshaw
was convicted of rape in Hillsborough County. He served half of a nine-year
sentence and was released on parole in 1988.
In January
1989, a jogger discovered a badly beaten woman lying near Valrico Lake Road, outside
of Tampa. Branshaw, 30, confessed to police investigators that he went to a bar
with the woman, drove her to a remote area, raped her, beat her, and left her
for dead. He then left the scene to buy a six-pack of beer. The victim survived
and Branshaw pleaded no contest to sexual battery.
In April 1989,
Earl Ware, a 77-year-old bank executive, was strolling down Bayshore Boulevard
in Tampa, with his companion, Jane Levine, when Branshaw attacked him from
behind, stabbing him with a knife. He then stole Ware’s wallet and kidnapped
Levine. Branshaw took her to a motel, where he raped her repeatedly during the
night and left her in the morning, gagged and tied to a chair.
In March
1989, neighbors at a boarding house discovered the body of 48-year-old Harriet
Dowling. Investigators determined that Branshaw, who also lived in the boarding
house had intentionally killed her by giving her an overdose of insulin. Branshaw
pleaded no contest to a charge of first-degree murder.
Investigators
believe that in April 1989, Branshaw fled to Oswego, New York, where he grew up
and still had friends and relatives. He was hiding in a house when 17-year-old
Sam Amedio Jr. entered to feed a friend’s pets, while the family was away on
vacation. Branshaw beat him to death with a baseball bat, then fled the scene
in Sam’s car. He was captured and convicted of the murder and is now serving 25
years to life at a New York correctional facility.
While in prison,
Branshaw, who has expressed no remorse for any of his crimes, made a stunning
claim. He says that he has murdered 18 people. Some suspect that his claim is
only a ploy to be used as a future bargaining chip for a reduced sentence. To
date, there is no indication that he has provided any information to law
enforcement about the identities or whereabouts of any of the 18 alleged
victims.
It could be
just a ploy, but from what we know of his cold-bloodedness and disregard for
human life, I think we should take him at his word. And so should the parole
board.
William
Branshaw is up for parole in December – the exact date of the hearing is to be
determined.
Tony Amedio
of Watertown was Sam Amedio Jr.’s cousin. Tony’s wife, Maureen O’Grady Amedio, is
asking us to please send a letter OPPOSING his parole. The Amedio family in
Oswego is conducting their own letter-writing campaign as they have done for Branshaw’s
previous parole hearings.
Please join
this campaign for all of the families of Branshaw’s victims, known or unknown.
You can either write a letter and mail it or
you can use the convenient online form linked below and state your reasons in
the comment section. It does not have to be a long letter. Just state, in a few
sentences, why you want Branshaw to remain behind bars.
In your
letter, please be sure to reference inmate William Branshaw and his DIN number 90C0216.
Mail letters
to:
Shawangunk
Correctional Facility
Attention: Supervising Offender Rehabilitation
Coordinator
PO Box 750
Wallkill, NY
12589-0750
or you may
submit your message online at the quick and easy link below:
https://doccs.ny.gov/form/letters-in-support-or-opposition?fbclid=IwAR18TYU4NwVqdw96yBEYiz8XYS4BMPkE5wR2Rg78XQ6GMfGxl33jtuXf4-g&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
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this post and ask others to share it too.
Thank you!
Bruce
Coltin, The Battle For Watertown
