We sat in the sun to talk, which made us both happy, since so much of what brought Eli Sanders and me to this meeting was steeped in darkness:
The sweltering July night in 2009 when Jennifer Hopper and Teresa Butz were repeatedly raped, tortured and knifed in their South Park neighborhood home by an intruder who had appeared in their bedroom at 3 a.m., naked and holding a large blade.
The death of Butz, who was stabbed in the heart and died in the street after throwing a nightstand through the bedroom window and scrambling out.
The mind of Isaiah Kalebu, the man convicted of the crimes, dimmed by dysfunction, mental illness and evil.
And the mental-health and judicial systems, poorly equipped to monitor the sick and dangerous, or to make the connections that could protect and save lives.
Sanders, the associate editor of The Stranger, has written about it all in his new book, “While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man’s Descent Into Madness.”
Sanders, 38, covered the case for The Stranger from the beginning, and in 2012 won The Pulitzer Prize for “The Bravest Woman in Seattle,” a riveting narrative lynchpinned by Hopper’s unflinching testimony at Kalebu’s murder trial.
Sanders brought Hopper with him to New York when he collected the Pulitzer from Columbia University.
“That story could not exist without her testimony,” Sanders said of Hopper, “and without her having gotten up there and having the strength and will and capacity to speak so bravely.”
He recalled being “awestruck” at her composure, and how, at certain points during her testimony, he and others in the courtroom were moved to tears by what Hopper and Butz endured.
The book goes beyond the courtroom drama — which ended with a life sentence for Kalebu, which he is serving at Clallam Bay — and delves into both women’s background, through interviews with relatives and friends.
Butz, 39, was from St. Louis, and was raised in a large, boisterous, musical family. Her brother was a Broadway star, her parents devoted Catholics who struggled with her sexuality.
Hopper was from New Mexico, raised by a single mother and her grandparents in Seattle. She found stability and a sanctuary in singing. Her voice was noticed early on, and while her Broadway dreams didn’t materialize, she continues to perform.
The book also chronicles Kalebu’s troubled childhood. His strict Ugandan father, who beat him. His mother, who suffered her own anguish.
Through the stories of these people, and that awful, fateful night, the book points out the flaws in the mental-health and legal systems that allowed Kalebu to slip far through the cracks. So far, that he made a court appearance on another charge just days after the attacks. He still had the women’s blood on his jacket. And he remained free.
“He had a very challenging path,” Sanders said of Kalebu. “And mental-health issues. And he encountered failure after failure of the system to help intervene.”
There has been some progress in the state’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program, which allows those with mental illness to remain free while also being monitored.
It is similar to New York state’s Kendra’s Law, which established a clear system for when mentally ill people decline help but show a threat. They can be monitored or involuntary committed.
“There’s a model out there,” Sanders said. “New York has proven that it saves taxpayers’ money to invest in preventive interventions.
“Washington state has increased its investment in mental-health treatment. But it’s not enough.”
