Artwork of accused killer for sale
Letters and drawings by Linda Ann Weston, accused of killing two and kidnapping and torturing others, have popped up on a murderabilia site.
MOST PEOPLE might know Linda Weston by the crimes she's accused of: kidnapping and torturing mentally vulnerable adults, even killing two, in a decade of depravity that ended in 2011 after her landlord discovered her Tacony house of horrors and alerted police.
But Kelly Hutchison thinks she should be known for her artwork.
The San Diego-based artist is selling several letters and illustrations Weston created, including one of Jesus and another of Snow White beside a masturbating dwarf, in his online Dark Vomit Museum and Prison Art Gallery. Asking price: $65 to $85.
Hutchison describes Weston, who remains in federal lockup in Philadelphia awaiting trial, as a "Psychopath Caretaker." Excerpts of her barely coherent letters describe her desire to publish a tell-all book, her commitment to church, prayer and Jesus and her claim that she helped people.
"Liveing on the outside world, I help a lot of people who didt have anything," she wrote. " . . . this is why people need to get to know who I am."
Hutchison said he paid a "pen pal" of Weston's for her letters and artwork. That pen pal is a college student who used the money for college expenses and didn't share it with Weston, Hutchison said.
Hutchison plans to keep the proceeds if her items sell; the money will help him cover operating expenses and expand his inventory, he added.
He said he's unsure if Weston, 54, knows her letters and drawings are being sold.
While the sale might strike some as unusual, the market for "murderabilia" thrives online.
Morbid-minded collectors can buy anything from a hair band of Charles Manson's ($1,250 on supernaught.com) to a Santa Claus suit once worn by serial killer John E. Robinson ($1,000 on serialkillersink.com). Items from local killers like Harrison "Marty" Graham, John Eichinger and Ira Einhorn also are up for grabs.
Several federal lawmakers have introduced bills to ban or restrict the sales, but none have passed. Eight states, including New Jersey, outlaw such vending.
Andy Kahan, the victim advocate in Houston who coined the term "murderabilia" and has fought to forbid it for two decades, said selling murder mementos revictimizes those still mourning the loss of loved ones.
"It's absolutely sickening," Kahan said.
Kahan called on federal prisons officials to more closely screen inmate mail to prevent items that could end up on murderabilia sites from escaping prison walls.
Marisa Davidson, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the Federal Detention Center here, said inmates are permitted to mail letters and artwork that would fit in a "regular-sized" envelope. If it's not mail to an attorney, it must be unsealed and guards screen it for contraband materials or pornography, she said.
Inmates also aren't allowed to "conduct a business," Davidson said.
"That's something that would have to be investigated," she said of the sale of Weston's letters and artwork.
Attorney Dominic Guerrini agreed such scrutiny is needed. He filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Weston's niece Beatrice against Philadelphia and the city's Department of Human Services.
A judge placed Beatrice in her aunt's custody when she was 10, and DHS was supposed to monitor her. Instead, the system forgot her. No one noticed when Weston allegedly chained the girl in closets and basements, beat and burned her, starved and forcibly prostituted her and forced her to drink and bathe in her own urine, according to her lawsuit.
The case is set for trial in federal court on Nov. 17.
Guerrini blasted the sale of her letters and artwork and her hopes to write a book as "outrageous."
"To the extent that it continues to victimize her niece, Beatrice Weston, it is concerning," Guerrini said. "She's done enough bad things, and she should leave this alone."
Weston and four accomplices were arrested after police in October 2011 discovered four mentally disabled victims locked in a squalid basement of a Tacony apartment building.
Weston alone was charged with murder in the 2005 death of Donna Spadea, 59, who was held in a Northeast Philadelphia apartment, and the 2008 death of Maxine Lee, 39, a Philadelphia native who died in a home where she was kept captive in Norfolk, Va.
Federal prosecutors now are mulling whether they will press for the death penalty in Weston's criminal case, which is expected to go to trial next year.
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