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October 14, 2000

To my loyal readers:

Gratia amor vos contemno.
In order to love you must hate.

As you read this, do a small favor for me. Think of someone that has had the biggest impact on your life. It can be a parent or a friend, but please think of that person.
I started with The Star Chronicle in June of 1987 fresh out of University of Southern California. I was a small-town Texas girl with a bird’s eye view of the world. I lived with nine other people in an overpriced loft apartment. I knew everything about life, and where it would lead me to. At least, this is what I thought.
Where does my small history lesson lead to? To be honest, it leads to her. She was the first woman that held the American media’s heart as she was executed by lethal injection at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
Everyone knew her as Charlene Louise Edgars. She was the supposed cold-blooded killer of Mississippi golden boy Amory Carpenter and his two friends, Christopher Swalinski and Sarah Danson.
I received Edgars file in June of 1988 after I had been promoted to a feature writing position on the staff. Boring information I know you do not care about.
The managing editor at the time, Jackie Carpenter, gave me the file as a fishing line to get my name out.
“Get the goods on my brother’s killer. The good, the bad, and the ugly,” she had told me.
Yes, that’s right. Edgars was the killer of the late and great Jackie Carpenter’s younger brother. That is a piece of history that was left out of any articles written in 1984 of the murders.
So what impact did Charlene Edgars have on me?
She taught me something that can’t be put into mere words alone. They must be expressed within my actions.
“In order to love, you must hate,” were her parting words to me before I left Mississippi.
I never knew how much those simple words would stick in my mind.
Charlene Edgars taught me that in order to fully love someone, you must absolutely hate them. That is a contradiction, but everything is about balance. You can love someone, love everything about them, but there will always be something that you hate.
Even while incarcerated, Edgars walked with a proud stance. In her eyes, you could easily see her spunk for life. She had a whip snap attitude that she would easily unleash on her guards or anyone around her.
I remember walking into the receiving room, and being surprised her freckled face and red hair. At the time, she was only thirty-one and had already seen more then the God above should have given her.
“Cat got your tongue or are you gonna stare at me all day?” she had said to me in that signature Cajun drawl that was only her.
It has been more then ten years since I did her interviews and yet sometimes I still listen to the numerous tapes and read over my old notes. I write this as a memorial to Charlene Edgars with a tear and my eye and her lessons in my mind. I wish people could have seen the woman that was underneath the stigma placed on her.

Katharine Wright-Mulligan
Managing Editor
The Star Chronicle