'Bernina Mata’s attorneys say prosecutors used homophobic rhetoric to secure a death sentence in 1999. Now they’re asking the governor to set her free.' | byadamrhodes
Bernina Mata's supporters say she was given the death sentence for a 1998 killing because she is lesbian.“I wake up every day and wish that I could go back and change what happened,” Mata wrote in a letter attached to her recently filed clemency petition that seeks her freedom after more than two decades behind bars.
Her attorneys say that if not for the death sentence, she would have already been released from prison. The crux of Mata’s clemency petition, are the inflammatory, homophobic statements made at trial by the then-assistant state’s attorney for Boone County, Troy Owens. Trial transcripts show Troy Owens, who prosecuted Mata, made her sexuality a key issue in the case against her.She appealed her death sentence to the Illinois Supreme Court, but after Governor Ryan commuted her sentence in 2003, her case was sent to the state appeals court. Mata withdrew the bulk of her appeal out of fear that even with a new trial, she could be found guilty and sentenced to death again.
Mata’s clemency petition states that despite the chaos that later punctuated her early life, her grandparents’ home in Aurora, Illinois, where she spent her first few years, was a place of support and encouragement. Alongside the sexual abuse she endured, Mata also faced significant physical and emotional abuse by her mother and stepfather. Cushing noted in the report that Mata said they beat her multiple times a day, sometimes with a stick or belt, leaving her with dark bruises and bleeding welts.
Mata says that after she came out as gay to her mother at age eight, the abuse took a homophobic turn, with her mother calling her a “little faggot” and other slurs. Cushing’s evaluation says that years into the sexual abuse by her father, he began trafficking her to friends who liked “really young girls.” The petition states that her father would bring her over to friends’ homes with several other men and then leave for “errands.” Mata reported hiding to escape the men’s inappropriate touching, enduring her father’s anger for “disrespecting” his friends’ homes as a result.
Mata was hospitalized at the psychiatric facility three more times before she was 15. She was an inpatient at Gateway Substance Abuse Treatment Center, for three months in the spring of 1985. The petition states that Bernina spent the bulk of June, July, and August back at the Aurora facility before her DCFS caseworker had her placed in a state psychiatric institute where she remained for the next two years until 1987. Mata says she spent the majority of that time in physical restraints.
Mata briefly dated another woman in April 1996; that relationship ended when the woman beat Mata, leaving her with two black eyes and a broken nose. Unlike most evaluations of Mata, the Elgin assessment also found her to be substantially smarter than others gave her credit for. A glaring difference between the state’s version of events and Mata’s is the relationship between Mata and her roommate. Grundmeier told the court that he was in love with Mata, and moved in after they began a sexual relationship. Grundmeier testified that when he moved in with Mata, he had been separated from his wife for several months and was living with his parents.
“I’m going to kill John and you’re going to help me,” he says she told him. Grundmeier says the comment rattled him, and he left the bar to return home, followed soon after by Mata, Draheim, and a neighbor named James Clark. At Grundmeier’s sentencing, Judge Grubb said the case was one “where I think it’s basically, the police must have believed your story. Why, I don’t know. The facts and circumstances are such that it might very well have been a murder charge.” Judge Grubb also presided over the state’s case against Mata.
“It falls under the right criterion of avoidance symptoms,” White-Domain says. “Anybody can develop dissociation symptoms, but they’re most commonly associated with people who have experienced sexual abuse during childhood. So even her experience of what happened is in line with what we know about traumatic survival.”
Following Draheim’s death, Grundmeier was largely responsible for cleaning up the crime scene. One witness testified he saw Mata and Grundmeier carrying what looked like a rolled-up carpet, which was later discovered to be Draheim’s body wrapped in sheets, the morning after the killing. Grundmeier testified that he cleaned up Mata’s room, painted the walls, and dismantled and hid the bed.
“I told her Russell stated he observed consensual sex and that I thought she was lying about that to make a stand for herself in court for self-defense, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it,” Rocco Wagner, a detective with the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office, testified at trial. “It cannot be anything else because there was never rape,” Owens told the jury. “If one were raped, one would not actually take the efforts here to conceal the body,” Owens says at another point in the trial.
At her trial Mata said that she asked for an attorney at least half a dozen times during her interrogation. She has maintained that ever since. She says the detectives screamed and threatened her to get her to confess, and that she gave in to end the ordeal. Mata says she was interrogated for roughly eight hours, but police say it was closer to five.
According to Detective Daniel Smaha’s testimony, Mata made incriminating comments while in jail, including that the killing was indeed premeditated, that her alibi was airtight before Grundmeier confessed to police, and that the rush from killing was better than an orgasm.“I don’t have any trust or faith in Smaha’s recollection of anything and I think he’s inherently biased,” Mogul says.
Detectives testified that one reason they didn’t believe Mata’s claim that Draheim had tried to rape her was because she had injuries that reportedly matched leather wrist and ankle cuffs she was wearing when arrested. Detectives say Mata told them the marks were from “rough sex” with her girlfriend, Cynthia Lloyd.
Judge Grubb refused to allow evidence related to a 1991 domestic violence incident where Draheim’s ex-wife called the police after Draheim had gotten drunk and began throwing things around the house. She reportedly told police at the time she was going to consult an attorney about a divorce and order of protection. But Judge Grubb did not admit evidence of the incident.
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