Since June, motorists on I-20 east of Atlanta have looked up at two billboards to see an infamous blast from the past — Eddie Lawrence, the middleman in the horrific 1992 shotgun murder of Sara Tokars and now a prisoner in the federal Witness Protection Program.
It may seem odd that a criminal in that top-secret program would have his face plastered on highway billboards. But Lawrence, a two-bit con man who graduated to setting up a murder, was always a bit off-kilter.
The billboards were rented by Berneda Lawrence, who married Lawrence five years ago in prison and self-published a book about his case. Mrs. Lawrence and her husband’s family have been working to spring from prison the 45-year-old convict, who once received what some called the “deal of the century” to testify in the racketeering and murder trials that put Fred Tokars, the victim’s husband, in prison for life.
“The family wants him out,” said Lawrence’s son Brandon, 24, who’s the spitting image of his father. “I know some people are not sympathetic, but he did his part, he did his testimony. He had a deal and they should live up to their bargain.”
Exactly what that “bargain” was — or even if there ever was one — has gotten murkier over the years. But it seems Lawrence, who always fancied himself a slick operator, may have outsmarted himself when he tried to secure an even better deal after the trials.
Finding out much about Lawrence from federal or state authorities is difficult.
The state Department of Corrections Web site lists Lawrence as being in “other custody.” It does not show a photo of him, as it does for most prisoners, and it has no identifying information such as hair color, height or weight. The federal site does not list him at all. A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman could not find a record of his imprisonment and said she could not comment on him if he is not in the system’s rolls.
But Lawrence is in custody, Berneda Lawrence says, in a federal facility that resembles “a college dorm.”
“He’s on the third floor and stays by himself,” said his wife, who knew him before he got into trouble. “They allow him so much time outside but [he] can only look up, not out, because of the tarps on the fences [so the prisoners can’t be seen]. They can only see the sky. It can break your spirit.”
A brutal murder
That Lawrence remains in secretive federal lockup 17 years after the murder leaves a hard-nosed former federal prosecutor bemused and Fred Tokars’ defense attorney furious.
“There’s no threat to Lawrence, there never was; it’s a joke,” said Jerry Froelich, his voice rising in anger. “He should be in the state system serving hard time. Instead, he’s in a cushy prison.”
Buddy Parker, who prosecuted Tokars, said “there were concerns Fred would conduct violence against Eddie. But those concerns are far gone.”
Lawrence was a business associate of Fred Tokars, a part-time judge and attorney who prosecutors contended laundered money for drug dealers. Authorities introduced evidence of an underworld of Tokars’ associates where witnesses were murdered and people were tortured.
Tokars, Lawrence contended, wanted his wife dead so she wouldn’t get his assets in a divorce. Lawrence testified he hired a hit man, a crackhead named Curtis Rower, and the two kidnapped Sara Tokars Nov. 29, 1992, when she arrived home from a trip with her young sons. She was killed by Rower by a shotgun blast to the head. It happened in front of the boys and became a sensational case for media.
Prosecutors needed a star witness to make their case, and Lawrence’s attorneys, Mark Spix and Bruce Harvey, worked out what was called a “sweetheart deal.” Lawrence pleaded guilty to federal racketeering and state murder charges and, in 1994, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years federal time and life in state prison with the possibility of parole. The sentences were to run concurrently. At the time, it was thought Lawrence could serve fewer than 15 years total.
“That was a real deal of the century,” Tom Charron, the former Cobb County district attorney said with irony, noting Lawrence is still incarcerated. “There was no deal that we would go along with parole. There might have been a statement we wouldn’t fight his parole.”
Charron thinks the parole board has gotten tougher over the years. “It seems to me this parole board doesn’t look at [releasing inmates doing life] until they reach 20 years.”
‘Deal’ falls apart
Both Charron and Parker said Lawrence was needed as a witness because he was the one link in the conspiratorial chain who could testify against Tokars, the mastermind, and the triggerman Rower, now serving life in state prison.
But the supposed “deal” for early release — it does not seem to be written anywhere in official records — probably fell apart in 1997, when Lawrence wrote the FBI claiming he lied in his testimony and wanted his guilty plea rescinded. The following year saw the bizarre spectacle of Lawrence in court questioning Froelich, Harvey, Spix, Parker and Bobby Lee Cook, the courtly North Georgia lawyer after whom the TV character “Matlock” was based. Lawrence was not given a new trial.
“My recollection is [Sara Tokars’ family] would support parole,” said Parker, who is now in private practice. “But once Lawrence pulled that dumb act, they pulled their support. I’m confident he’d be out now if he was consistent with his prior cooperation.”
Joni Ambrusko, one of Sara Tokars’ sisters, said the family opposes parole. “All the killers deserve the death penalty,” she said. “Think of Ricky and Mike [the Tokars’ sons] running through the field with their mother’s brains on them. And these guys will watch the Super Bowl in a couple weeks?”
Parker said that as long as Lawrence remains in federal prison, getting parole will be hard. The state “has no incentive to give him parole because they are not paying to incarcerate him,” he said. “If he’d ask my advice, I’d say, ‘Get your ass back to Georgia where they’d have to look at you.’ ”
Scheree Moore, spokeswoman for the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the board has reviewed Lawrence’s case twice — most recently in 2008 — and won’t consider him again until December 2015.
“He made a deal with the feds, not the state,” she said. “He’s going through the normal consideration anyone else receives.”
Spix believes the feds won’t release him to state custody “because if he goes into the state system, they can’t protect him.” Spix has no love lost for Lawrence, who came to court calling the attorney a schemer. Still, Spix said the state may be setting a bad example. Criminal cases are often solved with ne’er-do-wells ratting out other scoundrels. “If [authorities] let it be known they are playing games with those who cooperate, then they’d have less people testifying.”
‘He was young’
Berneda Lawrence, who long ago served in the Navy and fell in love with Lawrence while writing him letters while he was imprisoned, lives near Lithonia in a sparse townhome plastered with photos of her husband.
She would not say who paid for the billboards, which an industry analyst estimated cost $1,000 a month. Froelich believes it comes from money Lawrence squirreled away.
The book she has self-published is really a collection of her correspondence with Lawrence, who constantly writes about religion and pens poems. She says he is accomplished working with leather and does a little gardening in prison.
As to why her husband got involved with murder, she said, “He said he was young. ... Fred showed him how easy it was to participate in criminal activity. He said it was easy.
“He’s 45 now. He’s older. But you can’t go back and change things.”
Lawrence, in one of his writings, summed up his own situation.
“Life is a series of misadventures. It is ignorance in the beginning, pain in the middle and sorrow in the end.”
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