My name is Michael Ross. I am a condemned man on death row. When most people think of death row inmates, I' m the one they think of. I'm the worst of the worst, a serial killer responsible for the rape and murder of eight women in three states who has assaulted several others and stalked and frightened many more. I have never denied what I did and have fully confessed to my crimes. The only issue in my case was, and still is, my mental condition. For years I have been trying to prove that I am suffering from a mental illness that drove me to rape and kill, and that this mental illness made me physically unable to control my actions. I have met with little success.

So here I sit on death row, waiting for the judicial system to complete the tedious process that will likely result in my execution. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can envision the hundreds of people who are likely to gather outside the prison gates on that night. I can see them waving placards, drinking and rejoicing, and I can hear their cheers as my death is finally announced.

Who is Michael Ross? And what could possibly motivate a clearly intelligent individual, a Cornell University graduate, to commit such horrendous crimes?

As you might expect, I have been examined by many psychiatric experts since my arrest in 1984. All of them, including the state' s own expert psychiatric witness, diagnosed me as suffering from a paraphiliac mental disorder called 'sexual sadism,' which, in the experts' words, resulted in my compulsion 'to perpetrate violent sexual activity in a repetitive way.' These experts also agreed that my criminal conduct was the direct result of uncontrollable sexual impulses caused by my mental illness. The state' s only hope of obtaining a conviction was to inflame the jury' s emotions so that they would ignore any evidence of psychological impairment. In my particular case, that was quite easy to do, and the state succeeded in obtaining convictions and multiple death sentences.

What exactly is a paraphiliac mental disorder?

It is very difficult to explain and understand -- especially for the layperson (which, unfortunately for me, describes most jury members). I' m not even sure that I fully understand this disease, and I have been trying to understand what has been going on in my head for a very long time now. Basically, I was plagued by repetitive thoughts, urges, and fantasies of the degradation, rape, and murder of women. These unwanted thoughts filled my mind when I was awake, and they were in my dreams when I slept. Imagine trying to control such urges day by day, hour by hour. Also try to imagine the hatred, loathing, and abhorrence that I developed toward myself when I ultimately failed. The best way to understand this problem is to remember a time when you had a catchy tune stuck in your mind. Even if you like the melody, the constant repetition becomes more than merely annoying. The harder you try to push that melody out of your mind, the louder and more persistent it becomes, driving you almost mad. Now replace that sweet little melody with noxious thoughts of physically and mentally degrading a woman, of raping her and strangling her. Now you can begin to understand what I had running wild in my head. And I think you can begin to understand me when I say that it is not something I wanted.