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�I can�t believe I�m capable of the things that happened� Killer says he's sorry, but still can't explain why he did it By Dani Dodge When Mark Curtis Fernandez walks into the visiting room of the Jackson County Jail and sits down on the other side of a thick slab of Plexiglas, the first thing you notice are his remarkable green eyes. They�re light green in the center with a darker rim around the outside of the iris. They seem open and friendly. They�re direct. They don�t look like the eyes you�d imagine on a murderer. Yet Fernandez bludgeoned to death his cousin Jaime Fernandez II with a decorative brick in broad daylight, right in Jaime�s suburban front yard. Fernandez picks up the phone on his side of the Plexiglas partition. The move is smoothly executed. After 14 months in jail, he�s become adept at this. "I�m only talking to you," he says to a reporter, "because I want to try to get my apology to his family and friends. "I was treated kindly by all of them, and I�m so sorry for what I did." At his trial, Fernandez, 28, of Prospect, declined to speak. Throughout, he sat with an anguished stare plastered on his face. His expression never changed. At his sentencing for murder Friday, he remained silent. "I was going to say �I�m sorry,� but then I thought, �What good�s it going to do?� " he says. "They wouldn�t have believed me." Fernandez says he can�t answer the simple question Jaime�s grandmother asked in court: "Why?" When he tries, confusion spreads across his features � his dark hair and pale skin somehow reminiscent of Matthew Perry on "Friends." A weak smile reveals nice teeth. It�s a remarkable contrast to the grim, scowling countenance he displayed in court. "I really believed something was going on in (Jaime). He was going to turn against me. But then in reality, I turned against him," Fernandez says. "I can�t believe I�m capable of the things that happened." He says the worst of it is how good Jaime and his family always were to him. "He was a cousin I liked, which is another reason this is confusing," Fernandez says. "I liked his mom, dad, brother and sister. I liked all of them." He says after listening to the testimony in court, he wonders if they aren�t right about the motive. They said Fernandez was envious because Jaime, who was recovering from a near-fatal auto accident, was showered with love and attention. "I guess they�re saying it was jealousy," Fernandez sighs. "Maybe they know better than me." He says the reason he looked straight ahead during the trial is he was too ashamed to turn toward Jaime�s family, or even his own. "(My mom) looks at me and I wish I could have done something that put a smile on her face instead of this," he says. On his side of the partition, the phone cord is badly frayed. He doesn�t play with it. Instead, when he gets uncomfortable, he sweeps his free hand though his thick thatch of dark hair. "I wish there was some message. Some sense," he says. "But this is just the waste of a couple Fernandezes in my book." Asked to talk about what factors could have led to the crime, he doesn�t want to say anything that might sound like an excuse. He thinks he should have heeded his family�s advice and seen a psychiatrist � but beyond that, he shrugs his shoulders. "There�s a million different sad stories out there, but none as sad as Jaime�s." The most ironic thing about the murder and the trial was that he learned so much about Jaime in the testimony, he says. It made him love his cousin even more. "The only person I need right now is him," Fernandez says. "If I got out of here, he�s the person I�d want to pick me up." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.