Execution procedure

Slightly abridged German version of the 2003 article “Death house: Huntsville observes a grim timetable” from Star-Telegram.com, describing the executions of Jonathan Nobles (1998), Robert Excell White (1999), Lloyd Henry (2003) and others in Huntsville, Texas

Press witnesses, court employees, wardens who have presided over numerous executions, and others share their experiences of carrying out the death penalty in America’s busiest death house.

Huntsville – As he lay strapped to the gurney with poison coursing through his veins, the prisoner began to sing, “Si-i-lent night…”

Mike Graczyk stood behind a closed Plexiglas window, taking notes. As part of his job, the Associated Press reporter from Houston has seen more than 200 executions by lethal injection.

Each execution is efficient, clean, quick.

Unforgettable.

“It’s Christmas. You attend midnight Mass and everyone around you is singing ‘Silent Night’ and everyone is enjoying the moment,” Graczyk says.

But whenever he hears that song, it’s Oct. 7, 1998, all over again. Graczyk sees the turquoise wall of the death chamber. He sees the warden, the clergyman. The pale face of the double murderer, glaringly illuminated by fluorescent lights, his arms outstretched, forming a cross.

Jonathan Nobles, 37, sings, a microphone above his lips. “Moth-er and child …”

Those are the killer’s last words.

Christmas comes once a year, but crime and the death penalty in Texas continue. This week, three more convicted murderers are scheduled to be transported the 40 miles from death row in Livingston to the state prison in Huntsville, a red brick building known as “The Walls.”

Tuesday: Billy Frank Vickers, 58.

Wednesday: Kevin Lee Zimmerman, 42.

Thursday: Bobby Lee Hines, 31.

Jim Willet, a former supervisor of America’s busiest death house, is a polite man of pleasant appearance.

The silver-haired family man presided over 89 executions between 1998 and 2001, including one woman, Betty Lou Beets.

Of the death penalty, Willet says, “According to the last poll I saw, it has 84% support. I don’t think they’ll ever abolish it in Texas unless the Supreme Court forces our hand. Texans basically say there are certain things, if you do them we will find you and kill you. That’s just the way it is.”

A city and its prison

“Whether you come for a day or for a lifetime, we’re glad you’re here,” says the Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce website.

Huntsville, the small college town 70 miles north of Houston, population 35000, is home to Sam Houston University and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the largest employer in the city.

Hershey, Pa, is known for chocolate. Huntsville is synonymous with prison and executions.

The visitor center offers a schedule for a tour of the seven prisons in the area, including the oldest and most famous, located almost downtown.

Since 1924, every execution in Texas – 674 in all – has been carried out behind these 10-foot-high walls.

Across the street from this 154-year-old building is a small hamburger stand. A sign advertises the “Killer Burger,” a $4.25 sandwich with double portions of meat and cheese and jalapeno pepper.

One of Huntsville’s 5 museums recorded 23,000 visitors last year. The Texas Prison Museum houses a ball-foot necklace, historic photographs and weapons confiscated from prisoners, among other items.

The museum’s “Mona Lisa” is “Old Sparky,” the electric chair of Texas. Built by prison inmates, the towering relic looks like a medieval throne.

A barrier separates visitors from the polished oak device. That hasn’t stopped some visitors from taking a seat on the chair where 361 people died. The chair has since been equipped with an alarm.

Willet, 54, is the museum director. Every day, he’s grateful to be out of the execution business. “I tried to treat them as well as they would let me. I didn’t coddle them, but I tried to give them a decent last day,” Willet said. “It was never easy. I myself have never been able to see it as just being a piece of work. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

In 2000, Willet presided over 40 executions, the most executions ever carried out by a U.S. state in one year in U.S. history. Seven inmates were killed in just 16 days. That month drained him emotionally, Willet says.

Like many others entrusted with this gruesome task, the warden sometimes wondered what the state was doing in the name of justice.

“I understand why people say we need this and why others say it’s not right,” Willet says of the death penalty. “I wonder why we have so many more executions than others. I don’t know.”

In Texas, the death penalty includes: the murder of a police or fire officer; murder in connection with a kidnapping, burglary, robbery, sex offense, arson, concealment of a crime or retaliation; murder for pay; murder during a prison break, murder of a judicial employee, murder committed by an inmate sentenced to life who has been convicted of one of the following crimes: Murder, murder with an aggravating factor, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape, or aggravated robbery; multiple murders; the murder of a person younger than 6 years old.

36% of the 65 executions in the U.S. this year took place in Huntsville.

On execution day, Warden Willet would see that the prisoner received a final meal, ordered two weeks in advance. Prepared in the prison kitchen, the prisoner would receive it two hours before being told, “It’s time.”

Cheeseburger is the most popular dish. Some order steak, shrimp, fries. Willet was surprised at the amount of food some prisoners could eat.

One prisoner only wanted a jar of dill pickles. Many wanted nothing.

Michelle Lyons is the prison system’s public information officer and a former reporter for the Huntsville Item. She once asked a prisoner why he didn’t ask for a last meal.

“He told me it seems wrong to take anything from someone who ultimately plans to kill you.”

In the end, many prisoners apologize to the victims’ families and ask for forgiveness. Some proclaim their innocence. Some want to say good-bye to their loved ones; others don’t want their loved ones to see them die.

Some take their last breath without relatives or friends present. Buried by the state, their bodies rest in the prison cemetery under small white crosses. Some go quietly. Some put up a fight. Poncai Wilkerson had been convicted of robbery-murder of a jewelry store clerk. On the day of his execution, he told prison officials he had a surprise. In a final act of resistance that surprised everyone, Wilkerson spit out a handcuff key as he died.

After the last words, Willet removed his glasses, his subtle signal to the unseen executioner to begin.

“That’s the way my predecessor did it,” Willet says “I did it that way almost to the end. Later, I got a little electric device. You push a button and there’s another electrical device and the light comes on.”

“I changed that after talking to a condemned man. He was going to be executed. One of the last things we talked about, how it’s the last words and how I can tell when it’s over. I didn’t want to cut them off when they still had something to say. But I told them to say it in three or four minutes. When I asked this prisoner how I could tell he was done, he said, ‘Warden, I’m going to tell you, you can take your glasses off now.’ He knew the signal.”

In 1974, Robert Excell White confessed to killing three men with a machine gun at a grocery store near McKinney. The former auto mechanic and two accomplices took $6 from the cash register and $60 from the victims’ wallets.

The average time a prisoner spends on death row is 10.5 years. White was in solitary confinement for a record 24 years – 8982 days – before he followed the warden into the execution chamber – without shackles on March 30, 1999.

As the 5-man hard-strap team secured White to the death couch with 8 leather straps, Willet noticed the prisoner’s shoes. Shiny, smooth leather. They looked as good as new. But the soles appeared as thin as paper. “White, where did you get those shoes?” asked Willet.

The 61-year-old prisoner said they were the same shoes he had been given the day he was convicted and sent to death row. “I took real good care of them,” he said proudly.

Did the killer have a final statement?

“Send me to my maker, warden,” White said. Willet took off his glasses.

The timetable

On Thursday afternoon, Nov. 20, Thomas Renfro stands on the sidewalk in front of the Café Texan, which he has owned since the 1970s. Renfro, 64, grew up in Huntsville. “When you tell people you’re from here, they say, ‘Oh, that’s where the state prison is. When are they going to let you out?'”

There’s one on today. Most executions are not front-page news. On this day, the Huntsville Item published a two-column article on Page 3: “Barring a last-minute stay, a man convicted of beating and stabbing his friend’s mother and grandmother to death in their home near Corpus Christi will be the 22nd inmate executed in Texas this year.”

Robert Lloyd Henry beat a victim so severely that a neighbor could only identify her by her jewelry and clothing, the Texas Attorney General’s office reported. Two months after the crime, Henry went to police and confessed.

Five hours before the execution, Lyons left her office and crossed the street to the Walls Unit. As part of her job, she briefs reporters on the prisoner’s behavior. She finds the bespectacled prisoner sitting on the bunk in his cell.

Lyons asks Henry if he plans to say any last words. “This conversation is the hardest part of my job,” she says. “I mean, what do you say? ‘Hi. How are you?” there’s nothing you can say. Usually the prisoners are peaceful and friendly. Some almost seem to look forward to their execution because they don’t want to live behind bars anymore.”

“One man was an old biker. He was used to being on the open road. He looked forward to his execution. When his time came, he started singing, Robert Earl Keen’s ‘The road goes on forever, the party never ends’…”

Kenneth Allen McDuff’s last words were, “I’m ready to be set free. Set me free.”

Henry, 41, told Lyons he would finally be freed, from “this old broken thing,” by which he meant his body. Many prisoners are mentally disconnected from their bodies. They relate to their body and leave it as “it.”

“Unlike you or me, they know exactly when they’re going to die,” Lyons says. “They’ve had a long time to think about it. They’ve had time to prepare as best they could.”

Just before 6 p.m., Lyons’ office phone rang.

She escorted Graczyk and three other media witnesses to the jail, where they will be searched by jail staff. Two reporters will view the execution with victims’ relatives. Two will follow the prisoner’s relatives into a separate room.

Afterward, Graczyk often questions the victim’s relatives about the lethal injection.

Their son or daughter or whoever died a horrible death, sometimes an agonizingly drawn-out death. “Now this guy falls asleep in a few seconds and never wakes up,” Graczyk says. “I ask them, ‘Does that bother you? Is that fair?'”

In their anger and sadness, some say the needle is too easy.

6:01 p.m.: Henry exits surveillance cell

6:03 p.m.: The restraint team secures him to the steel gurney.

6:05 p.m.: Saline begins to flow into his arms

6:10 p.m.: After the witnesses pass through a narrow courtyard into one of the two viewing rooms, Warden Neill Hodges is ordered to proceed and asks the prisoner, whose head is resting on a pillow, if he has anything else to say.

“No, sir,” Henry replies.

He does not look once in the direction of the victims’ relatives.

Dressed in white prison clothes, Henry turns his head toward the room where his brother, sister, aunt and three friends have crowded.

He forms his mouth into a kiss and says, “Bye bye” and “I love you.”

Then, “Here I go.”

6:11 p.m.: While Chaplain Thomas Cole placed a hand on Henry’s lower right leg, the anonymous executioner administered the sedative sodium thiopental. Pancuronium bromide collapses Henry’s diaphragm and lungs. Noisily, the killer expels one last breath. Potassium chloride stops his heart.

6:15 p.m.: Warden Hodges, dressed in a jacket and tie, stands in the stillness of the room near the head of the cot – waiting, waiting….

6:18 p.m.: A doctor enters the 3-by-4-meter room. He shines a lamp into the killer’s empty eyes and listens for a heartbeat with a stethoscope. He looks at his watch. “6:19,” the doctor announces. “6:19,” repeats the warden.

After the witnesses are led out, the warden places a white cloth over the dead man’s pale face.

A higher power

At 6:30 p.m., a Houston kindergarten teacher stands on a dark street corner outside the prison with a microphone in her hand. Her outrage fills the evening air.

“Robert Henry should never have been executed! – This vacation season he has been murdered at the hands of the state!”

Gloria Rubac doesn’t know how many vigils against executions she’s been on. “At least 100,” she says.

Rubac didn’t count them. Neither has Lyons. “People ask me how many I’ve seen. I tell them I don’t know. Some think it’s callous. If I knew the exact number, it would sound to me like I was carving a notch in my desk every time.”

Rubac helped organize a meeting on Dec. 7, 1982, when Charlie Brooks of Tarrant County became the first person in America to be executed by lethal injection. She was there the night Karla Faye Tucker said “good-bye.”

On that trip, Rubac brought nurse Lee Balton with her. Lee Balton is the mother of Nanon Williams, who was convicted of murder in Houston at age 17. Her son served 12 years on death row.

“Nanon was involved in a drug deal. He was no angel,” Bolton says. “Somebody got shot. But the bullet wasn’t from that gun.”

Bolton is trying to get a new trial. But for now, she puts fate in the hands of a power greater than the justice system and higher than the state. “I have Jesus,” she says. “I have a God who is bigger than all of this. We will all meet him one day.”

Remembering the victims: Mitzi Nalley, 21, and Kelly Farquhar, 24, were asleep in their North Austin home in 1986 when Jonathan Nobles broke into the house and attacked them and Ron Ross, Nalley’s boyfriend. Ross was stabbed 19 times with a knife. He lost an eye but survived. Nobles said he killed the woman while intoxicated. Preston Broyles, 73, owner of a Princeton grocery store, and his two 18-year-old customers, Gary Coker and Billy St. John, were shot with a machine gun in 1974. They were killed by Robert White during a spree that began the day before in Waco when he stabbed gun collector Roy Perryman and stole a machine gun and several other weapons. Adonius Collier was shot to death in 1992 during a drug deal in Houston’s Hermann Park. Nanon Williams was convicted of shooting, but ballistics tests later raised doubts about whether he actually fired or whether the shots came from the gun of Williams’ accomplice. Hazel Rumohr, 83, and her daughter, Carol Arnold, 57, were beaten, stabbed and slashed in their home near Corpus Christi in 1993. Arnold was beaten so severely that a neighbor could only identify her by her jewelry and clothing.

(Translation: Matthias Wippich – correction: Gabi Uhl)

Gabi Uhl, a member of the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, witnessed the execution of her pen pal Clifford Boggess, who was executed on June 11, 1998. She described her experiences, impressions and feelings around the execution very impressively:

Clifford Boggess

…

The Execution

The first hard part of the day was over by noon: saying goodbye to Cliff after our last visit, a goodbye not without tears, but without the opportunity to even shake hands. So-called contact visits do not exist for death row inmates in Texas; there was always glass and bars between us. It wasn’t until days or weeks later that I had the thought at home of whether I should have gone to the Huntsville morgue after Cliff’s execution. It would have been my only chance to see Cliff for once without wire mesh and glass between us.

In the afternoon, the prison priest in charge, Chaplain Brazzil, came to see us, first told us that Cliff was doing well, sent his regards and said, “Remember: TODAY…”, and then explained to us in great detail what was in store for us as witnesses to the execution. It was certainly important for us to be as prepared as possible, however, at this point a feeling began for me that did not leave me until the end: Everything seemed like a ritual, every step and move was planned in advance down to the last detail. It was the feeling that this situation must be absolutely unreal, and at the same time the clear consciousness of knowing very well that this is really happening and is not a bad dream.

Shortly after 5 p.m., as instructed, we drove up to the back of the administration building, were met there by two bodyguards who from then on did not leave our side until the end, were led into a room and spent most of the time there waiting. For a pat search, we were led into another room by female officers, who did not seem to be particularly comfortable with their task, so they performed it relatively superficially. On the floor above us, we learned, were two relatives of Cliff’s victims to witness the execution. Scrupulous care was taken to keep the two “parties” from running into each other.

It must have been around 6:00 p.m. when we were escorted – past a few television cameras and a few demonstrators – the short distance across the street to the building across the street, the Walls Unit, where the executions are carried out. In an office room we had to wait again for five or ten minutes until we were finally led into the witness room. I don’t remember if it was just my knees shaking with fear or if my heart was beating up to my neck. The witness room is so small that there are no chairs in it; next door, separated from us by a wall to the left, are the victims’ relatives. Four of us – three of Cliff’s friends and his spiritual advisor, a Franciscan priest, (no one from Cliff’s family was there) – stood crowded together directly in front of a pane of glass, behind us the bodyguards and probably a few reporters as well, whom I had not noticed at all. In front of us is the execution room with its blue painted walls, just as we have seen it repeatedly in pictures or on television, but in reality it is much smaller than it appears in pictures. Literally within reach – if it weren’t for the glass – Cliff lies before us on the cot, strapped down with countless straps – only his head can turn slightly – his arms outstretched with the infusion needles, his hands fully wrapped, ready for the lethal injection, ready to be put to sleep as one would an old or sick dog. At his feet stands the prison priest, one hand on Cliff’s leg. At this moment, I feel humanity is incredibly arrogant because here are people taking the life of another human being with full knowledge of what they are doing. Certainly, that’s what Cliff did, and that was the worst kind of wrong. But this is supposed to be done in the name of justice and the law!? Who benefits anything from this death? It takes away a person who became an invaluable friend to me in a very short time. And who among all of us here, watching Cliff be killed, do you think will go to his death with such strength, confidence, and dignity as he did?

As we enter the witness room and Cliff sees us, he greets us, smiling broadly across his face. Somehow I am surprised. I don’t know what I expected; actually, it fits him perfectly, it’s typical; and maybe his broad smile is so incomprehensible to me only because my facial features feel frozen in this deadly serious situation. The next day I learn through the newspaper that Cliff’s smile and his positive attitude were interpreted negatively by the victims’ relatives, that he had not taken the matter seriously and that, in general, everything had been far too easy. I have doubts that Cliff’s wish that his execution would bring the longed-for peace to the relatives of his victims was fulfilled.

Cliff begins his last words, first addressing the relatives of his victims, explaining that he is sorry for the pain he has caused them. Then he looks at us and says, “My friends, I love you and am happy that you have been a part of my life. I will miss you. Don’t forget, TODAY I will be with Jesus in Paradise, and I will see you again.” As he speaks to us like this, his smile is gone and the corners of his mouth twitch as if he is fighting tears. Then he looks up, says a prayer, looks in our direction one last time, whispers, ‘I love you,’ turns his head back, and the poison flows into his veins. It happens very quickly, and he is unconscious, no longer moving; after seconds we hear a single sound similar to snoring, when the lungs collapse and the air escapes, which the prison priest had demonstrated to us in the afternoon. Then nothing happens for an eternity. Four minutes, we were informed beforehand, would be waited after the administration of the infusions. For four seemingly endless minutes we stare at the lifeless body in front of us until a doctor enters the room, examines Cliff, determines death, and announces the time of death as 6:21 pm.

We are led out of the witness room, have to wait at some point to give the other group, the victims’ relatives, enough of a head start, cross the street once more, past the cameras, and are finally dismissed on the lower floor of the administration building. It’s over.

…

The full report, along with photos and paintings by Clifford Boggess, can be found at http://www.todesstrafe-texas.de/.

On April 29, 1998, Rick Halperin, a member of Amnesty International and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, attended the execution of Frank McFarland in Huntsville, Texas. The following is a summary of his impressions:

“Frank McFarland was accused of stabbing Terri Lynn Hokanson to death and was sentenced to death on February 1, 1988. Before the woman died, she reported to police that she had been attacked and raped by two men. Frank was 24 years old when he was convicted, and he always maintained his innocence.

I had known Frank for two years when his final execution date was set. He asked me to visit him in prison. During the 4-hour visit, we talked about many things – but most of it revolved around his pending execution. His lawyers had gathered more evidence of his innocence, but Frank was not very optimistic that the appeals court would grant him a hearing. Several times he told me that after 10 years on death row he was ready for death, that he was tired of returning to his cell after visiting his family and finding that the guards had once again searched everything and destroyed things. He said he was also tired of being handcuffed, beaten and kicked by 5 or 6 guards. It hurt a lot to hear him say that he would finally be free if Texas actually executed him. Frank wasn’t going to ask for mercy either and he wasn’t going to apologize for a crime he didn’t commit. Finally, he asked me if I would be willing to be present at his execution so that I could report on it afterwards. At first I was frightened by his request, but finally I agreed. Other witnesses were to be only his mother and a friend.

On April 28, I received a phone call: the appeals court had indeed denied Frank’s request to hear his evidence of innocence.

On April 29, the day of the execution, I arrived in Huntsville at 3:00 pm. I met Frank’s mother, Diana, and the boyfriend. He explained what to expect and asked Diana several times if she was really ready to see her son die. “Yes, I’m ready,” she said. Mixed in with her sorrow was anger. She, too, firmly believed in Frank’s innocence, and she told me that he had been assigned a public defender who had represented him woefully inadequately from the beginning, simply because the family did not have the money to hire their own attorney.

At about 4:15 p.m., we drove to the jail; Walls Unit, where Frank’s execution would take place. We were led into the waiting room. Eventually we were all searched and then sat quietly together. So many thoughts were going through our minds…

At 5:50 p.m., three guards entered the room and one said, “Will the three witnesses please come with us?” After gathering in a very large room with six prison officials, two other guards and a reporter from the Associated Press, we were led into the execution witness room at 6:15 p.m. We were told that the execution witnesses would be coming with us. From here we could see into the execution chamber.

Frank was already lying on the execution stretcher. He looked at us as we entered the witness room and smiled briefly. He had a shackle around each ankle and a heavy leather belt around each leg, thigh, waist and chest. The execution chamber was very small. If we could have opened the glass windows, we probably could have touched Frank’s right arm. There was a hypodermic needle in each of his forearms.

The prison chaplain stood at the foot of the gurney and stared at the floor. He never looked at Frank or us. The prison warden stood at the other end, behind Frank’s head, and he too stared at the floor. A large microphone was lowered from the ceiling to within inches of Frank’s mouth. It was dead silent. Frank closed his eyes and turned his head so he could speak directly into the microphone. I found it very amazing that the warden was still staring at the floor when he said to Frank, “Speak your last words, if you have any.”

Frank once again proclaimed his innocence. “I owe no one an apology for a crime I did not commit. Those who lied and fabricated evidence against me will have to answer for what they did,” he said with his eyes still closed. Right after he stopped talking, his mother called out to him, “I love you!” Again, there was a dead silence and the killing of Frank began…

His chest moved up and down several times while he was still breathing. His eyes had remained closed since he had averted his gaze from us. He looked as if he was asleep. Suddenly, he exhaled for a very long time and made a coughing, gurgling sound. His chest stopped moving and he lay perfectly still on the stretcher. He was dying… For about 4 minutes the scene seemed frozen…. no one said a word… Finally Diana, still looking at her dead son, said, “Now he’s in a better place.”

I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed. I was horrified. Finally, a member of the medical staff stepped up to the execution gurney, shined a light in Frank’s eyes, felt his pulse and listened to his heart. He straightened up and said, “Death occurred at 6:27 p.m.” The warden, now looking up for the first time, repeated the words into the microphone.

Frank’s mother and I were still looking at the dead body when we were asked to leave the witness room. I took another quick look around: Frank, strapped to the stretcher, in the middle of the small room, needles and tubes in his arms… It was such a painful moment…

Later that evening, when I was back in my office, I heard a report on the television news. The U.S. Supreme Court was rebuking the appeals court that had jurisdiction over Texas, and therefore over Frank. Chief Justice William Rehnquist said, “The Court of Appeals, by delaying executions, has defrauded the victims of violent crime.” And Justice Anthony Kennedy was quoted as saying, “The state must be allowed to exercise its sovereign power to punish criminals. Only with real closure (he meant execution of the offender) can victims of violent crime move on with their lives knowing the sentence will be carried out.”

Having seen the State of Texas kill a human being just 3 hours earlier, I could hardly believe what the judges were saying. What I had seen was not humane, and it was not just. I had witnessed evil. And the state officials did not even acknowledge Frank’s presence in the execution chamber. I realized once again why I and so many others fight against the death penalty.

In 2005, GCADP member Susanne Cardona visited one of her pen pals on Texas’ death row on a day when another prisoner was scheduled to be executed. She wrote down her thoughts and feelings that day in the following account:

Execution Day

‘Biiiiep’, this day is off to a good start! What did I forget to take off when I first went through the metal detector? Oh yes, the jacket! So once again without… ‘biiiep’… What a bummer! What else could it be? There’s nothing metal there! Blouse with plastic buttons, skirt with elastic, underwear, sandals – but I wore them before and there was nothing! So again without the sandals…

Phew! Why ever the suddenly allergic to the sandals, but at least I’m through. My heartbeat is already considerably in the height – had already panic, they let me today, on my last day here, not pure!

So I get dressed again and go through the two locks into the visitors’ room of the Polunsky Unit.

Although it is only shortly after eight, it is already quite crowded here. I hand in my registration form and look around: Everywhere depressed faces, at the tables already sit a few women. The mood is absolutely down – you can almost smell the sadness, I have the impression.

Today is also ‘departure day’ for many. The Tuesday after the first, many have taken advantage of the fact that the first fell on the weekend, in order to be able to see their friends as often as possible with as little time as possible. The upcoming farewell is on everyone’s stomach, the sadness about it can already be read in the eyes of most.

I, too, have filled my pockets with Tempos; although I have resolved not to cry, to pull myself together and not to spoil the rest of the time we can spend here together with gloom, but you never know…

The people at the front of the room, where the man they are going to execute today is sitting, are not just plain sad. As I walk past them, I feel their pain. Although they are sitting quietly at the table, hardly noticeable really, it’s as if their anguish spills over onto me as if in waves through the air.

Just quickly through here, don’t look at them too, maybe give them the feeling of being an ‘exhibit’ on top of everything else!

I first check the vending machines – not yet filled up – too bad, would have liked to get that over with! Yesterday, many of the relatives of the person to be executed were sitting here in this corner – I don’t want to have to come here again, I don’t want to disturb, but on the other hand, I don’t want to have to see their faces either – it just takes me away too much!

I sit down on my chair and wait. Today I have a booth (or should I better say ‘the cage’? – because that’s more like it!) in the middle of the row.

I try to orient myself to the back – yes, don’t look forward at the relatives! I try to shut out their quiet conversations and the sobs that can be heard from time to time.

Waiting is always difficult, always seems long, but today I have the feeling that they are particularly slow! At some point I no longer know where I could still look, how I could still distract myself.

Again and again I hear the voices of the relatives, again and again their grief spills over to me. The first tempo is already wet, and my visit hasn’t even started yet…

Finally they bring Chuong! I look at his face, see the joy there and get distracted. I am happy to see him, try to be as aware as possible of this last visit. Actually want to keep everything negative away from these few hours now, just spend a few more beautiful hours with him! I concentrate completely on him. Try to turn off everything left and right of me, not to let anything come into our conversation!

At some point, my bladder then announces itself and I have to get up. I see Michaela standing in line at the vending machine. Have they really already filled up the food vending machines? Normally they make a lot of noise, but I just didn’t notice anything. I was so concentrated that I heard absolutely nothing. So here, too, I queue up so that everything is not gone before I can buy a few things for Chuong.

Again I am with the relatives. Again their sorrow overtakes me.

Actually, I urgently need a pace now, but then I would have to give up my place in the queue, get in line again and would only have to watch it all the longer. So I hold out somehow – wiping the corners of my eyes furtively with my fingertips….

Back to Chuong. Partially already forced cheerfulness. ‘You start to cry,’ he says. ‘I know, just tell me anything!’

Anything, just don’t have to think about leaving and especially don’t have to think about how the people in the front of the room are feeling right now!

We continue to talk. In spite of everything, we are happy about the time we have left.

Behind Chuong, the guards take someone away. I look up. This must be the man they want to execute today! I see his face, actually see it for a few short seconds, maybe even shorter, but I know that I will surely never forget this sight!

His face is red, you can see that he has been crying.

The lump in my throat is there immediately. I don’t even know his name, just know that what’s going to happen to him today has nothing to do with humanity anymore!

‘They’re bringing him away!”, I interrupt Chuong.

His face turns white. I can see it eating at him.

He stares straight ahead. Can see what’s going on behind my back.

‘They take him to the strip-search!” he says.

Through the cage behind us, he can see the entrance to the prisoner’s restroom.

I can’t believe it! Don’t want to believe it!

Chuong tells me he saw them take him into the toilet where they usually pat down the prisoners. Not just pat them down, but have them strip partially naked while the guards search their clothes, tell the men to bend over and spread their buttocks, then turn around again and lift their testicles…

Thus depriving them of their dignity…

My mind refuses to really accept that! I know that not every prisoner always has to go through the strip search, only one sergeant has been known to do extra scrutiny.

How sadistic can a person be? This man here just had to say goodbye to his family, still shouted an ‘I love you’ through the glass to his loved ones even as he was being led away, is going to be executed today – and they have to put him through this ordeal again before transporting him?

Through the glass it is impossible to give something to a prisoner anyway, if prisoners get something, then it is only possible through a guard, and he would always have the opportunity to do so, so why this dehumanization again on the last day of his life?

Now the tears are running.

I look at Chuong, his face is stony. I realize how much all this is taking him. He knows the other person, and he also has to think about whether it won’t be the same for him at some point.

I don’t know what to do at the moment. I would love to take him in my arms right now and get through this pain, which we both feel right now, together with him. But the pane of glass interrupts even the slightest fingertip contact. We can only communicate through words and eyes, but at the moment even that is extremely difficult, because finding words for this is simply not possible!

Still I consider, how I go on now best. Talk about it and maybe make things worse? Change the subject? Nothing seems right..

It takes a while until we find our way back to our conversation. But the mood is broken, the experience wears on us and at the same time the farewell comes closer and closer..

At some point I have to leave. We had a warning, then the guard comes back, tells me that I have to say goodbye now. I hope she will give us at least five more minutes for this, but she turns at the end of the room, and as we pass she waves to Chuong and shouts ‘Good bye!’ – a definite fence post!

Outside the gate, Marina and Michaela are already waiting for me.

Marina looks at me, sees my face and gets up without comment to hug me. There we are, right in front of the Polunsky entrance, and the tears are flowing.

Slowly we walk to the car, but I feel like I just can’t drive yet, I just need a few more minutes to get the strain at least somewhat under control…

Back at the guesthouse. Andreas is already waiting for us.

I go into the bedroom and put my things away. Then I sit down on the couch with Andreas. Actually, I didn’t want to talk about it at all, but now I just have to tell him. While I’m still talking, the tears start to flow, he takes me in his arms, tries to comfort me..

I pull myself together, we still want to do some things today. So I quickly eat a sandwich and get back in the car to Huntsville.

We had planned to go to the prison museum today at noon, but now in the car I’m not so sure whether I want to see it or not.

Nevertheless, I go in there with them.

The man at the reception is happy to see us, you can really see it on his face. He proudly tells us about the short film they have for the introduction. So we sit down and let him show it to us.

Already the film shows a callousness towards other people that I simply cannot comprehend. It is proudly reported here that there is no air conditioning in the prison wings (and that with concrete buildings without air circulation, since there are no windows to open, and extreme temperatures!), everything is pure concrete and the prisons are also otherwise designed to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the prisoners. I don’t believe that prisons should be transformed into 5-star hotels, but one should be able to expect some decent conditions in a prison here in a civilized country!

Then come the exhibits.

One of the diagrams on the wall probably shows Polunsky, also pictures of the inside of the prison wings, which you don’t usually see.

A reconstructed cell, which probably does not correspond to the cells on death row, but at least has an authentic toilet (why do they actually have to put the toilet bowl so low in these toilet-washbasin combinations that only a small child can have the feeling of sitting at the right height on it? Probably not for reasons of cost!). Weapons built by prisoners themselves, confiscated cigarettes and radios, etc. …

But then other exhibits become terrible: ‘Old Sparky’, on which tens of people lost their lives, a hypodermic needle actually used for execution..

I can’t breathe anymore – have to get out of here!!!!

Almost run for the exit. Outside, I struggle with my temper again.

Andreas is still photographing all the exhibits and says he will look at them at home. This gives me time to calm down a bit…

I was right with my thoughts in the car before: Today is definitely not a good day to look at this museum..

It’s just before six. We drive to the Walls Unit, wanting to be there in time for the vigil.

Why are there so few people here?

I had already read that most of the time hardly any people show up for the vigil, but I didn’t expect this! I recognize a few women who were already in the visitors’ room this morning – women from Switzerland who, like me, spent the last day with their pen pals today. Then three men – nothing more. Again my mind does not want to grasp what I see here: I knew that the acceptance of the death penalty in Texas is extremely high, but if we few tourists were not here, then almost no one would be here! Where are the people who are crying out? The people showing that something is happening here that simply should not be?

The road to the entrance of the Walls Unit is closed off with yellow tape, we stand on the other side of the intersection and look at the prison, the little house where the relatives of the perpetrator wait until the time of execution and at this yellow tape with the few policemen behind it.

Andreas is eerily calm. He looks at the tape. Asks me again what exactly Dave Atwood did last year when he crossed the barrier to make a mark. Looks at the tape again. I’m getting scared. ‘Stay here!”, I almost command him.

Somehow it’s important to me to at least know who these few people are here.

I already know the women, so I have a few words with the others. An anti-death penalty activist from Houston who is here for about every third execution. A professor of criminology, he’s always here; sometimes completely alone with his candle. The other man tells me he’s a police officer, now retired. He says he wanted to see what this is like. Is against the death penalty. I try to encourage him, hope that at least he, who lives around here, will be here more often for vigils from now on.

As we talk, I see the relatives crossing the street and going up the few stairs to the entrance of the Walls Unit.

I walk up to Andreas. ‘The relatives are in! There will be no Stay!’

Tears well up in my eyes.

I turn around, not wanting the cops to see me crying. Andreas takes me in his arms – just holds me.

After a while he asks why I turned around. I think he is right. They should see me crying, should see that what they are doing also has an impact on complete strangers. Now I don’t care if they see my eyes or not.

The waiting time begins. It drags on incredibly long.

For a moment no one says anything, then quiet conversations start. An elderly lady from Switzerland comes over to us, I see that she is also on the verge of crying, I take her in my arms. She sobs, tells me that she has to think about the fact that it will also happen to her friends at some point. I can only keep swallowing, trying to get this lump in my throat down a little deeper. Just don’t think about it! Push the thought of it away again very quickly!

We wait and wait.

Andreas is also all white. It is something completely different to hear about it in Germany than to stand here and know that 150 meters away from you a person is being killed!

I feel the same way. Although I am certainly far more into the subject than he is, I feel it is extremely worse here than ‘just’ reading about it.

I still don’t know the man’s name. I have had no contact with him or any of his relatives or friends. Didn’t want to ask anyone either. Resolve, as soon as I get back to the internet, to look up his name – not to forget this day, which seems so much like a nightmare and is also so connected to him.

Still we wait.

I look at the clock, time passes incredibly slowly.

At some point, a man in a black suit comes out of the Walls unit. Does that mean it’s over?

But the relatives are not there yet.

Waiting again, swallowing again, still hoping inwardly for a miracle, although I know that there certainly has not been one.

Now the relatives come out of the house with their heads down. It is over.

And again the tears flow.

Somehow I had expected that there would at least be a sign. Something. But absolutely nothing! One could not have said from the outside that something had happened there in the house. A person was killed and there is not even a sign!

The elderly lady tells me that she observed how during the time of the execution the clouds moved over the sun, the world became a little darker.

We stand there talking for a while. Then slowly one by one we say goodbye.

I tell Andreas that I want to go back to the policemen at the barrier. I just feel the need to talk to them. Then I also go over, first ask for directions to the prison cemetery and then ask them whether they feel that today is just a normal working day or whether this is something special for them despite everything. A day just like any other,’ it comes like a shot from a pistol.

What else did I expect? If I’m honest, I expected exactly this answer. Still, I hope that maybe one of them will start thinking at some point, if only enough people ask…

We drive to the prison cemetery.

The cemetery is much larger than I had imagined. Crosses and gravestones in narrow, neat rows, lawn in between.

Some of the crosses only with a prisoner number, some completely without anything, others with number and date of death. At one of the crosses with only a number on it, there are artificial flowers and on a sign next to it, made of artificial roses, is the word ‘Dad’. I gulp.

Then the newer graves. All gravestones with names, prisoner number and date of death. Even in death, people here remain prisoners.

Many of the names are unfamiliar to me, a few I recognize, the men I had read about in the forums. From the numbers I can tell if the people were in ‘normal’ prison or on Death Row – the numbers of the death row prisoners all start with 999 or with 000.

In the last row, two newly dug graves, covered only with boards; you can see into the hole.

I don’t know if the man who was executed today will be buried here, but I hardly believe it, since a lot of people visited him, his family was attached to him. Still, it seems like a bad omen to me: two more executions here in Texas this month and two gravesites already dug…