Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle, a witness to the firing squad execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner, traced these exit holes made by the four bullets that ended the killer's life early Friday morning. (Nate Carlisle/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Posted on 06/18/2010 8:20:26 AM PDT by markomalley
Draper » Ronnie Lee Gardner's head, covered by a black hood, remained upright. His body sat straight in the chair to which it was strapped.
As my eyes traveled down Gardner's left arm, past his dark blue jumpsuit, I saw his pale white skin appear below his elbow. Half a faded blue tattoo, some kind of diamond shape, stuck out from the restraint around his wrist.
At the bottom of his restraint, I focused on his fist. Gardner died much the way he lived -- with a clenched fist.
Yes, this was my first time witnessing an execution. I have been amazed at how many people asked me that.
Firing four bullets into a man's chest is, by definition, violent. If it can
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Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle, a witness to the firing squad execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner, traced these exit holes made by the four bullets that ended the killer's life early Friday morning. (Nate Carlisle/The Salt Lake Tribune) |
Eight other journalists and I had our own viewing area with about a 6-foot-wide, bullet-proof window. When the curtain opened, there sat Gardner. We were at about a 45-degree angle to his left.
He looked nothing like the athletic 23 year old with the red hair who murdered Melvyn Otterstrom in a robbery, nor did he flash that grin he had in those infamous photographs of him shackled on the courthouse lawn after killing Michael Burdell and wounding Nick Kirk in 1985.
This time, he looked like Utah's own ghost of Hannibal Lecter. Gardner's skin and his white socks contrasted with the dark blue jump suit he wore and the restraints, chair, wooden backdrop and sandbags, all of which were painted black. Restraints circled his wrists, ankles, shoulders and waist, but the restraint across his forehead best exemplified his confinement to me.
Gardner could not even look around the room and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling tiles illuminated his bald head and pale face.
Over his left breast clung a white square, about 2 inches by 2 inches, with a circle in the middle.
The room had no decor. There was a white tile floor with white cinder block walls. The two slits for the shooters sat opposite Gardner and windows for the observers lined the two perpendicular sides.
Steven Turley, warden at the Draper prison, picked up a microphone and announced Gardner had two minutes to say his final words. When Turley asked Gardner if he had anything to say, Gardner said, "I do not. No." Gardner moved his head ever so slightly trying to shake it. Gardner's final words were to say he had none.
Turley hung up the microphone. Turley reached up and gently pulled a hood over Gardner's head. Turley picked up the microphone, unplugged its cord from a wall jack, wound the cord in his hand and exited the room.
Over the next 30 seconds, my heart raced. I realized the five gunmen would launch their volleys any moment. I placed a Styrofoam plug in my right ear to match the one I had earlier placed in my left. The other reporters and I stood in front of the glass.
I watched Gardner. As the seconds passed, I grew anxious. I pivoted my eyes away from Gardner toward the slits.
In that fraction of a second my eyes were in transit, I heard "boom boom." The sounds were as close together as you could spew them from your mouth.
My eyes darted back to Gardner and to his chest. The target, perfect just a second earlier, had three holes. The largest hole was in the top half of the circle and toward Gardner's left side. It may have been where two bullets entered Gardner.
Below that hole, still inside the circle, was a smaller hole. Outside the circle, in the bottom right of the target, was a third hole. Each hole had a black outline. Utah Department of Corrections Director Tom Patterson would say later the target was fastened to the jump suit by Velcro and that may account for the black outline.
I watched Gardner's torso. The men who shot John Alberty Taylor in a firing squad in 1996 said they saw Taylor's body slump and I assumed Gardner would, too. But I never saw such a movement.
Instead, a few seconds after the gunshots, I saw Gardner move his left arm. He pushed it forward about 2 inches against the restraints. In that same motion, he closed his hand and made a fist.
Then it happened in reverse. Gardner's hand loosened, his arm bent at the elbow, straightened again and the fist returned. At the time, I interpreted this as Gardner suffering -- clenching his fist in an effort to fight the pain.
As I write this, I don't know whether that's true. It could have just been reflexes or some other process the body begins after a major trauma. Scientists do not know much about what a person shot through the heart feels.
The next movement I saw from Gardner came from beneath his hood. I could see the bottom of his throat and it rippled as though Gardner moved his jaw.
I squinted my eyes, looking for blood. I saw none through the holes in Gardner's chest. None spilled on the floor. The jump suit slightly darkened around his waist and it appeared that's where blood was pooling. But I never saw a drop.
About two minutes passed after the gunshots. It was long enough that I wondered (and some of my colleagues later said they wondered, too) whether Gardner would require a second volley of bullets to die.
Through a side door walked a man in a button-down shirt, slacks and blue plastic gloves. He lifted Gardner's hood only enough to check the pulse on the left side of Gardner's neck. The man appeared to do the same on Gardner's right.
Then the man lifted the hood high enough to shine his small flashlight in Gardner's eyes. When he did this I could see Gardner's face. His mouth was agape. His face was even whiter than it was before the hood covered him.
The man withdrew his flashlight and let the hood fall again. He shut off the flashlight and started to walk out of the room. Gardner was dead.
Turley and Lowell Clark, the director of division institutional operations for the Department of Corrections, entered the chamber. Clark grasped the curtain on my side and Turley the curtain on the opposite wall.
As Clark pulled the curtain along its rod, I pushed my head toward the glass to take one final look at the scene. In the final second, my eyes focused on the straightened left arm, seemingly flexing, and that clenched fist.
Note the bullet holes. (They may need some sharpshooter training before the next one IMHO)
Why?
Won’t be a next one. This was it for the firing squad.
Personally, I think it’s a much better way to die than the drug cocktail.
I do wish he had apoligized to the family for his last words, as picking this form of execution stuck me as marginally more noble than others.
An amazing recount of the execution.
“(They may need some sharpshooter training before the next one IMHO)”
According to CNN, the firing squad was comprised of “law enforcement professionals”. IMO four deer hunters would have done a better job/s;)
those are exits, probably deflected and tumbled passing thru.
I swear, I think I’d prefer a guillotine over any of the common methods.
They may have spread them intentionally to do the maximum amount of trauma in the area around the heart. Note that there is little vertical stringing, just horizontal.
That’s some pretty sloppy shooting...they couldn’t even fire in unison apparently.
Remember they were firing from slightly different angles.
Four holes. One random blank so no one knows for sure who killed him?
From the manual, they were all supposed to fire their rounds into a group the size of a quarter. As it turned out, they were all over his chest.
If you draw a simple diagram with the riflemen 25’ from Gardener, standing 4’ apart, aiming at a 4” target and impacting with the chair 18” behind the target, I think that would account for the spread of the group.
He had the choice of lethal injection. He chose lethal lead injection.
Where a round comes out isn’t necessarily in line with where it went in. The reporters account said they were all “on target”...............
Shooting at such small target, I wonder if bullets “tap” each other.
They actually should do a head shot, severing the brain stem. You hit someone in the heart there is plenty of blood left in the brain for them to be conscious and aware for a while after he has been shot.
The pain he felt when the bullets entered his heart is nothing compared to the pain of the judgement he receives from his creator.
.....As it turned out, they were all over his chest.
From the article: “Over his left breast clung a white square, about 2 inches by 2 inches, with a circle in the middle. “
Only one hole fell outside the circle, but still on the 2 inch target. I wouldn’t classify that as “All over his chest.”
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