Posted on 07/06/2003 4:43:15 PM PDT by Houmatt
HUNTSVILLE -- On Feb. 25, I watched my government kill a killer.
Texas' 298th execution was the first death I had seen, but the other reporters and prison officials who were there had each observed more than 100 state killings.
With the experience of 306 executions in 20 years, Texas carries them out with machine-like precision. Regular witnesses refer to them as "clinical."
The executions take place in the Walls prison unit, a crumbling red brick behemoth dating back to 1848. The unit takes up several blocks of downtown Huntsville and bears little resemblance to a modern-day prison. It looks more like a ghost-town jail, a relic from Texas' first go-round with capital punishment in the days before hanging was considered barbaric.
I arrived at the Walls unit at about 4:30 p.m., an hour and a half before Richard Head Williams was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. The sky was black and an icy rain threatened to turn the roads into skating rinks.
I had interviewed Williams six days earlier on death row. Then he had denied murdering a wheelchair-bound crack addict for $400. Jeanette Williams, no relation, was killed on a Houston street in 1997. Her throat was slashed and she was stabbed 13 times. Jeanette Williams' friends, Bruce and Michelle Gilmore, are both serving life sentences for hiring Richard Williams to kill her so that they could collect on a $25,000 life insurance policy.
Richard Williams' denial was unconvincing. He claimed a videotaped confession was not him but "some dude sitting in a dark room." He later admitted guilt in his last moments alive.
We did not know for certain whether Williams' execution would proceed until 5:30 p.m., when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last appeal.
At 5:55 p.m., we walked over to the prison from the administrative offices. We were patted down by guards and ushered onto two different sides, the viewing rooms for either the defendant or the victim. I would watch from the victims' side, along with Jeanette Williams' three brothers, another reporter and several state officials. Richard Williams' spiritual adviser, the third reporter and more state officials watched from the defendant's side. Williams' estranged family did not come to the execution.
We waited in a narrow, dark hallway. We could see Jeanette Williams' brothers ahead of us but were told not to talk to them. Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk, who has witnessed more than 200 executions, explained to me that the death house was across a courtyard from the building where we stood, that we were waiting for a guard to walk toward us from the death house and then another guard to walk past us in the other direction. We would follow the second guard into the death house.
I suppressed an urge to run as fast as I could in the other direction. I was terrified of how I would react to seeing the execution, of the indelible mark it would leave on my mind.
A moment later, we were led into a closet-like room, where a makeshift window peered into the actual death chamber. Legend has it that someone fainted in one of the viewing rooms once, setting off a chain reaction.
The death house smelled like fried food, apparently lingering from Williams' last meal two hours earlier. He had asked for a smorgasbord of dishes including two chili cheese dogs, two cheeseburgers, two orders of onion rings, French fries, chocolate cake, apple pie, ice cream and three Dr Peppers.
Jeanette Williams' brothers, Frank, Charles and Ocie Abraham, were guided directly to the window. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they blocked most of the window. I found myself in the bizarre position of craning my neck to watch something I desperately did not want to see.
As I shifted around to find a better vantage point, I suddenly caught a glimpse of Williams' face, still wearing his goofy prison glasses.
"I know that man!" flashed through my head.
I had spent 45 minutes interviewing Williams face to face, a thick sheet of glass between us, using a phone so we could hear. He had a shy, sweet smile and was polite, even as he talked about having his fellow gang members kill the former friend who had testified against him.
I realized the moment I saw him strapped to a table, an IV already in his arm, that I did, in fact, know more intimate details of his life than I do of many of the people I work with every day.
A sheet covered all but Williams' face, hiding the IV and the straps. A microphone was suspended over his mouth so that we could hear his last words and final breath.
The warden asked Williams if he wanted to speak. Williams apologized to Frank Abraham for killing his sister and to his own family for causing them trouble.
"I wasn't the monster they claimed I was," Williams said. "I made mistakes."
The Abrahams watched stoically, Frank nodding his head as Williams addressed him.
When Williams stopped speaking, the warden asked if he was ready. He nodded and closed his eyes, and the chemicals started.
I had prepared myself as much as possible for what would happen. I knew that there would be a gasp indicating Williams' last breath. But standing there waiting for it, my mind retreated.
After four minutes, I was shocked back into reality. Williams gasped and sputtered several times.
My mind searched for a physical means of expressing what I was feeling. I briefly thought about vomiting, not because I was nauseated but because it seemed like the only appropriately violent reaction. I considered grabbing AP reporter Mike Gracyzk's arm but didn't.
My eyes filled with tears, and I stood frozen.
After what felt like an eternity but was likely about 30 seconds, I wiped away the tears so that I could see to take notes. There was nothing, really, to write down, but I needed something to do. I scribbled minor details on my notepad.
I knew from my research that we would wait three minutes -- "The longest three minutes of your life," I'd been told -- until Williams' vital signs were checked and the time of death recorded.
Finally the three minutes were up, and a doctor in a lab coat appeared. Williams was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m.
We were herded out of the death house and walked mutely back to the administrative offices, where Gracyzk and I would finish our stories. "That was a quick one," commented one of the guards as we passed.
When we got back to the public information office, Wheel of Fortune was on the TV. I considered asking to turn it off, but it was more important to me not to speak than to have the background noise silenced.
I had been told my legs might feel like jelly, that I might be numb. I had thought perhaps I would feel nauseated or cry.
Instead, the only familiar feeling I could identify was exhaustion, surely rooted in the moment when Williams gasped his last breath.
At that instant, I had felt pressure in my chest. I wanted to pound on the glass and yell, "Stop, you're killing him."
But, of course, that was the point.
That was in the old days. Now we have stapleguns!! ;^)
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