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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: The Nitrogen Execution Experiment · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I've had the good
0:20
Speaker 1: fortune over a number of years now to travel back
0:24
Speaker 1: and forth to London, and every time I go to London,
0:29
Speaker 1: I make it a point to visit the Tower of London.
0:37
Speaker 1: And for any number of reasons, I like to see,
0:41
Speaker 1: you know, I like to see the history that's there,
0:46
Speaker 1: because oh my gosh, it's extensive. I like to see
0:49
Speaker 1: the change in the guards. I do like to see
0:53
Speaker 1: the beef eaters as well, and I don't mean Jen,
0:55
Speaker 1: it's you know, the guys that actually guard the Tower
0:59
Speaker 1: of London. Many people don't realize that it's still a residence.
1:03
Speaker 1: It's a royal residence, but you know, it's got a
1:06
Speaker 1: long history. And that's truly an understatement on my part.
1:12
Speaker 1: I am no historian, but I am a fan of history.
1:16
Speaker 1: But one of the things that stands out there is
1:18
Speaker 1: that when you make your way through their museum on
1:21
Speaker 1: those grounds, you come across something that you didn't expect
1:26
Speaker 1: to see, and that is an executioner's shopping block. It's
1:33
Speaker 1: behind glass and it looks exactly like you think that
1:38
Speaker 1: it would, large, big, very dark piece of wood, hand hewn,
1:44
Speaker 1: and it's kind of kind of a cupped out area
1:46
Speaker 1: on the very top of it, where of course the
1:49
Speaker 1: condemned would rest their heads, and then the person wielding
1:55
Speaker 1: either an axe or sword, many times they brought in
1:59
Speaker 1: swordsmen from France because they were apparently the best at this,
2:05
Speaker 1: would proceed to lop that individual's head off there in
2:10
Speaker 1: the courtyard at the Tower of London for everybody to see.
2:16
Speaker 1: It went on for a long long time. Of course,
2:18
Speaker 1: they don't have executions any longer and Great Britain, but
2:22
Speaker 1: here in America we still do. And there's any number
2:26
Speaker 1: of ways that the goals of executions can be reached methods,
2:32
Speaker 1: if you will. Today, we're going to talk about a
2:37
Speaker 1: recent execution in the state of Alabama that took place
2:42
Speaker 1: on the twenty fifth of January by unique method nitrogen gas.
2:50
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Buys David.
3:03
Speaker 1: I was chatting with my wife about doing this episode today,
3:08
Speaker 1: and she had suggested that I speak to the idea
3:17
Speaker 1: of an experience that I had when I'm still a
3:21
Speaker 1: death investigator, where I was having panic attacks all the
3:24
Speaker 1: time and it signaled the end of my career. I
3:27
Speaker 1: thought I was always having a heart attack. And what
3:30
Speaker 1: came along with those panic attacks, other than the crushing
3:33
Speaker 1: chest paint that I had and no, I didn't have
3:37
Speaker 1: a heart attack, was my inability to catch my breath.
3:42
Speaker 1: And I often felt like the proverbial fish on the
3:46
Speaker 1: dock out of water. You know, you know that there's air,
3:51
Speaker 1: but yet you try to take it in, but you're
3:54
Speaker 1: shallow breathing. And I always, you know, i'd get this
3:57
Speaker 1: idea of these gills, you know, kind of moving like
4:00
Speaker 1: you see a fish on a deck. And when I
4:03
Speaker 1: heard about this method that the State of Alabama was
4:07
Speaker 1: going to employ relative to execution, it really it kind
4:13
Speaker 1: of stopped me for a moment and made me think
4:15
Speaker 1: back to cases I've had as a death investigator, which
4:18
Speaker 1: we can get into, particularly those involving individuals that read
4:24
Speaker 1: the book. What's referred to its final exit, And for me,
4:28
Speaker 1: the only thing I could think of was gasping for breath, right,
4:31
Speaker 1: That's what it came down to.
4:32
Speaker 2: I got to tell you two things. One, I'm so
4:36
Speaker 2: thankful that you talk about what you went through with
4:41
Speaker 2: panic attacks, the PTSD, the things that you've shared on
4:46
Speaker 2: the air, through the podcast, on TV, and in your
4:48
Speaker 2: book because I think by admitting that as a public figure,
4:53
Speaker 2: as somebody who is on TV, radio and everything else
4:58
Speaker 2: every day, that you're giving hope and comfort to those
5:02
Speaker 2: who are suffering and haven't admitted it yet. And I
5:05
Speaker 2: think that's something that is remarkable and I'm thankful that
5:10
Speaker 2: you do it. There are too many people suffering in
5:12
Speaker 2: silence and don't know there's help.
5:15
Speaker 1: So yeah, there is truly help. You you can recover
5:18
Speaker 1: from it. And interestingly enough, Dave, you know what my
5:21
Speaker 1: best therapy has been what you and I are doing
5:24
Speaker 1: right now talking about it. And I don't mean talking
5:26
Speaker 1: with a therapist, although I went through all that, but
5:29
Speaker 1: when I can talk about what I did for a living,
5:32
Speaker 1: it's a purging, I think to a great degree. And
5:36
Speaker 1: plus it's educating and people need to understand that you
5:38
Speaker 1: can bounce back from these things.
5:40
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to know that because you
5:42
Speaker 2: can back, you can bounce back from anything. It really
5:45
Speaker 2: is a matter of it's a personal honesty with yourself
5:50
Speaker 2: that you have an issue you've got to deal with,
5:52
Speaker 2: get it out and get it out. And believe me,
5:56
Speaker 2: you will be amazed at how many people are ready
5:59
Speaker 2: to say, Wow, me too. Or wow, let me just
6:02
Speaker 2: love on you, dude. Everything's going to be fine. And
6:04
Speaker 2: then part two, of course, is nitrogen hypoxia. What in
6:08
Speaker 2: the world are we even talking about? Why did they
6:11
Speaker 2: try to No, back up a second, because my first
6:15
Speaker 2: question is I have limited sympathy for somebody who is
6:21
Speaker 2: in this position. Okay, but I would think that there
6:25
Speaker 2: would not be a guinea pig in the chair, you know,
6:28
Speaker 2: that we would actually have tried this, but we haven't.
6:31
Speaker 2: This is like, hey, I think this might work, let's
6:33
Speaker 2: try it. He's a condemned man, let's go ahead. And
6:37
Speaker 2: we tried it once before the other way, And you know,
6:40
Speaker 2: I'm just a little confused in twenty twenty four that
6:44
Speaker 2: we actually have a man who's been sentenced to death
6:48
Speaker 2: and he's been in there long enough to be so
6:50
Speaker 2: fat we couldn't even find a vein, and now we're
6:55
Speaker 2: going to have to try something that's never been tried
6:57
Speaker 2: before to try to take his life.
7:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that interesting? Because you know they had, as
7:02
Speaker 1: you had mentioned, they had previously attempted a lethal injection
7:05
Speaker 1: on this fellow, and they couldn't get the line started,
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, where they have to push the drugs, because
7:11
Speaker 1: there's a series of drugs. It's a it's a lethal
7:13
Speaker 1: cocktail that's that's a pushed most of the time, it's
7:16
Speaker 1: something similar to phenobarbital that's gonna you know, put these
7:21
Speaker 1: people into a very very deep coma and they're essentially
7:25
Speaker 1: put into a position where they can stop their heart,
7:27
Speaker 1: stop their brain activity. This is completely different methodology here,
7:31
Speaker 1: though you're it's not depended upon putting in an IV line,
7:37
Speaker 1: you know, the individual. If you're thinking about medical devices
7:40
Speaker 1: for folks at home, you can think about an EKG.
7:44
Speaker 1: The paths that they hook up to you. You know,
7:45
Speaker 1: they put them on your chest and put them on
7:47
Speaker 1: your legs and they're checking you know, they're checking r
7:49
Speaker 1: They have a heart monitor that's hooked up. And here's
7:52
Speaker 1: something else interesting for those of you that have been
7:54
Speaker 1: in the hospital. Line don't know yet if they did this,
7:58
Speaker 1: but there is actually if you've ever been in the
8:00
Speaker 1: hospital and they put the thing on your finger that's
8:03
Speaker 1: called a pulse ox it's actually it's actually measuring your
8:10
Speaker 1: level of oxygen in your system. And that's the crux
8:14
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, because with nitrogen hypoxia, what is
8:20
Speaker 1: actually occurring is that they are replacing oxygen with nitrogen.
8:28
Speaker 1: Even when we were young kids in first learning science
8:30
Speaker 1: in school, we learned about the various elements that are
8:33
Speaker 1: out there that we breathe in and out every day.
8:36
Speaker 1: Nitrogen is a naturally occurring element in a gaseo state
8:40
Speaker 1: that you do, in fact breed, and nitrogen by itself
8:44
Speaker 1: is not going to kill you. However, if you absent
8:49
Speaker 1: oxygen from the environment and make it purely nitrogen, that's
8:54
Speaker 1: going to take your life. And I think that that's
8:56
Speaker 1: what they were aiming towards here, But you settle lot.
9:00
Speaker 1: You know, when you talked about never having tried it before.
9:03
Speaker 1: That the only thing I could really find in the literature.
9:06
Speaker 1: First off, there have been people that have died as
9:09
Speaker 1: a result of nitrogen hypoxia, but that data actually comes
9:14
Speaker 1: from Oshia or similar organizations. We have on the job
9:19
Speaker 1: events that occur, and veterinarians have apparently attempted to use
9:25
Speaker 1: it as a form of euthanasia with animals. And here's
9:28
Speaker 1: one of the disturbing things. They said, it works, it's
9:32
Speaker 1: highly effective if you use it on hogs, but it
9:37
Speaker 1: shows hang on, let me get the verbiage right here.
9:41
Speaker 1: They found that with other species it caused them great distress.
9:45
Speaker 1: So that tells me that they've used it on multiple species,
9:48
Speaker 1: probably dogs and cats, and that it created this kind
9:54
Speaker 1: of you know, anxiety or distress or whatever it was
9:58
Speaker 1: when they started in lad in this glass. But can
10:02
Speaker 1: you correlate that with is there some kind of predictability
10:06
Speaker 1: thing that you can apply to that in a controlled
10:08
Speaker 1: environment where you're you've got actually a human subject.
10:11
Speaker 2: You got a feeling this is going to turn out
10:12
Speaker 2: really ugly for the great State of Alabama.
10:15
Speaker 1: Well, you know, here's the thing about there's two other
10:17
Speaker 1: states that have adopted this method and haven't used it yet.
10:22
Speaker 2: I feel like they're waiting for somebody else to do
10:24
Speaker 2: it first, for it to fail there so they cannot
10:27
Speaker 2: use it.
10:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you go first, watch, you know, and so I
10:30
Speaker 1: think Oklahoma and Mississippi and they're, you know, they're they're
10:35
Speaker 1: thinking about this, and that's why the.
10:37
Speaker 2: Other states are sitting around like that serial commercial, Get
10:40
Speaker 2: Mighty to do it.
10:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know, precisely, and they're you know, they're
10:45
Speaker 1: thinking what you know, oh gee whiz, you know, kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of snarky, what could go wrong? And yeah, the.
10:51
Speaker 2: Worst that can happen is you're trying to kill somebody.
10:53
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, But you don't know
10:57
Speaker 1: how it's going to play. And that's the important thing here,
11:00
Speaker 1: thing about it. Regardless of where you fall on death penalty,
11:06
Speaker 1: it's important to understand. Let's say that you're all for
11:09
Speaker 1: death penalty and that's okay. However, if you take this
11:17
Speaker 1: path using nitrogen gas and it fails, are really really
11:24
Speaker 1: is less than what you would consider a stellar outing,
11:28
Speaker 1: then that could compromise your ability in all other areas
11:31
Speaker 1: or all other methodologies to use, you know, what is acceptable.
11:36
Speaker 1: I think everybody has talked about the death penalty for
11:39
Speaker 1: so long being you know, it has been used as
11:42
Speaker 1: a as a deterrent to crime. And there's an old
11:47
Speaker 1: image that I'm quite fond of from the Old West,
11:53
Speaker 1: and it is an image of a public hanging and
11:59
Speaker 1: it's prior to the hanging and many you can look
12:02
Speaker 1: this up and people can see this, but it's really striking.
12:06
Speaker 1: And you know, Dave, when you look at it, you
12:08
Speaker 1: can see this western town they have like their little square,
12:15
Speaker 1: and you see hundreds it's literally hundreds of people all
12:18
Speaker 1: milling about and there's a gallows there and you can
12:21
Speaker 1: see people standing on gallows. You can't really make out
12:24
Speaker 1: who they are, but there is one individual in the crowd,
12:29
Speaker 1: actually two. It was apparently a father and his little
12:36
Speaker 1: boy that looked like he was about six or seven.
12:39
Speaker 1: And the father had picked him up and this is
12:42
Speaker 1: like in the eighteen eighties, had picked him up, put
12:46
Speaker 1: him up on his shoulders, and they were about fifteen
12:49
Speaker 1: rows deep away from the gallows. And often when I
12:53
Speaker 1: look at that photo, I think about the words that
12:55
Speaker 1: the father may have used, or may have said to
12:57
Speaker 1: his son. Do you see that man up there? Do
13:03
Speaker 1: you know what he did? Now he has to pay
13:06
Speaker 1: the ultimate price, And at that point in time, the
13:10
Speaker 1: little boy was faced with the reality of determinance. Whether
13:31
Speaker 1: you're the most godly person on the face of the
13:34
Speaker 1: planet or the single most evil individual that's ever walked
13:41
Speaker 1: the earth. We've all got story. We've all got story,
13:45
Speaker 1: and I guess I guess our story would would have
13:49
Speaker 1: to be with our case today is you know, how
13:54
Speaker 1: did how did Kennethy Jeene Smith wind up in the
13:58
Speaker 1: position where he is strapped to Ernie Day and they're
14:00
Speaker 1: putting a face mask on him that is going to
14:04
Speaker 1: fill his lungs with nitrogen gas. You know, we have
14:08
Speaker 1: to understand that, and I think more importantly, we have
14:11
Speaker 1: to understand who his victim was.
14:13
Speaker 2: That's it, you know, right now, with his news, with
14:17
Speaker 2: his name and the news over the last week, while
14:20
Speaker 2: it's been discussed, it's been in the news several times
14:22
Speaker 2: over the last few years over what he's gone down,
14:24
Speaker 2: which it's an odd story in that. But the person
14:28
Speaker 2: that's lost in all of this was a mother, potential grandmother.
14:33
Speaker 2: Her name Elizabeth Stinnett. She was forty five years old
14:38
Speaker 2: and her husband was pastor of the the church they
14:47
Speaker 2: lived in the parsonage. And this story begins with him
14:52
Speaker 2: calling the police, my wife's been murdered. There's been a
14:55
Speaker 2: home invasion. Send help quick, and he's freaking out so
14:58
Speaker 2: loud that the second Terry the dances the phone doesn't
15:01
Speaker 2: even understand what he's saying, and she hands it off
15:05
Speaker 2: to Ronnie May. The reason the name Ronnie May means
15:08
Speaker 2: something is that he was the investigator for Culbert County, Alabama,
15:12
Speaker 2: who ends up taking the call ands calm down, you know,
15:15
Speaker 2: tell me what's happening, and he is the investigator that
15:18
Speaker 2: goes to the scene. It was Ronnie May who got
15:21
Speaker 2: there and is talking to the pastor of the church.
15:25
Speaker 2: It's his wife. His name's Charles Starrett is Stinnett, Rother.
15:28
Speaker 2: Charles Stinnett says his wife's been murdered by a home invasion.
15:32
Speaker 2: When the investigators get there, the scene doesn't look right.
15:37
Speaker 2: They check for a pulse on Elizabeth, can't find one,
15:40
Speaker 2: and they begin making notes. The paramedics arrive and they
15:44
Speaker 2: find a pulse. The minute they find a pulse, and
15:48
Speaker 2: again Ronnie May, the investigator, did check for a pulse
15:50
Speaker 2: when he got there and said he couldn't feel one,
15:52
Speaker 2: and so they began the investigation of the crime scene
15:55
Speaker 2: with her body. They're waiting on paramedics. As soon as
15:58
Speaker 2: they find the pulse, Joe, it looked like Charles Stennett
16:01
Speaker 2: was going to fall out right then, and that was
16:04
Speaker 2: a note the investigators made. Now she died later at
16:08
Speaker 2: the hospital. She never recovered consciousness, but they began looking
16:12
Speaker 2: at the scene. It looks staged to the investigators, so
16:14
Speaker 2: they start looking into this fairly quickly. They bring Charles
16:17
Speaker 2: Stennet in for an interview, and one thing leads to
16:20
Speaker 2: another and they find out that he's been having an affair.
16:25
Speaker 2: They find out that he bought in life insurance, increased
16:27
Speaker 2: her life insurance coverage, and one thing led to another.
16:30
Speaker 2: They actually had a call to their crime tip line,
16:33
Speaker 2: you know, crime watchers, and that was a name that
16:36
Speaker 2: came through that they threw out at him during one
16:39
Speaker 2: of their interviews with Charles Stinnett. Hey do you know
16:41
Speaker 2: this guy? And they said that Charles Stennett face turned
16:46
Speaker 2: beat red and he left. He left the police office.
16:49
Speaker 2: This is within a week.
16:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he wasn't under arrest to go.
16:53
Speaker 2: They were just talking to him and that's why he
16:56
Speaker 2: was able to leave. But he left freaking out with
16:58
Speaker 2: a red face. They knew they hit him with that,
17:01
Speaker 2: and by this time they kind of knew that he
17:02
Speaker 2: was involved. They didn't know what a level he was involved,
17:05
Speaker 2: but Charles Stinnett left. The police goes to the family
17:08
Speaker 2: home because he told them to meet, and he confesses
17:12
Speaker 2: to his family he's been having an affair and that
17:13
Speaker 2: he was involved in their mother's death, and then he
17:16
Speaker 2: goes out to his old truck and shoots himself. Ronnie May,
17:20
Speaker 2: the investigator who was there at the crime scene when
17:22
Speaker 2: he was called about Elizabeth Stennett and rode to the
17:25
Speaker 2: hospital with her, hoping she would utter something. Was there
17:28
Speaker 2: for Charles Stennett too, He rode with the paramedics, hoping
17:31
Speaker 2: he would utter something.
17:32
Speaker 1: He didn't.
17:33
Speaker 2: And so now we've got a husband and wife both
17:35
Speaker 2: dead and a stage crime scene. And they didn't think
17:39
Speaker 2: Charles Stennett was the one who pulled the trigger. That well,
17:41
Speaker 2: she wasn't shot. She was actually beaten to death. And
17:43
Speaker 2: by the way, just to give you an idea how
17:46
Speaker 2: this forty five year old woman was beaten, they said
17:49
Speaker 2: that she really fought. Ronnie May, the investigator, said she
17:54
Speaker 2: really fought hard, and they beat her. They choked her,
17:58
Speaker 2: They used a fire poker using the fireplace. I say
18:02
Speaker 2: they because there were multiple people involved. It ended up
18:05
Speaker 2: being a murder for hire, the murder for hire of
18:09
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Stennett by her pastor husband, Charles Stennett. He got
18:13
Speaker 2: one of the guys that rented a house from him
18:16
Speaker 2: and reached out. His name was Billy Gray Williams, and
18:19
Speaker 2: he offered Billy Gray Williams three grand to kill his wife.
18:23
Speaker 2: Billy reached out to John Forrest Parker and Kenneth Eugene
18:27
Speaker 2: Smith and they all worked the deal out and staged
18:31
Speaker 2: the scene. They took a BCR and a TV or
18:35
Speaker 2: a stereo which they recovered police recovered it from their
18:38
Speaker 2: houses and that's what happened. The bottom line is Billy
18:42
Speaker 2: Gray Williams was convicted and sent us to life in
18:44
Speaker 2: prison without the possibility of parole. He died in prison
18:47
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty. This happened in March of nineteen eighty eight,
18:51
Speaker 2: March eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight, and the man lived until
18:54
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. John Forest Parker was sentenced to death and
18:59
Speaker 2: he was executed via lethal injection June twenty ten, So
19:04
Speaker 2: he got what twenty two years in prison before his death.
19:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the time of the STAPIM, we're fourteen
19:11
Speaker 1: years down range from the initial execution that had taken
19:16
Speaker 1: place associated with this poor woman's homicide.
19:19
Speaker 2: So why did it take so long for Kenneth Eugene Smith?
19:22
Speaker 2: Why are we talking about him today in twenty twenty
19:24
Speaker 2: four He's just now been put to death by an
19:26
Speaker 2: experimental means?
19:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't it something you know? You have you have
19:31
Speaker 1: this much time to kind of work things out and
19:36
Speaker 1: pursue this. And I know that he he had a
19:39
Speaker 1: defense team. You know that kept appealing these sorts of things,
19:44
Speaker 1: and that's that's the way the process works. It's not
19:48
Speaker 1: very streamlined. And and here they are. They're you know,
19:54
Speaker 1: you wait all of this time, and you're going to
19:56
Speaker 1: hang your your hopes on this this agent because that's
20:00
Speaker 1: what it is that would lead to his death. And look,
20:07
Speaker 1: you know some of the initial reports are coming in
20:09
Speaker 1: right now, and I really want to, I really want to.
20:12
Speaker 1: And look, if it was videotape, we're never going to
20:15
Speaker 1: see that tape. That's not going to happen.
20:17
Speaker 2: Don't they videotape most of these executions?
20:19
Speaker 1: I think that they probably do from a documentary standpoint
20:24
Speaker 1: to document the event.
20:25
Speaker 2: But we're going to do it, why don't they do
20:26
Speaker 2: it in public? So you mentioned the story, I'm taking
20:29
Speaker 2: his son to look at the crime. Right, let's see
20:31
Speaker 2: the deterrent. I don't see.
20:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens in a in a vacuum here. You know,
20:36
Speaker 1: you're no one. It's not a it's not an appreciable event.
20:39
Speaker 1: In if you're talking about this purely from a deterrent standpoint,
20:44
Speaker 1: you're not going to be deterred from doing something bad
20:47
Speaker 1: if you don't bear witness to the consequences. It's counterintuitive
20:51
Speaker 1: to me, it is, at least, and I'm not saying
20:53
Speaker 1: that I want to look, I've seen enough death in
20:55
Speaker 1: my life. I'm not saying that I'm going to drag
20:58
Speaker 1: my family down to the town square and watched this.
21:01
Speaker 1: But how they limit this thing with a number of
21:05
Speaker 1: people that can bear witness to it and these sorts
21:08
Speaker 1: of things, I don't see how it is an effective
21:10
Speaker 1: to turn. And so this guy has been languishing on
21:13
Speaker 1: death row. We've been taking care of him, our tax
21:16
Speaker 1: dollars have for all of these years, and so it
21:19
Speaker 1: seems it seems as though that we've come to this
21:23
Speaker 1: point where he has been killed with an experimental method.
21:27
Speaker 1: And you know what I'm at least initially hearing at
21:31
Speaker 1: the time of this conversation we're having Dave, is that
21:35
Speaker 1: this execution lacked efficiency. I think that that's probably the
21:40
Speaker 1: most gentle way I can put this. He's strapped to
21:42
Speaker 1: a table, he strapped across a chest to ways feet
21:46
Speaker 1: are tied down, and he apparently smiled, acknowledged his family
21:50
Speaker 1: who he has a wife and a child that were
21:52
Speaker 1: actually there present for the autopsy, including his spiritual advisor,
21:56
Speaker 1: and then victims of this poor woman's family that's still remained,
22:00
Speaker 1: her son, who was a teenager by the way, at
22:02
Speaker 1: the time of her her murder. They were there and
22:05
Speaker 1: then all of the authorities he apparently looked over, told
22:09
Speaker 1: him he loved them, his family, and he read a
22:13
Speaker 1: statement which was rather lengthy. It evolved us stepping backs
22:20
Speaker 1: as human race, you know, the lack of humanity, those
22:23
Speaker 1: sorts of things. And then they put this this mask
22:26
Speaker 1: over him, which is kind of fascinating. The mechanism that
22:31
Speaker 1: they're trying to employ, and this first time that's been done.
22:35
Speaker 1: Just keep that in mind. And it sounds as though
22:38
Speaker 1: this mask is very similar to what firefighters use, you know,
22:43
Speaker 1: it's one of these all encompassing masks. If people have
22:46
Speaker 1: ever seen a movie like Backdraft with the firefighters, and
22:48
Speaker 1: they've got this thing that encompasses the entire face and
22:51
Speaker 1: you can see out of it. It's not like a
22:54
Speaker 1: it's not like a mask that you commonly think were
22:57
Speaker 1: people an oxygen mask, or even a canyon that you
23:00
Speaker 1: stick in your nose. This is an all encompassing mass
23:03
Speaker 1: that has to be sealed, because that's what they're trying
23:05
Speaker 1: to do. They're trying to infuse the air that he
23:08
Speaker 1: is breathing with pure nitrogen. And you know, it sounds
23:13
Speaker 1: as though that it didn't go off quite as quickly
23:15
Speaker 1: as they thought it would. As a matter of fact,
23:17
Speaker 1: I read one report Dave where they said that it
23:19
Speaker 1: took close to twenty minutes for him to die. Which
23:24
Speaker 1: I know that there are those hearing this and listening
23:27
Speaker 1: to this, and you're going to think, well, he suffered,
23:30
Speaker 1: just like this poor woman suffered. Yeah, you're right, he
23:33
Speaker 1: did suffer. But here's the problem. If you want to
23:37
Speaker 1: maintain the death penalty, there is a protection in the
23:44
Speaker 1: US Constitution against cruel and unusual punishment, and so if
23:48
Speaker 1: there's even a perception that this was cruel and unusual,
23:53
Speaker 1: now this methodology is taken off the table and you're
23:56
Speaker 1: back to square one with drugs. So it's kind of
23:59
Speaker 1: a it's it's a catch twenty two. I think here,
24:02
Speaker 1: the state and everybody else involved in this is kind
24:05
Speaker 1: of an in an interesting position, because trust me, this
24:08
Speaker 1: thing is going to be examined and re examined over
24:12
Speaker 1: and over again. I was working in Atlanta with the
24:34
Speaker 1: medical Examiner. I had one of my old colleagues down
24:36
Speaker 1: in New Orleans who contacted me. He called me up
24:41
Speaker 1: one evening while I was at work and he said,
24:43
Speaker 1: have you worked any final exit cases? And I was like,
24:46
Speaker 1: first off, what's a final exit case? And where are you?
24:51
Speaker 1: Asked me this, and you know, I said, no, I haven't.
24:55
Speaker 1: What is that? And he said, well, there's a book
24:57
Speaker 1: out called Final Exit and it's a it's essentially a
25:03
Speaker 1: book that was written and published by, of all people,
25:07
Speaker 1: hang on to your hat, I believe the publisher was
25:11
Speaker 1: called the Hemlock Society. So this book, Final Exit, which
25:16
Speaker 1: was actually written by a fellow named Derek Humphrey whose
25:22
Speaker 1: wife had died as a result of poisoning that he facilitated.
25:28
Speaker 1: He aided her in this, all right. He prepared a drink,
25:35
Speaker 1: a tea I think, for her to take. She had
25:37
Speaker 1: horrible cancer, and she drank it. He didn't force her
25:43
Speaker 1: to drink it, but he prepared the drink. And so
25:45
Speaker 1: this is, you know, one of the things that got
25:48
Speaker 1: this guy thinking about this idea of what he refers
25:51
Speaker 1: to a self deliverance. It's assistant suicide. And now assistant suicide,
25:57
Speaker 1: you know, is in a lot of places around the
26:00
Speaker 1: country and over in Europe, as well, and with the
26:07
Speaker 1: publication of that book, we in the medical legal community
26:11
Speaker 1: had any number of cases following that following the publication
26:16
Speaker 1: that were associated with final exit methodologies. And in this
26:20
Speaker 1: book they actually laid out how to go about doing this.
26:24
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you this because Humphrey himself went on
26:28
Speaker 1: to tape videos of all things dave of how would
26:36
Speaker 1: one go about painlessly bringing about your death? How shocked?
26:40
Speaker 1: You know? These things were for a time up on YouTube.
26:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've taken them down. Who knows
26:45
Speaker 1: what YouTube does anyway, But his recommendation for people was
26:52
Speaker 1: to use helium helium and he would actually acquire it
26:58
Speaker 1: through going to a party story and purchasing a canister
27:01
Speaker 1: of helium. Well, what does that have in common with
27:04
Speaker 1: our topic? And well, it's helium, just like nitrogen is
27:09
Speaker 1: an inert gas, and so it doesn't have elements of
27:15
Speaker 1: toxicity to it. You got to think back, you know,
27:17
Speaker 1: years ago out in Cali, when they were still using
27:21
Speaker 1: the gas chamber, they would take potassium cyanide and drop
27:29
Speaker 1: it into sulphuric acid inside of the gas chamber and
27:35
Speaker 1: the person be strapped in the chair. It was a
27:37
Speaker 1: horrific death. You know, it would fill up with you know,
27:40
Speaker 1: with the fumes from the stuff, and it was painful, noxious,
27:45
Speaker 1: burned the lungs, burned, the eyes, you'd have you know,
27:50
Speaker 1: foaming from the mouth because of congestive failure, and it
27:54
Speaker 1: was quite quite horrible to see. And then it was
27:56
Speaker 1: its lethal for anybody that was around it as well.
27:58
Speaker 1: So they were in this it's literally a chamber. And
28:02
Speaker 1: but that's that's not what this is because this is
28:05
Speaker 1: not nitrogen is not toxic in that sense. Okay, it's not.
28:10
Speaker 1: It's not like cyanide. It's something completely different. It's merely
28:15
Speaker 1: oxygen replacement, just like you know, Humphreys had had written
28:19
Speaker 1: about and demonstrated to the entire world utilizing helium, which
28:24
Speaker 1: for many of us was quite shocking, you know, because
28:26
Speaker 1: none of us had ever seen anybody go to these
28:29
Speaker 1: links to go through great detail of telling how people
28:32
Speaker 1: to do this. But here we are where we've literally
28:36
Speaker 1: we've literally wound up here where they're using nitrogen gas.
28:42
Speaker 1: That has been suggested actually for people that talk about
28:47
Speaker 1: self deliverance. They've actually talked about this in Europe as
28:50
Speaker 1: utilizing nitrogen gas because of the fact that it is
28:54
Speaker 1: an inert gas. It's it's a peculiar time to be
28:59
Speaker 1: in this environment and be in the world that we're
29:01
Speaker 1: in right now. Day.
29:02
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking Joe, and I've never witnessed an execution,
29:11
Speaker 2: but I keep I'm thinking about the victim, the victim's family.
29:16
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a hauled that this guy gets to make
29:19
Speaker 2: some lifelong statement after he has spent decades on our dime,
29:26
Speaker 2: that he's been able to get so fat that we
29:28
Speaker 2: couldn't get a needle in his arm. You know that
29:31
Speaker 2: we paid for this. Now the woman that he killed,
29:36
Speaker 2: that he got paid for killing. He actually took money
29:38
Speaker 2: to take a life. She died in nineteen eighty eight
29:42
Speaker 2: at the age of forty five. This guy's been on
29:45
Speaker 2: death row pretty much since then for the rest of
29:47
Speaker 2: his life, just waiting, finding ways to mess with the system.
29:51
Speaker 2: You know, he looks so happy with himself when they
29:53
Speaker 2: couldn't get the needle in his arm. And there has
29:57
Speaker 2: been talked I believe it was from a li Elizabeth
30:00
Speaker 2: uh Stennet's son, who said that he dehydrated himself before
30:05
Speaker 2: the event so that they couldn't get a needle in
30:08
Speaker 2: there is is there any truth to that.
30:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know there can be because what and look,
30:13
Speaker 1: any of us can experience this. I don't know if
30:15
Speaker 1: you've experienced it, Dave. But and I'm not saying you
30:18
Speaker 1: dehydrated yourself, but dependent upon how hydrated you are, it
30:22
Speaker 1: can make it easier or are more difficult, dependent upon
30:26
Speaker 1: circumstances to find a vein essentially, or vessel to put
30:31
Speaker 1: an IV in. Have you ever been in that circumstance
30:34
Speaker 1: where they were trying to put an IV in you
30:35
Speaker 1: and they were saying, oh God, they got to do
30:38
Speaker 1: multiple sticks. There's there's hardly too many things that are
30:41
Speaker 1: more painful that you have to go through. And God
30:44
Speaker 1: bless people that do it, because I could. I couldn't
30:46
Speaker 1: do it, you know, even even as much time as
30:49
Speaker 1: I spent in the autopsy room. There's something about sticking
30:51
Speaker 1: a needle into somebody's arm and seeing them, seeing them squirm,
30:56
Speaker 1: you know, while they're doing it. But yeah, yeah, the
30:59
Speaker 1: level of hydration body can certainly play into this idea. Now,
31:02
Speaker 1: whether or not he purposefully did, that's that's certainly interesting,
31:06
Speaker 1: you know. And there have been other cases over time
31:11
Speaker 1: that you know, where they have talked about this I'm
31:15
Speaker 1: going to tell you something about myself that I don't
31:18
Speaker 1: know that I've ever shared with you regarding my career.
31:21
Speaker 1: But back in the mid nineties, I was assigned to
31:27
Speaker 1: the State Medical Examiner's Office for Georgia as a liaison
31:32
Speaker 1: between my office in Atlanta and the State Medical Examiner
31:36
Speaker 1: because our office in Atlanta was actually doing all of
31:39
Speaker 1: the autopsies for the state of Georgia, so our doctors
31:42
Speaker 1: would rotate between the two locations, and the doctors when
31:45
Speaker 1: they got out to the State Medical Examiner's Office, it
31:49
Speaker 1: was disorganized, they didn't have a lot of information, and
31:51
Speaker 1: I was going to be their point of contact, and
31:54
Speaker 1: so I was reassigned there for I don't know about
31:56
Speaker 1: eighteen months and Dave. During that eighteen month period, there
32:02
Speaker 1: were executions that took place in Georgia and I was
32:07
Speaker 1: actually I was actually present and participated in to the
32:12
Speaker 1: autopsies of executed prisoners.
32:15
Speaker 2: I thought an autopsy was to determine how somebody died.
32:19
Speaker 2: If you're watching them die based on a you know,
32:23
Speaker 2: we're planning your death. We have decided this is the
32:26
Speaker 2: method we're going to use, and we're going to kill you,
32:28
Speaker 2: and then we do it and now you're dead. I
32:30
Speaker 2: would think that basically we could use I don't know it,
32:33
Speaker 2: picked your book and crayons and figured that one out,
32:36
Speaker 2: but you really actually have to do a full on
32:38
Speaker 2: autopsy afterwards.
32:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, just full on it. It's arguably the
32:47
Speaker 1: most thorough autopsy that is done period. I'm not going
32:52
Speaker 1: to go into all the detail because even for this
32:55
Speaker 1: show it it could be a bit unpalatable I think
32:58
Speaker 1: for some people. But it is so detailed and so thorough.
33:05
Speaker 1: And the reason for this is, first off, we only
33:07
Speaker 1: have five classifications of death for manners of death, and
33:12
Speaker 1: an execution is a homicide, okay, and I you know, look,
33:17
Speaker 1: that's the reality. And that's why I hate the word murder.
33:20
Speaker 1: Murder is such a lawyer's word. I hate it. It's theatrical.
33:24
Speaker 1: I love the term homicide in my world because it's
33:28
Speaker 1: not judging the circumstances merely. All the term homicide means
33:33
Speaker 1: is death at the hand of another. So somebody, somebody
33:39
Speaker 1: in the death house has to press the button. They've
33:43
Speaker 1: committed a homicide. Now we don't know who that person is.
33:47
Speaker 1: Any executor, any executioner, can't cut that in any executioner
33:53
Speaker 1: that is out there for you know, forever and ever. Amen.
34:00
Speaker 1: When they swing their acts or they pull the handle
34:03
Speaker 1: and drop the trap door, if they pull the trigger,
34:07
Speaker 1: they've committed a homicide. By law, that's the way we
34:10
Speaker 1: define it, all right, And so in this partia, it's
34:13
Speaker 1: not accidental, it's certainly not natural, it's not undetermined, okay,
34:17
Speaker 1: and it's not suicide. It has to be a homicide.
34:21
Speaker 1: And so in most states, if you die as a
34:25
Speaker 1: result of a homicide, your body's going to be autopsy.
34:28
Speaker 1: But in any case, and it doesn't matter if it's natural,
34:33
Speaker 1: when an individual dies in the custody of the state, okay,
34:38
Speaker 1: there has to be an examination. And so that's what
34:43
Speaker 1: compels them to actually do autopsies on executed prisoners. And
34:51
Speaker 1: David got to tell you, brother, the position that they're
34:54
Speaker 1: in right now, because all eyes are on it. I mean,
34:56
Speaker 1: you watch that. I have to watch the news. I
35:00
Speaker 1: don't know anybody fans. I don't know anybody on the
35:03
Speaker 1: face of the planet that watches news closer than my
35:07
Speaker 1: buddy Dave Mack. He sees it day in and day out,
35:11
Speaker 1: and I can tell you his algorithm has probably been
35:13
Speaker 1: lit up with stories about this execution for the last
35:16
Speaker 1: seventy two hours I guess leading up to it, and
35:19
Speaker 1: when it happened, it all all the eyes of the
35:23
Speaker 1: world are on Alabama. And they're not just on It's
35:26
Speaker 1: not just the newspeople, and it's not just a citizenry.
35:29
Speaker 1: You've got two states out there, Mississippi and Oklahoma that
35:33
Speaker 1: are also watching this because they've got this on the
35:36
Speaker 1: books now, Dave. They're trying to figure out is this
35:39
Speaker 1: territory we want to get off in with our prisoners?
35:42
Speaker 1: Are we going to employ this methodology?
35:44
Speaker 2: The way you've explained it sounds like we don't possess
35:50
Speaker 2: the ability to figure out the best way to kill
35:54
Speaker 2: somebody that has been sentenced to death. We have the
35:59
Speaker 2: firing squad, that seems pretty good. We've got electrocution seems
36:04
Speaker 2: pretty good. Bring back the guillotine, that seems pretty good.
36:08
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about all the ways that we are
36:09
Speaker 2: certain that somebody is going to die when we pull
36:12
Speaker 2: the trigger. And I don't know why we The firing
36:15
Speaker 2: squad has set up so far away when you could
36:17
Speaker 2: just walk up behind them, and you know, I mean,
36:18
Speaker 2: there's so many things we could do that are as
36:21
Speaker 2: deliberate but more effective guaranteed there's no reason that somebody
36:26
Speaker 2: should have to squirm.
36:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. And this is another point that's very
36:29
Speaker 1: interesting about this. You know, we were talking about this idea.
36:34
Speaker 1: I can't help but you know, kind it makes my
36:37
Speaker 1: mind go hey wire, this term self deliverance, it's assisted suicide,
36:43
Speaker 1: is what it comes down to. But they it's interesting
36:46
Speaker 1: how people use verbiage to kind of soften things, you know,
36:50
Speaker 1: many times, or make it appear like it's something other
36:52
Speaker 1: than what it is. Again, I'm a medical legal death investigator.
36:55
Speaker 1: There's only five classifications of death you can rule you know,
37:00
Speaker 1: are just of it? Well yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, it's homicide, suicide, accidental, natural,
37:06
Speaker 1: and undetermined. That's our only choices. We don't have any
37:08
Speaker 1: other choices period in the medical legal community as to
37:12
Speaker 1: how we're going to classify death. And then you put
37:14
Speaker 1: the cause of death below that, and so you know,
37:17
Speaker 1: in this case, you know you're talking about it is
37:18
Speaker 1: a homicide and it's homicide as a result of inhaling
37:22
Speaker 1: nitrogen gas. So you know, it's it's very simple, you
37:26
Speaker 1: know when when you look at it from that perspective.
37:29
Speaker 1: But yeah, we've had. There are any number of methodologies
37:33
Speaker 1: that are out there that have been employed and some
37:36
Speaker 1: yeah it's brutal, but you know what, dude, death is brutal.
37:40
Speaker 1: And it seems as though that people want to make
37:42
Speaker 1: this out to be as palatable for them as they
37:45
Speaker 1: possibly can. That's not the reality of life, and it's
37:48
Speaker 1: certainly not the reality of death. Death is unpalatable. It's repugnant.
37:53
Speaker 1: That's why we don't want people to kill other people.
37:56
Speaker 1: My point I were really I got horribly off track.
38:00
Speaker 1: But with the assisted suicide that can be classified, I
38:05
Speaker 1: guess some of my friends in the medical community probably take,
38:09
Speaker 1: you know, take umbrage at me saying this, but it's
38:12
Speaker 1: it's almost like palliative care, where you've got somebody that
38:15
Speaker 1: is in a condition that they're in an unrecoverable flat
38:20
Speaker 1: spin physiologically, they're not going to recover from it, and
38:23
Speaker 1: so you're providing comfort for them. And that's I guess
38:27
Speaker 1: to some people's way of thinking, that is comfort. That's
38:31
Speaker 1: executions are different because I think a lot of people
38:34
Speaker 1: actually had two people say this to me, why didn't
38:37
Speaker 1: they give him something like why didn't they shoot him
38:39
Speaker 1: with a bulks of adavant or something, you know, to
38:41
Speaker 1: knock down the anxiety and make him, you know, make
38:47
Speaker 1: him more compliant, because we don't want to watch him
38:50
Speaker 1: squirm on the table and that sort of thing. That's
38:53
Speaker 1: not what executions are about. That's not And again it
38:56
Speaker 1: goes back to this idea of deterrence.
38:58
Speaker 2: We're showing it to anybody.
38:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not showing it to anybody. Well, the people
39:01
Speaker 1: in that little room witnessed it, and I don't know that.
39:04
Speaker 1: And there were people from the press corps that were there,
39:06
Speaker 1: a select group. Then you had family from both sides,
39:10
Speaker 1: and then you had state authorities that were there. And
39:14
Speaker 1: so are you making them feel uncomfortable by him see
39:18
Speaker 1: by them bearing witness to this. Perhaps it's not the
39:20
Speaker 1: way that they would want to go, but it's the
39:26
Speaker 1: court hands down this idea of you know, you're going
39:29
Speaker 1: to die. They sentence you to capital as a capital offense,
39:33
Speaker 1: and they sentence you to capital punishment, whatever methodology in
39:36
Speaker 1: that state is. It's not their job to make it
39:40
Speaker 1: palatable for the victim. And so that's why they're not
39:44
Speaker 1: given they're not given some type of drug to knock
39:49
Speaker 1: down their anxiety over this. And also it could be argued,
39:53
Speaker 1: I guess some sharp lawyer would say, well, if you
39:55
Speaker 1: did that, then you're going to impede their ability to
39:59
Speaker 1: effectively communicate. And if there's some kind of big reveal
40:03
Speaker 1: they have at the end, have you got them so
40:04
Speaker 1: drugged up that they're they're not going to be able
40:06
Speaker 1: to communicate effectively with counsel, with their minister, or whoever
40:10
Speaker 1: it is. That's that's attached. It's a very complex situation.
40:14
Speaker 1: After all, it seems like exactly after all these years
40:19
Speaker 1: and and look decades, Okay, let's just go to decades, decades, centuries,
40:25
Speaker 1: it seems like it seems like that maybe our ancestors
40:30
Speaker 1: had it right relative to methodologies, because capital punishment has
40:35
Speaker 1: always been around. It's always been around, and it seems
40:38
Speaker 1: as though the more palatable we try to make it,
40:43
Speaker 1: the less effective it is. I'm Josephcott Morgan, and this
40:50
Speaker 1: is body backs.