reverend carroll picket witnessed 95 executions at the death house in huntsville, texas. we ve had guards who would strap people down and faint in the death house. we ve had guards come back in to undo the straps and they d freeze, because they can t touch death. they come and go quite rapidly. every couple weeks another one changes. and they just couldn t do it. the life of an executioner is very much a hidden world. literally shrouded in secrecy. film maker patty dillon had a fill called there will be no stay . the executioners i stayed with worked their way up from a correction officer to a major, which is when they became executioners. it was the highest promotion. it just happened to include execution. among the executioners patty found were craig baxley and terry bracely who carried out
i mean, i have stabbed officers. i ve sliced officers. i ve probably thrown chemical warfare on 30 people, 40 people, if not more. at one point it had gotten to where i had absolutely lost my mind. i had got out of my cell over at the north by sliding my handcuffs to the front, pulling out about a six to an eight inch knife and stabbing two different officers and chasing quite a few other ones around. i still lost. i ended up they actually put me in the death house. i stayed in that cell for about 30 days staring at the table. i was 20 when i came in. 19 when i fell.
ann richards, would not dispute the death penalty. on august 23rd, 1994, the day before he was to be executed, ruben cantu received the reply. clemency denied. a san antonio man continues to claim innocence just hours before he is set to die by lethal injection. on the day of his scheduled execution, local stations aired an interview with ruben where he again declared his innocence. by law standards, my case i barely legally sufficient to hold up a capital murder conviction because of the eyewitness. yet his testimony, just looking at his testimony, you don t know where he is coming from. in the death house at huntsville where all texas executions take place, preparations for ruben s execution proceeded. the execution was at midnight in those days. reverend carroll picket was
hold up a capital murder conviction because of the eyewitness. yet his testimony, just looking at his testimony, you don t know where he is coming from. in the death house at huntsville where all texas executions take place, preparations for ruben s execution proceeded. the execution was at midnight in those days. reverend carol picket was chaplain at the huntsville prison for 16 years. he was with his family most of that day. you have different rooms and in each room, they have phones. so all of us be on the phone with ruben. he was in a single cell across from where he was sitting was the death chamber. he said that once that medicine ran through his veins and he shut his eyes, that that s when he was going to grab god s hand and god was going to take him. then, i hear noise in the background and i ask him. he says, they are seth up the equipment. he we still waited for that lawyer to call hoping that it
possibly in marion illinois at the death house where they actually excuse me terra terra haute is the death unit. illinois is the custody management unit. wherever they send him, they re going to put him underground. they re going to have to pipe sunlight into this guy. whoa whoa, whoa. what do you mean underground? i m serious. the adx, which is in florence colorado administrative maximum, it s an underground situation where the housing unit it s called h unit, is actually underground. you have no real contact with staff members, with other inmates. it s kind of like you re locked in an 84 square foot a 7 by 12 foot cell 24 hours a day. when it s time for you to shower, it s kind of like you re on star trek.