Friday, Feb. 13, 1998--

Friends--

I want to forward this story to you; it's a powerful first-person
account of the Karla Faye Tucker execution.

The reporter resigned last week, after eight executions--she was
formerly a reporter for the Huntsville Item in Texas), but wrote this
for the London Telegraph, and for a Scottish newspaper.

By Tracy Duncan

I lost the silver fountain pen mother gave me at the execution
yesterday. She gave one each to me and my husband after she got sick.
Up until then, I had been fine, but losing that pen started a rip in my
emotional fabric. I had to go sit down in an unused hallway and settle
down.

Satellite trucks had been arriving since Sunday. By Tuesday afternoon,
25 trucks had staked out parking spaces and camera positions in the mud
outside The Walls two blocks from our apartment.

It's hard to go through it all again. I'd rather not think about it now.
It's all been different with Karla Faye, because she is a woman and
because being a woman is a good news peg. She was the first woman ever
executed by the state of Texas. Thats a good story and good stories draw
media. (Chipita Rodriguez, who was convicted of axing a horse trader to
death in South Texas in 1863, was killed by the county.) But where were
those 500 reporters and technicians from around the globe, the 1,000
protesters and death penalty supporters when Leslie Gosch was set to die
two weeks ago? Six reporters covered it, and Dennis Longmire, a
criminal justice professor who protests at every execution, was the lone
voice of dissent.

And in the glare of the spotlight, we behaved poorly. A man who came
dressed as the Grim Reaper had his pick ax confiscated by police.
Spectator munched popcorn as though watching a movie, and more than once,
drivers tried to deliver pizzas to Karla Faye. The media, cordoned off
with yellow police tape, stepped over each other as they fought for
position whenever an official face appeared. Outraged citizens calling
from around the world rained obscenities and invective on prison
secretaries who have nothing to do with it.

But of course, we all have something to do with it.

I've heard the phrase often in the past three days: I have nothing to
with it. The mayor of this small town said, "It's not like we did it,"
"did" meaning "killed" and "it" meaning "Karla Faye."

But of course we did.

I've seen eight people die in seven months. Prison officials make it as
painless as they can for everyone involved. The procedure is quick,
somber, businesslike. So much so that the names and the crimes and the
details begin to blur in my mind. And that is the horror.

I feel sick and I haven't been eating much. I try not to mention it,
because you're not supposed to. I wonder if the others feel it too. They
don't show it. Yesterday, when I arrived at the prison's public
information office to await the warden's phone call, Associated Press
reporter Mike Graczyk already was there.

"How are you?" he said.

"Tired," I said.

"No whining," he said. "It hasn't even started."

"You asked," I said.

"What are you," he asked, "a whiner?"

I don't know if he was serious. Graczyk has seen 128 executions. With
only eight, they call me green.

Usually, I can compartmentalize my feelings well enough, get through my
job, and deal with my emotions later in small pieces. But everyone keeps
shining lights in my face, asking me how I feel. And I have to figure it
out and tell them. In a circus like this, the media becomes a story. It
is scrutiny I have not faced before.

We five reporters spent most of our time before the execution in the
public information office, as we usually do.

"Seems like not too long ago we were sitting around talking about how no
one comes to these things any more," said Wayne Sorge, a United Press
International reporter who has now seen 100 executions.

We ventured occasionally into the throng outside, but by 5:40, we all
were back inside awaiting Gov. Bush's final decision and his signature
on the death warrant.

His decision was quick, and as we waited for the phone call to tell us
she was strapped down and ready, I sat on a couch with public information
officer Larry Fitzgerald.

"I sure don't look forward to seeing Karla Faye executed,' he said.
"David (Nunnellee, Fitzgerald's colleague) and I are close to her."

The call came at 6:26 p.m. Officers led Karla Faye's witnesses out, and
then, after a moment, we were ushered behind.

Outside, as we crossed the narrow street to the prison, camera flashes,
shouts and jeers followed us. A helicopter circled close over our heads
and gospel music rose from somewhere amidst the enormous crowd of
spectators. Texas Rangers held open the door to the prison.

We were led into the parole and release rooms -- the clock read 6:35.
Each male reporter was searched by a male guard and each female by a
female guard in a separate room. It is standard procedure.

We were led then through the long, narrow room where inmates have
non-contact visits. It was empty, as usual.

At the end of the hallway, someone knocked on a locked metal door, which
was opened by a correctional officer. He nodded in solemn greeting as I
passed.

Outside again, in a tidy lawn, manicured I am told by a convicted
pedophile, we passed a gate covered by a gray shroud that concealed the
waiting hearse.

We were led into one of two tiny adjacent witness rooms, I stood behind
Richard Thornton, who had his wheelchair pushed up to the Plexiglas
window, beyond which Karla Faye Tucker lay, smiling. She gave her last
words quickly and so quietly that it was very hard to hear. At the end,
she told her family, "I'll see you when you get there. I will be waiting
for you." She licked her lips, closed her eyes, and seemed to be praying.
She was very pink.

The lethal dose began at 6:37. Soon after, she exhaled and emitted a
long, slow moan.

In front of me, Richard Thornton addressed his dead wife. "Here she
comes, baby doll. She's all yours."

Eight minutes later, Karla Faye Tucker was officially dead. The last
time I looked at her, all the pink was gone.

Since that moment, I have been writing and talking and trying to figure
it out.

And of course I haven't.

Next week, when Steven Renfro faces his final moments, the media
undoubtedly will be elsewhere. I will too. I don't want to see anyone
else die.