TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Daniel Lewis Lee, a convicted man and convicted murderer, was asked if he wanted to make a final statement from the execution chamber, with its institutional green tile walls and glass interior window, moments before He too. I would die.
He did. He tilted his head up and we looked into each other’s eyes.
“You are killing an innocent man,” Lee said, looking directly at me.
Those were his last words. He said them to me.
Lee’s execution, one of two that I witnessed last week at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, proceeded slowly, after painstaking hours of final useless legal appeals, before prison officials administered an injection. lethal and the federal government will carry out capital punishment for the first time in nearly two decades. A third execution came later in the week.
Before Lee’s lethal injection, there had been a long wait. Prison officials searched me extensively each time I arrived, then sent me back to my hotel during the legal maneuvers, only to call me back at the maximum-security facility.
DANIEL LEWIS LEE EXECUTED FOR TORTURING AND KILLING THE ARKANSAS FAMILY IN 1996, FIRST FEDERAL EXECUTION IN 17 YEARS
As part of a small group of other reporters, I was an official witness to Lee’s death, one that took place amid a pandemic.
Lee, who was convicted of killing an Arkansas arms dealer, his wife and young daughter in the late 1990s, was due to be executed Monday at 4 p.m. EDT.
But there would be a long wait while his legal appeals went to the Supreme Court. Along with other reporters, I stayed inside a former bowling alley that was now a prison staff training center. It was guarded by heavily armed prison officers. We all wear blue surgical masks. Our temperatures were taken.
“You are killing an innocent man.”
Daniel Lewis Lee awaits his murder indictment hearing at the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville, Arkansas, on October 31, 1997. (The Courier via AP, File)”/>
Daniel Lewis Lee awaits his murder indictment hearing at the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville, Arkansas, on October 31, 1997. (The Courier via AP, File)
We could only carry an ID to the prison while we loaded two unmarked white trucks that took us a short distance down “Justice Drive” to the prison building for a security inspection.
Inside, correction officers equipped with full protective gear (N95 masks, face shields, gloves, and paper gowns) told us that we would go through the equivalent of an improved airport check. They even took my glasses to do an x-ray.
But then came another delay. Officials told us to have dinner, so we did, then we went back to the prison and waited. At midnight, we all went back to our nearby hotels.
At 2:10 am, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution could proceed. About a minute later, an official from the Bureau of Prisons was on the phone saying that the execution was scheduled for 4:15 am
We rushed to prison. The clock on the truck read 4:16 when we got out and headed for the execution chamber.
Lee was already there, tied to a stretcher.
DANIEL LEWIS READS PART OF THE FIRST WAVE OF FEDERAL EXECUTIONS SINCE 2003
They took us to a small witness room. There were plastic chairs in front of the window, a notepad, a pen, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, and a sanitizer wipe on each seat. A correction officer closed the large metal door and a rumbling rumbled through the room. We were locked up.
The curtain was closed, but he could hear noises coming from the other side of the wall. We couldn’t do a little chat. A man, even if he is a convicted murderer, who was supposed to die soon, could probably hear us.
We were all uncomfortable. A reporter next to me scribbled “legal problem?” in his notebook and he gestured to me. “I suppose so,” I replied.
There was no clock in the room. We lost track of how long we had been there. Finally, someone asked if anyone knew what time it was. When a correction officer replied that it was 6:10 in the morning, there was a collective gasp of surprise.
At 7:46 am the curtain began to rise slowly. At the time, we had been locked in the room with Lee just behind the glass, tied up, for nearly four hours.
There was. His arms were tied and a light blue sheet covered most of his body. He was upset with one of the reporters who was on the move competing for a better view. Of the death of a man. It bothered me somehow, even though we were all there.
A US Marshal inside the room with Lee picked up a black phone that hung on the green tile wall.
“This is the marshal inside the execution chamber,” he said. Washington headquarters was at the other end. The marshal asked if there were legal impediments to the execution. He listened and then said, “I understand that there are no impediments.”
And then Lee said those last words, looking directly at me.
He put his head down and the drug quickly did its deadly work. Her lips turned blue. Her chest stopped moving. He was declared dead.
I ran back to my computer and filed my story.
She would not sink until later that she had just seen a man die. My face was one of the last he saw. I’ve been a crime reporter for years, but this felt different. It was clinical. It was like watching someone go to sleep.
And there wasn’t much time to think about the experience, because another execution was scheduled for the following day.
Wesley Ira Purkey
Wesley Ira Purkey was convicted of kidnapping a 16-year-old girl from his Kansas neighborhood, raping and killing her in the late 1990s, and also murdering an 80-year-old.
But his time to die had also been delayed well into the night. We arrived at the staff training center at 4 pm. But this time we were not allowed to leave.
As the hours passed, everyone became more anxious, sometimes walking in circles.
At 10 pm, the Bureau of Prisons officials offered us peanuts and chips. They didn’t want to let us go back to the hotels because it would take too long to take us all for security.
Just before midnight more food arrived: Lunchables, taken out of a prison refrigerator somewhere.
WESLEY IRA PURKEY RUN BY LETHAL INJECTION, SECOND FEDERAL RUN THIS WEEK
At 2:45 am, approximately 11 hours after we arrived, we were told to leave our electronic devices and recharged them in the trucks. This time we stopped just outside the execution chamber.
And we sat there for five hours. I fell asleep a little in my seat.
Finally, after Purkey’s legal avenues were exhausted, we were brought to the witness room. The curtain rose at 7:55 am. We were looking back at the execution chamber again. The same officials were standing next to Purkey, their arms tied with black restraints. He apologized to the family of the teenager he killed and to his own daughter.
“This disinfected murder really doesn’t do any good,” he said. “Thank you.”
“This disinfected murder really is of no use. Thank you.”
Wesley Ira Purkey, a convicted murderer who was executed last week, is seen in an undated photo.
I looked at his spiritual advisor, a Zen Buddhist priest who had sued the Bureau of Prisons to try to stop the execution for fear of the coronavirus. He was wearing a mask under a mask and seemed to be praying. I was wondering if you were afraid of contracting the virus. I was wondering if I would get the virus.
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A few minutes later, Purkey was pronounced dead. The curtain went down.
In one week, he had spent more than 32 hours inside a prison. And he saw two men die.
Michael Balsamo is the chief editor of the Justice Department and federal police for The Associated Press. He has covered criminal justice and police issues since 2014.
