Spring 2012
by Patricia Murphy
I laid back and slumped into the tub. The water was so hot my skin was bright red and tingling. Tears streamed down my cheeks. My husband Flint opened the door a crack and poked his head in. Oh dear, he said. On his face a look of concern and resignation. He’d seen this before, the intense emotional release; it always came after a tough assignment.
I’d been up for 36 hours. 18 hours earlier, I’d watched Cal Brown draw his last breaths strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber at Washington State Penitentiary.
Cal Brown was a convicted murderer who in 1991 raped, tortured then strangled 21-year-old Holly Washa. Brown killed Washa just two months after he was released from an Oregon prison where he had served time for assaulting a woman.
I’d been covering capital punishment at KUOW Public Radio for a couple of years. We’d even produced a three-part series that examined everything from an execution’s effect on a victim’s family members to the ethical issues surrounding lethal injection. It has always been in the back of my mind that eventually I might end up witnessing an execution.
The day Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna announced that, after almost 17 years, the state was ready to carry out Brown’s death sentence, I felt the adrenaline rush to my fingertips. I knew this was an opportunity to push myself professionally and emotionally.
Now that I’d actually seen Brown die, it felt a little like I was being strangled.
During the next few days I listened to the witness account of the execution that I filed that night from my hotel room over and over again. I was trying to absorb what I had seen, trying to reconcile the professional with the personal.
On the night of the execution I sat eight feet from a large viewing window in the chamber. The shade was drawn as the seven media witnesses were seated. To the left of us sat the prosecutor and four members of the Washa family. They lived in Nebraska; nearly six months ago, they had driven through a snowstorm to the penitentiary to witness this event. But the courts issued a stay, and they left heartbroken and burdened. Tonight they would get what they came for.
The shade lifted. Brown, in an orange prison jumpsuit, strapped to a gurney, turned his head and locked eyes with me before craning his head to take in the rest of the room. Behind him sat the prison superintendent, looking fidgety and nervous.
The only sound for a moment was the frenetic scribbling of the media witnesses documenting the scene using prison-issue pads and pencils. Orange jumpsuit, no emotion from Washa family, two intravenous lines, Brown looks calm.
With a microphone held to his mouth, Brown told the Washa family that he understood their hatred for him. He wished them closure but never apologized for the murder. Then he ranted against capital punishment. Brown questioned why he should die for killing one girl while others who killed so many serve life sentences. Finally he said thank you, God bless you, God bless my family. Then he closed his eyes.
With an almost imperceptible nod the superintendant gave the signal. Presumably the fatal dose of sodium thiopental was administered. Brown’s chest heaved three times; he exhaled deeply; and then he was dead. It took about a minute and a half.
The time was 12:56 a.m.
The witnesses filed out and it was over.
After the execution I returned to my hotel room and saw an email from Dr. Gail Van Norman, a medical ethicist I’d interviewed for the series.
“You’re going to feel things — stuff that might come up. Give me a call if you want to talk.”
I had a long night ahead of me now that Brown was dead. The morning shows would begin in four hours. Nice offer but there was no time for stuff right now. It was time to go to work.
Exactly one week after the execution I awoke in a cold sweat, my heart beating out of my chest. The dream was gone but the intensity remained.
When I looked at the clock, it read 12:56 a.m.
As I lay in bed trying to fall back to sleep, Brown’s face kept popping back into my thoughts. After about an hour I went downstairs and turned on the computer to type an email to Gail.
Subject line: Here comes the stuff.
Cover image courtesy the Washington State Department of Corrections.
The mission of the Dart Society is to connect and support journalists worldwide who advance the compassionate and ethical coverage of trauma, conflict and social injustice. Visit www.dartsociety.org.
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