I Passed Out At My First Execution
It was a warm February evening, and Gustavo Julián Garcia lay strapped to a gurney in Texas’ death chamber. I stood a few feet away, staring at him through a barred window in one of two cramped viewing rooms.
The 43-year-old had close-cut salt and pepper hair. He wore prison whites and thick, black-rimmed glasses. An IV dangled from the crook of his right arm, partially covering a black-ink tattoo.
In the mint-green room, under fluorescent lights, a single microphone hung over Garcia’s head. He stared — somehow calmly — at the ceiling, while a prison chaplain with a small bible rested a hand on Garcia’s shin.
My own hands were shaking.
I’d started the day like any other: I woke up in my Austin apartment, walked my dog and got ready for work. That day, “work” involved driving three hours to the wooded prison town of Huntsville to watch the state execute a man.
Garcia was sentenced to death at 19, when he was convicted in the 1990 shooting death of a liquor store clerk during a robbery. He was caught a month later after a second fatal shooting and robbery, and confessed to both murders.
During his 24 years in prison, he participated in an escape attempt that ended with a dead inmate. He was also granted a new punishment trial because a psychologist in his original sentencing claimed he was more likely to pose a future danger to society because he was Hispanic. He was again sentenced to death.
When I arrived at the Huntsville Unit on the evening of his death, I huddled in a foyer of an administrative building with three other reporters, waiting for an office phone to ring. At 6:01 p.m., it did, the high-pitched trill signaling the execution was about to begin.
As my heart thudded in my chest, a prison spokesman led us across the street to the prison’s entrance. Death penalty protesters stood just beyond strands of police tape. A woman holding a megaphone — now realizing there would be no last-minute reprieve — called out, “They’ve made it official. The media is walking across the street.”
As we entered the prison, the spokesman chatted quietly with two reporters who had been there countless times. Texas averages about 16 executions a year, and the Associated Press and Huntsville Item reporters come to almost every one of them.
I couldn’t speak.
The two seasoned reporters were led to a viewing room to witness the execution with the family of one of Garcia’s victims. I would watch in the adjacent room with Garcia’s priest.
My body tingled as I was shepherded through the fading light of a courtyard into the small, darkened room. As my eyes locked on Garcia, the inside of my right arm, where an IV might’ve been inserted, began to itch.
The spokesman whispered my name and pointed to a speaker in the center of the ceiling, where I’d hear Garcia’s last words.
Almost immediately, I heard him: “To my family, to my mom, I love you. God bless you, stay strong.”
I scratched them into my notebook as fast as I could, the tingling sensation growing stronger with each word.
As the execution drugs began to flow, there was an uneasy sense of calm. Garcia stopped speaking and let out a big, comfortable yawn. His eyes drooped slightly. He looked relaxed, not scared.
I, meanwhile, had begun to sweat. My vision was tightening. I bent my knees to keep them from locking and tried to take deep, discreet breaths. “Losing vision,” I scrawled, almost illegibly, before losing consciousness.
The next thing I knew, two female guards had scooped me up and carried me outside.
On a folding chair in the middle of the courtyard, I begged and pleaded. I told them I was fine, that I wanted to go back in. That wasn’t allowed; once you leave the room, you’re out for good.
My next best hope was to stay in the prison yard, waiting outside the door. That, too, was a no-go. Right: I was inside an active prison.
Defeated and embarrassed, I shuffled back to the front office, where I listened to the doctor call the time of death over a loudspeaker.
At first, I was ashamed. How could I cover the death penalty in Texas if I couldn’t make it through an execution? But then I realized: As I watched a man die, I had a natural human reaction.
Before I could change my mind, I signed up to cover another execution, making the same three-hour drive back down to Huntsville. I still shook in the viewing room when convicted murderer Adam Ward said his last words. But that time, as my own heart pumped faster and louder, I was watching when his stopped.