A spiritual advisor to the first man in the United States to be executed with nitrogen gas said prison staff could not hide their shock at the “horror show” unfolding in front of them.
“There was clear shock and surprise on their faces,” the Rev. Jeff Hood told The Post.
Hood described the 22-minute death of Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, at Alabama’s WC Holman Correctional Facility as a scene from a horror movie.
“They were told this would be quick, easy and painless. They kept saying that this is the most humane way society has ever discovered to execute people.
“Everything was just horrible. It’s a scene that will never leave me. Some of [Smith’s] The fights seemed produced for Hollywood.
“If they had taken me there and not told me I was in an execution, I would think I was on the set of a movie, some kind of horrible creation run amok,” he said.
Smith was sentenced to death for his role in the contract murder of preacher wife Elizabeth Sennett in 1988. He spent more than three decades behind bars before being executed by the controversial method of nitrogen hypoxia.
The case attracted national attention after Smith survived a failed attempt to end his life by lethal injection in November 2022, which was aborted when doctors failed to find a vein to inject the deadly drug cocktail after trying. during hours.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, 40, a spiritual adviser to Kenneth Smith who was at his side at the time of his death, said what he witnessed was like something out of a horror movie. REUTERS
Hood said that from his vantage point inside the execution chamber he had a bird’s-eye view of the prison staff overseeing Smith’s death.
He noticed an undeniable change in the facial expressions and body language of the staff, which included correctional officers and Alabama Department of Corrections Regional Director Cynthia Stewart-Riley.
“Under those circumstances, it’s hard to know what’s what, but I know what I saw in terms of the horror on the faces of the people in front of me,” Hood said.
View from the witness gallery toward the execution chamber at Holman Prison, Alabama. AP
“As the execution began and he began to squirm, it was noticeable that the staff members began to move,” he continued.
“It looked like a fish out of water, flapping its wings again and again. How all that happened [Stewart-Riley] It was behind the stretcher to his right. “She was so upset and nervous that she kept tapping her feet over and over again, like when something bothers you, you get restless and can’t sit still,” she said, saying that the sound of her shoes tapping nervously sounded “like tap dancing.”
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was executed in Alabama on Thursday night for nitrogen hypoxia, the first inmate in the United States to die using this method. Alabama Department of Corrections/UPI/Shutterstock
Alabama DOC did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Hood said he could hear a gasp through the death chamber glass as the process began.
“Under those circumstances, it’s hard to know what’s what, but I know what I saw in terms of the horror on the faces of the people in front of me.”
He said the facial expressions of prison staff who witnessed the execution went from relaxed and casual to “very tense and very tense” as the seconds and minutes passed.
“They were certainly affected” by what they were witnessing, Hood said.
Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes during the more than 20-minute execution period, according to the Associated Press.
The execution was already controversial, both because of the previous failed attempt and because it was the first time that nitrogen gas was used to take the life of a prisoner.
Hood said he will never forget what he witnessed inside the Holman Prison execution chamber, including the “shock and surprise” on the staff’s faces. REUTERS
“I’m still suffering from the first run and now we’re doing this again. “They don’t even allow me to have PTSD,” Smith told The Guardian earlier this week.
After the execution, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said that “nothing was out of the ordinary from what we expected,” words with which Hood strongly disagreed.
“I think he is a liar. [Alabama Attorney General Steve] Marshall said the same thing. They are liars. They always said this was going to be almost instantaneous. That he would disappear, unconscious, in seconds. “What we saw last night was minutes, minutes and minutes of a horror show,” said the spiritual advisor.
After a post-execution news conference, Hood said he had the opportunity to speak with Elizabeth Sennett’s family, who he said were “very kind.”
“I had a very good conversation. It felt like a moment of true humanity. We obviously had big differences: they wanted the execution to happen and we didn’t, but they were very clearly concerned about Kenny’s family and the other people involved. I think that speaks volumes about who they are,” Hood said.
“Everyone wants us to hate each other, but the whole process brutalized us all.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn