Notes from Death Row

By Dean Poling

May 10, 2008 11:52 pm

— JACKSON — From the moment the alarm clock sounded to almost every glance at a clock Tuesday, I couldn’t help thinking: 14 hours until William Earl Lynd dies ... 10 and a half hours until William Earl Lynd dies ... eight hours, 15 minutes until William Earl Lynd dies ...
And with every click of the clock, I couldn’t help but know that Earl Lynd must be doing the same thing. Yet, with a dramatic difference. He must have been thinking: seven hours, 22 minutes until I die ... Five hours until I die ... Two and a half hours until I die ...
Since learning Monday afternoon I would be a witness to his execution, named the media monitor since I had covered Lynd’s trial in February 1990, the thought of what he must be thinking or doing lingered.
They say everyone has an appointed hour: The time they will die. But for the vast majority of folks, only the Lord knows that appointed hour. Few know the time they will die. Waking Tuesday morning, I thought my appointed hour could come before William Earl Lynd’s, but I won’t see it • coming. I will not have to go through the day knowing it will strike.
William Earl Lynd knew this day was coming for more than 18 years since being sentenced to death for the murder and kidnapping of his live-in girlfriend Ginger Moore in Berrien County, since traveling to Ohio where he caused the shooting death of Leslie JoAnn Starkey two days after • killing Moore, since surrendering to Berrien County Sheriff Jerry Brogdon on New Year’s Eve 1988.
For the past two weeks, however, William Earl Lynd knew his appointed hour: 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, 2008. The majority of his appeals exhausted. Earl Lynd’s appointed hour had been set and death loomed in the second hand with every click of the clock.

• Death watch

The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison is located on a vast tract of state-owned land, filled with lakes, ponds, wildlife, and tall pines. It is a beautiful location situated in Jackson, off Interstate 75, about 45 miles south of Atlanta.
From Georgia Highway 36, passersby cannot see the prison facility. A large sign tells visitors they have reached the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, but the prison facility is somewhere within the lush landscape, hidden by those tall trees.
Department of Corrections officials have prepared for large crowds. William Earl Lynd will be the first inmate in the nation executed since the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that lethal injection is constitutional. Driving onto the prison’s access road, correctional officers ask the drivers and passengers to state their business. Upon learning that business, the car will be directed to one of three designated areas roped off on the entrance’s grounds.
There is a section for the media, including the five media representatives tapped to witness the execution, and others who will remain in this partitioned field throughout the evening. A section has been partitioned for death-penalty opponents, who are expected to protest Lynd’s execution. Another section has been roped off for death-penalty supporters to applaud Lynd’s execution.
One media representative is a reporter from a nearby newspaper. Lynd’s execution will be the fourth one he’s witnessed through the years. He explains the death-penalty supporters and opponents. When the hearse leaves with the executed prisoner’s body, the protesters boo, and the supporters cheer. The rest of the time, the protesters and supporters typically yell at each other.
Despite it being the first in the nation following the Supreme Court decision, no supporters show, and only 11 protesters arrive to oppose the execution. They carry signs opposing the state killing people. Either through coincidence or inside information, the protesters observe a moment of silence, offer a prayer, at approximately the same moment the execution begins for William Earl Lynd.

• Symbols

William Earl Lynd declined having a prayer offered for him. Still, there are religious overtones to this execution, really any execution. Death-penalty supporters refer to the biblical eye for an eye. Death-penalty opponents often note that Jesus’ death was the result of capital punishment.
Sitting in the witness room, monitoring the preparation, there are a few unexpected things. Lynd is strapped to a gurney. It is down flat, like a bed. From the gurney’s sides, however, are two extensions where his arms are strapped and the tubes are inserted into his veins for the lethal injection. These extensions do not extend from the gurney like a crucifix but bend down similar to the outer limbs of a peace sign.
Still, the image of the cross flashes through my mind, especially when corrections officials begin to raise the gurney from its flat position. William Earl Lynd rises with the gurney. His arms outstretched. His body and limbs held fast with straps.
Surely, they won’t raise the gurney so Lynd is executed in an upright position? They don’t. The gurney is raised at an angle so he can see the witnesses on the other side of the glass and so the witnesses can have a better view of him.

• Last sights

These are among the last things William Earl Lynd sees.
A gathering of faces in the witness room. Most are strangers, official faces from the state Department of Corrections office. The faces of two of Ginger Moore’s relatives whom he may or may not have known on the front row. Witnesses include former Berrien County Sheriff Jerry Brogdon who took Lynd’s confession and former Alapaha District Attorney Robert Ellis who prosecuted the case against Lynd. He might recognize their faces if he sees them through the glass.
The faces he most likely recognizes are those of the prison’s personnel. Unlike most of the other witnesses, however, they do not look at Lynd.
Strapped to the gurney, Lynd can only move his head and his eyes. There are the uniformed correctional officers, six big men, who press against him to administer the straps. He is in a small room, the chamber, led their by the six officers from a connecting door. There is the window to the witness room. A ringed curtain conceals one wall of the chamber. Behind Lynd is a one-way glass where three officials will each press one of the three chemicals which will put Lynd to sleep, paralyze him then stop his heart.
He sees the press of uniforms and faces pressed against him. He sees the tubes inserted into his veins, the pink faces of the nurses at work around him. He sees the straps redden the skin of his biceps darkening the numerous skull tattoos along both of his arms.
He sees the sheet covering him from his feet to mid torso: The sheet that will cover his face and head as a death shroud within a matter of minutes.
What is he thinking? With no last words, we cannot know the answer to this question. Does he think of Ginger Moore?
Bob Ellis sits as a witness in front of me. I can’t help but recall his words from the trial 18 years ago: “The last vision Ginger Moore saw out of her big, brown eyes was of the man she loved poised over her with a gun, pulling the trigger and placing the third and final bullet in her head.”
William Earl Lynd’s eyes blink then blink more frequently as he is given sodium pentothol, the chemical that will put him to sleep. His eyes grow heavy, the blinking becomes more pronounced then his eyes shut.
These are the last things that William Earl Lynd sees.

• The warden

While the protesters offer a prayer for Lynd, he has refused one in the death chamber. He refuses to share any last words. He does not cry or ask for anything. Lynd is asked these questions by Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison Warden Hilton Hall. If the name sounds familiar it should. Hall served as warden for the Valdosta State Prison in the late 1990s.

• Condemned family

Not among Lynd’s last sights are members of his family. Though a son and daughter testified in his 1990 trial and brother Greg Lynd escorted him from Texas to surrender in Georgia, they are not among his visitors on Earl Lynd’s last day.
He visited with his sister and his girlfriend in the afternoon but they were not in the room to witness his execution. The condemned’s family is not allowed to witness the execution. There are exceptions, but they are rare and come only after serious review from the warden.

• Death Row dating

Yes, though 53 years old and on death row for 18 years, William Earl Lynd has a girlfriend. It is not unusual for death-row inmates to have girlfriends, usually ones met after they have been convicted and sentenced. Death row has an appeal for certain women, one prison official says with a shrug of his raised eyebrows. Go figure.
As for a Web site, in which Lynd introduced himself with the line, “Hi. My name is Earl,” like the title of the television show “My Name Is Earl,” someone on the outside must have posted the entry for him, possibly family or a girlfriend, a prison official says. Lynd had no access to the Internet.
Lynd’s Web site introduction prompts one reporter to say, I guess after tonight, the Web site will have to say, “Goodbye. My name was Earl.”

• Grim day

There is no joking among prison officials. Not today.
Somber is the tone on execution day. Prisons are never joyous places, but they are human places filled with voices, the sounds of people living in close quarters. Having been on assignment inside jails and prisons in Georgia, Virginia and West Virginia, there are typically inmates visible everywhere.
Not in this prison. Not today. They have been placed on lockdown for the evening.
Hundreds of inmates live in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. It houses the state’s death-row inmates, maximum-security inmates and it processes about 90 percent of Georgia’s entire prison population before assigning these inmates to prisons across the state.
Yet, on the evening of execution day, I see no prisoners, hear not a single inmate’s voice other than Lynd declining with a “nope” and a “no” any last words and the prayer. It seems empty, but you know the place is filled with inmates. The prison is quiet, hushed, like the place is holding its breath.

• Changed men

Most of the other reporters are from Atlanta, hundreds of miles from Berrien County and nearly two decades removed from Lynd’s case. One of the photographers was Joey Ivansco of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who worked for The Valdosta Daily Times in the 1980s. The reporters ask for additional details regarding the trial and Lynd and the woman in Ohio.
A radio reporter says to me, Man, 18 years ago. Think of how much your life has changed since then, while Lynd’s hasn’t changed a bit.
I was 25 years old then and I’m 44 now. There have been many changes during that time. William Earl Lynd went from being in his mid 30s to early 50s on death row.
Death row, however, is not a sentence to an unchanging life. It doesn’t mean a person cannot change.
In some cases, within a matter of weeks or months, on death row, the inmate’s life changes, especially if he had a speedy trial. In some cases, death row means the first time in years or decades that the inmate doesn’t have drugs or alcohol fueling their blood streams. Change comes quickly for these inmates.
Some death-row inmates really do find religion, say prison officials, who see these men every day for years.
If you think Lynd was on death row a long time at 18 years, remember there are other Georgia inmates who have been awaiting execution for as long as 30 years.
With that long of a wait, an inmate isn’t necessarily the same man who committed the crime 20 or 30 years earlier, one official says, but he must still face the consequences of his actions.

• Law of the land

One official has worked many years at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. He has witnessed numerous executions by lethal injection and by electric chair.
As a younger officer, he was an ardent supporter of execution. Now, he neither personally supports nor opposes the death penalty.
He has come to view executions as the law of the land to be handled with the utmost professionalism. If the job is done correctly, he has no problems with the death penalty.
If the law were to change, and the death penalty were no more, well, he’d have no problem with that either.

• Half past the appointed hour

He got an extra 30 minutes. Though his appointed hour was set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, 2008, the final gasp of processing last-minute details of the U.S. Supreme Court denying last-minute appeals delayed the start of Lynd’s execution.
The drugs were administered shortly after seven-thirty. Earl Lynd was pronounced dead at 7:51 p.m.

• How was it?

Since covering the execution, I’ve been asked by many people some variation of the question, what was it like? Even more often, how do you deal with it?
I don’t really know how to answer these questions.
Eighteen years ago, when Lynd was sentenced to death, I promised myself that, since I covered the trial, an effort should be made to cover the execution when that day arrived. Earlier this month, corrections officials said they had already filled the necessary number of media witnesses. I felt disappointment as a reporter that I would both miss the conclusion of the Lynd story and the opportunity of having a better understanding of the death penalty, one of the most controversial topics of our time. But I felt a sense of relief as a human being.
Such conflicting thoughts must have been too much for two reporters. By Monday afternoon, two of the media witnesses had changed their minds and taken their names off the list. By Monday afternoon, my name was on the list.
Numerous things went wrong as I prepared for the trip Tuesday. A computer didn’t work. There was a minor car problem. Would the laptop battery last long enough to write the story? Would I be able to find a place to e-mail and file my story before press time?
Were these events fate trying to tell me not to go, my subconscious trying to find an excuse not to go, or the numerous frustrations of a day in the life?
Every time something went wrong, I would think, Well, at least, I don’t know my appointed hour. If I am to die this day, I don’t know it, but William Earl Lynd knows death is coming. He knows it’s coming all day long.
And each time, whatever obstacle I faced seemed trivial in comparison.
That’s what I learned on the day William Earl Lynd died.

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