Death Sentence
by David E. Sloane, writing as Hugh Ellis

Murdoch awoke with a start. His body was bathed in a cold sweat and his heart was pounding. Today was the day they would execute him.

Fear gripped him, and he began to tremble uncontrollably. He stumbled from his cot to the stainless steel toilet in the corner of his cell, fell to his knees and began to vomit. He hadn’t been able to eat much of his dinner the night before, so there was little to bring up. In spite of that, his stomach churned and he retched repeatedly for nearly ten minutes.

Eventually, he stopped and took a deep breath. He pulled himself to his feet and pushed the button to flush the toilet. Then he leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on his face, rinsing his mouth to get rid of the bitter taste. As he reached for the stained towel that hung from a single hook mounted on the cinderblock wall, he glanced at the clock on the shelf by his cot. It read six thirty-two. In just under six and a half hours he would be lying strapped to a gurney, unable to move, as the poison flowed into his veins.

He didn’t want to die. He sat on the edge of the cot, buried his face in his hands and began to sob. He was still crying ten minutes later when the guard came down the hall, keys rattling as he walked, and stopped in front of the door to his cell.

“Hey, Ralph!” he called through the narrow horizontal slit just large enough to accommodate a food tray. “Wanna cuppa coffee?”

The voice startled Murdoch out of his self-pity. “No thanks, Steve,” he replied, trying to keep his voice from quavering. “I don’t think I could keep it down.”

Steve Garrison understood. He had been a corrections officer for twenty-seven years and had been assigned to death row for the past twelve. During that time he had watched eighteen men walk through the dark green door at the end of the gray corridor, never to return. Eighteen human beings who, in the minds of men and women whose civic duty had put them in a jury box, had committed crimes so heinous that the public lust for vengeance could only be satisfied by the sacrifice of their lives.

Garrison knew that each of them, no matter how cold and insensitive an image they tried to portray, reached a point of realization that their time had run out and there was nothing left that could alter their fate. For most of them, like Murdoch, it came on the day they were scheduled to be executed. He unclipped the ring of keys from his belt, selected one and unlocked the deadbolt in Murdoch’s door. He pulled it open and stepped inside the cell.

“That’ll pass,” he said, sympathetically. “It always does.”

Murdoch looked up. His normally ruddy face looked pale and ashen. The thick, brown hair, usually kept neatly combed, was matted with sweat. His steel-gray eyes, once hard and penetrating, appeared sunken in their sockets, red-rimmed from crying.

“That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered in a raspy voice. “You get to wake up tomorrow.”

Garrison stood there with no outward sign of emotion. He found it hard to believe that the cringing, pathetic young man in front of him had coldly, dispassionately and deliberately caused the deaths of twenty-three hundred ninety-seven innocent men, women and children just eight years ago.

Ralph Murdoch had not been the type of person who would have been expected to become a mass murderer. An above-average student in a small, suburban high school, he spent the next two years at the local community college, easily earning his Associate’s Degree in Business. He had three job offers upon graduation, and after mentally tossing coins for a week, he entered the management training program at Suburban Gas and Electric. He made steady progress and within two years had become a regional manager of the maintenance and repair division.

Murdoch’s social activities had given no hint of the potential violence that lay sleeping beneath the surface of his mild-mannered personality. None of his friends or acquaintances had ever seen the slightest indication of the fiendish cruelty that would some day erupt.

The precipitating event had occurred on a rainy Thursday morning in April. After standing patiently in a box office line for six hours to buy tickets for a one-night-only concert by his favorite musical group, Murdoch had the untimely misfortune to be the first person to reach the window after the last ticket had been sold. No amount of pleading or cajoling could prevent the clerk from closing the barrier, walking away and turning out the lights in the booth.

The rest of the disgruntled fans vented their frustration with shouts of disgust as they trashed the parking lot of the arena. Murdoch, however, simply turned and walked away, but with each step he took he became more determined to punish those who, in his mind, had deprived him of his pleasure.

Nine days later he took his revenge. A simple turn of a valve before he left work the night before shut down the odorant normally added to the natural gas supply lines. Then, as the concert got underway, he entered the sub-basement of the arena and shattered the shut-off valve where the gas line entered the building. He then got in his car and drove across town to an all night coffee shop to wait as the odorless gas engulfed the concert crowd.

Forty-five minutes later, the band was winding down their last number before intermission. As the last chord sounded, one member of the road crew brought down the stage lights while another reached for the switch that would set off the pyrotechnic display that had become the band’s trademark.

No one in the building could have survived the thunderous explosion, the searing fireball or the collapse of the building. The final tally was 2,397 dead and over eleven million dollars in property damage.

Murdoch’s trial was surprisingly short, lasting only four days. The jury deliberated for forty-five minutes and reached a guilty verdict for each count of the murder indictment. The next day, after hearing the testimony of four witnesses in the penalty phase, they took just fifteen minutes to unanimously agree on the death penalty.

His lawyers filed all of the customary appeals with no expectation of success. Even the staunchest opponents of the death penalty found it hard to rally their support behind Ralph Murdoch. No single individual had ever been responsible for the premeditated murder of so many people since the Holocaust. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind; everyone believed that Ralph Murdoch deserved to die. Everyone, that is, except Ralph Murdoch.

“You sure you don’t want something to drink?” asked Garrison, deliberately avoiding Murdoch’s remark. “Maybe some ginger ale to settle your stomach?”

Murdoch took a deep breath and suppressed a shudder. “Yeah, maybe I’ll try that,” he said.

“The Chaplain is here,” said Garrison as he turned to go for Murdoch’s drink. “He said to tell you that he’ll stay with you as long as you want from here on in.”

“Thanks. Give me five minutes to clean myself up and get dressed, then ask him to come in. I don’t think I can do this without him.”

Most of the next four hours were spent in tearful prayer as Reverend Gilbert tried to assure Murdoch that in spite of the horrible nature of his crime, his soul would find forgiveness in the loving arms of God. If truth be told, Gilbert was not totally convinced by his own words.

At eleven o’clock Garrison returned with a tray. “Lunch time, Ralph,” he announced as he placed the tray on the steel table bolted to the floor. “Shrimp cocktail and steak, just like you ordered.”

Murdoch’s initial surge of appetite was immediately dashed by the realization that this was his “last meal.” His knees buckled, and he would have fallen to the floor if Reverend Gilbert had not steadied him.

“Here, sit down,” said Gilbert, easing Murdoch toward the table. “You don’t want to meet the Lord on an empty stomach. I’ll sit with you.”

Murdoch tried to eat, but could only manage to swallow three shrimp and one bite of steak before he was overcome with a fit of sobbing. After twenty minutes he pushed the tray aside and grasped the Chaplain’s hands in his.

“Are you sure He’ll forgive me?” he pleaded.

“He knows what is truly in your heart, Ralph,” replied Gilbert, evasively. “If you really want His forgiveness, you should spend this time praying.

Murdoch clasped his hands together, bowed his head and began to mutter a jumbled litany of begging and pleading. He was still praying when Garrison returned at noon.

“Time to get changed, Ralph,” he said as he placed a pile of folded clothes on the cot. “Take everything off and leave it on the bed. All you wear is these pants and shirt and the slippers.”

“Do you want me to wait outside while you change?” asked the Chaplain.

“No, don’t leave me,” begged Murdoch. “I’m afraid to be alone.”

Gilbert nodded and sat at the table as Murdoch removed his orange jumpsuit and reached for the white pants on the cot.

“No,” interrupted Garrison. “Take off your underwear too. They don’t want you wearing anything but those things I gave you.”

Meekly, Murdoch complied. The loose-fitting pants had an elastic waistband, and the short-sleeve shirt had only two buttons in the front. As he buttoned it and stepped into the backless slippers, Garrison took him gently by the arm.

“It’s time to go,” he said softly.

“Oh, God! I don’t want to die,” sobbed Murdoch as Garrison led him out of the cell and down the hall to the solid green door at the end.

“This is where I say goodbye, Ralph,” said Gilbert. “I hope God heard your prayers.”

Murdoch could not reply. He stood there sobbing as Garrison opened the door to the execution chamber and guided Murdoch to the gurney, then turned and walked out the door.

As two technicians positioned him on the steel surface and fastened the restraints, Murdoch could only briefly see the large mirror on the wall below his feet. He knew that the official witnesses were behind it, watching him pay the ultimate price for his crime. Any thoughts he once held about going to his death with a dispassionate demeanor were long gone. He was terrified and didn’t care who knew.

As the phlebotomist slipped the needle into a vein in his arm, he completely missed the irony of the alcohol swab used to clean the skin before the puncture was made.

When the IV was in place, the other technician unbuttoned the shirt and began attaching the EKG leads to his chest. Then, when all of the equipment was connected, the technicians stepped back and the Warden, who had been standing against the wall, came forward and looked down at Murdoch.

Brian Daniels did not look like a prison warden. His average height and slender build did not fit the massive, muscular stereotype of a corrections officer. His blond hair and pale blue eyes would have seemed more at home on a doctor or even the neighborhood pharmacist. There was little compassion in his voice, however, as he spoke.

“Ralph Murdoch, you have been tried and convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree and sentenced to die by lethal injection on this date. Do you have anything you wish to say before the sentence is carried out?”

Murdoch dissolved into a fit of blubbering, and the only words that could be understood were “Don’t kill me.”

Daniels turned away and stepped back to the wall. He looked up at the clock and waited for the second hand to reach the top. It was one o’clock. Daniels turned to the wall, lifted a red cover and pressed the button underneath.

Murdoch could feel the searing heat as the combination of drugs began to enter his body. Terror overcame him as he tried to open his mouth to scream, but his muscles would not respond. The edges of his vision blurred, then blackness overwhelmed him. It was over.

A blind was lowered over the one-way mirror and the technicians disconnected the IV and the EKG leads from the body. A door opened on the opposite wall from the one through which Murdoch had entered, and the technicians wheeled the gurney from the chamber with the Warden following.

Daniels turned to the heavy-set man who was waiting just outside the door. “Well, Governor?” he asked. “What did you think?”

“I’m amazed,” replied Mark Jeffries. “You say he will remember none of this?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Daniels. “The drugs are really no more than a fast-acting anesthetic and a powerful retrograde amnesiac. The dosage we use completely erases any memory of the past eight hours. The anesthetic will wear off just in time for him to wake up a little after six tomorrow morning. We’ve done this thirty-seven times so far, and there has been no indication that he suspects anything.”

“What about weekends and holidays?” asked Jeffries. “Don’t you or your staff get a break?”

“We can carry the anesthesia through the weekend,” explained Daniels. “The same thing for holidays. It works out to executing him about two hundred and forty times a year.”

“At that rate, you’ll be at this for about ten years,” said the Governor. “It is fitting though, being able to do it once for each of his victims. I can’t think of a better way to punish a mass murderer or a serial killer.”

“I agree,” said Daniels. “It’s just a shame that the public can never know about this. It only works because each time he believes it is real.”

“And the last time?”

“That one will be real.”

***

Murdoch awoke with a start. His body was bathed in a cold sweat, and his heart was pounding. Today was the day they would execute him.

 

DAVID E. SLOANE is a graduate of the Rutgers–Camden School of Law and a former Adjunct Professor of Psychology. His first novel, Colony VII, is a science-fiction book for middle-school readers published under the pen name J.H. Long. His second, Blue Vendetta, written under the name Hugh Ellis, expresses his outrage at the intrusive way the health insurance industry has degraded the practice of medicine.

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