Itinerantdaughter's Blog

I guess it will be not that surprising to people who know me that I got sucked into a bit of a k-hole today reading the last statements of criminals about to be executed in Texas.  Oh, Texas––that bastion of bureaucratic productivity!  Thank you ever so much for being so organized in your effort to let the public see what those poor suckers you’re offing have to say!  Perhaps my favorite is Michael Yowell’s, because he takes the opportunity to call out his friend (?) Gerald for being a “zero.”  Also I really enjoy Caroll Parr’s, because she takes the opportunity to quote The Terminator.  But mostly, they are really harrowing (“I’m an innocent man. I did not kill anyone. Ya’ll are killing an innocent man. My left arm is killing me. It hurts bad.” ––Jonathan Green) or predictable (“I am going home to be with Jesus. Keep the faith,” says Kimberly McCarthy) or heartbreaking (“Can you hear me? Did I ever tell you, you have dad’s eyes? I’ve noticed that in the last couple of days”: Ramon Torres Hernandez ) or intriguing (Last statement of Douglas Alan Feldman: “I hereby declare, Robert Steven Everett and Nicholas Velasquez, guilty of crimes against me, Douglas Alan Feldman. Either by fact or by proxy, I find them both guilty. I hereby sentence both of them to death, which I carried out in August 1998. As of that time, the State of Texas has been holding me illegally in confinement and by force for 15 years. I hereby protest my pending execution and demand immediate relief.”)  For your Monday morning: YOU’RE WELCOME.