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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 1997)
Witnesses call inmate happy, calm WITNESSES from page 1 anchorman for Omaha’s KETV Channel 7. “When the curtains opened he was grinning, he was smiling, and he looked like he was happy,” Stephens said during a news conference follow ing the execution. “It was incredible how calm he tvas, how at ease he was... he was ready to go.” Stephens said the last five words in Williams’ official final statement - “I’m on my way home” - were maybe the thing that helped set everyone at ease before die execution. “He seemed very happy at the moment and very eager to get the process under way,” he said. Williams, 61, had been on death row since 1978, a year after confessing to the shooting deaths of two Lincoln women, Patricia McGarry and Catherine Brooks. in a tnree-aay, tnree-state cnme rampage, Williams also shot to death and raped an Iowa woman, Virginia Rowe. He also raped and shot a Minnesota woman, who survived. But even for Wayne Earl Rowe, who, in 1977, found his murdered wife in their Sioux Rapids, Iowa, home, Williams’calmness helped. Rowe, 75, was allowed by prison officials to be one of the 10 witnesses to see Nebraska’s third execution in four years. He was also the first victim’s family member to watch an exe cution since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1994. “Really, the man put us at ease,” Rowe said, with his son, Tom, and daughter-in-law, Jan, sitting next to him. RobynTysver, a reporter with The Associated Press, said she was surprised by Williams’ final words and motions directed to Rowe. She said after Williams looked around the witness room for his selected witnesses, blow ing kisses to each of them, he seemed to look specifically for Rowe. “He looked for Mr. Rowe and he said, ‘I am sorry, Mr. Rowe. I love you, brother.’And I diink Mr. Rowe lifted his hands as if to wave back,” she said. “It was an unbelievable moment.” Rowe said he did give an accepting wave to Williams after his apology. Tysver and Stephens were joined by Omaha World-Herald Lincoln bureau chief, Bill Hord, Tracy Overstreet, news director for KRGI radio in Grand Island and Lincoln Journal Star reporter Butch Mabin as the official media wit nesses for the execution. Williams’ personally selected witnesses were his spiritual adviser, Marylyn Felion of Omaha, his attorney, Paula Hutchinson of Lincoln, Joy Stevens of Fort Calhoun and Dick Hargeshiemer of Lincoln. After the execution, the five media witness es and the Rowe family were led into a visitors room filled with radio, television and print reporters. None of the media witnesses seemed visi bly shaken by what they had just seen, but even with Williams’ calm demeanor, watching an execution was anything but routine. “As a human being watching another human being being (second “being” is part of quote) electrocuted and killed,” Stephens said, “it’s something I’ll never forget. It’s not easy to watch. “To see a man strapped in a chair; knowing what he’s done, knowing the horrible crimes he’s committed - it doesn’t make it any easier to watch.” Hold said the prison’s clinical way ofhandling the procedure helped him get through what he had expected to be a terribly difficult assignment. Tysver said once they were led into the wit ness room, she tried to turn off the emotions and immerse herself in the role of journalist. " “It was like autopilot,” she said after the press conference. The calmness and serenity the witnesses felt stopped for a few minutes at 10:16 a.m. when, after the first jolt of electricity, smoke came from Williams’ exposed left knee. Overstreet said she saw no movement from Williams after tijjat. . v “I didn’t see him breathe after the first six second jolt,” she said, “so he probably died quicker than his victims did.” The witnesses said they also noticed smoke coming from the leg and also the top of the head after a third, 19-second jolt. The state used four jolts to put Williams to death, but the witnesses all agreed and were comforted that before the first jolt of electricity was given, Williams seemed like a man at peace with himself. “If he was looking for the grace to get through this,” Hord said, “I would say he found it” ABOVE: EXECUTION WITNESSES BUTCH MABIMfl of Iowa and his son, fmflwwi; fluid gimtinim, execution. .■ UEFE VIRGINIA WALSH, a member of Nebraska* tape recorumg or 111111301$ singing songs anon j> TOP: A PROTESTER HBIDS a candle In «ibbt> Friend notes Williams’ Cl FRIEND from page 1 requested for his execution. He became the fourth person to die in Nebraska^ electric chair since 1959. Tuesday’s execution differed from the past two executions in several ways - such as the daytime death and the lack of boisterous crowds—but one of the more subtle was the Christian rhetoric of two witnesses, a victim’s son and the condemned. In his last words, Williams thanked God for all of his blessings. Wayne Earl Rowe, the hus band ofrqne of Williams’ three victims, said without his faith, he would not have been as calm as he was after die execution. And Stevens said her faith was reaffirmed by watching Williams’ peace, even in die face of death. Smiling and calm, witnesses said Williams was completely at ease having his death warrant read to him and being strapped to the electric chair. To Stevens, it was Williams’ faith in God that gave him his peace. “You can’t fake that,” she said. “He had joy flowing from him. You can’t fake that. That came from the last 20 years of him getting to know V God and getting to trust God.” Stevens, who describes herself as a deeply religious woman, met Williams in 1995, wheaj for her first interview for a Christian radio shew on Omaha’s KGBI, she called Williams to tap* about his conversion. From that interview on, Stevens and Williami began a friendship that centered on their faitk^ Both read their Bibles daily - Williams began hi. studies at 3:30 a.m. every morning - and bo® shared passages through their correspondence. . Williams was a deeply repentant man{ Stevens said, asking all of his victims’ families for forgiveness. One by one, they gave it to hint; In one of the most dramatic moments of tin* day, Williams, strapped to the electric chatty asked Rowe for forgiveness. “I am sorry, Mr. Rowe. I love you, brother" he said. ! Rowe told reporters he had forgiven Williams long before the execution. Rowe’s son Tom also said he had forgiven Williams, r “We have forgiven Mr. Williams. We have" not, nor will we ever forgive what he did.” I 1977_1978_| 1979 | 1980 $. pm [|1 ^ |j[t|i|i|g[g^^ m§]j| M--T!-t.-7^- r> 1^ ?\ ^ "ll Aug. 10-11,1977 Aug. 11,1977 Aug. 12,1977 Aug. 13,1977 Aug. 14,1977 May 1,1978 June 30,1978 Feb. 14,1980 Wiiams shoots Williams rapes a Farmer Wayne Wiiams forces railroad worker Williams arrives in Jury rejects Wiiams’ Sentenced to Execution set for May Patricia McGarry in the female Earl Rowe of Walter Behun to drive him to Chicago. Stays insanity defense and death. 20,1980. Execution face after she acquaintance in rural Sioux St Paul, Minn., from Fridley, three days. convicts him of first- TS later stayed, disagrees with his Lincoln Rapids, Iowa, Minn. Behun is left bound in a degree murder in the Dec. 18,1978 7S version of his failed repeatedly, discovers the caboose. He then kidnaps a Aug. 18,1997 deaths of McGarry Nebrska Oct 27,1980 marriage. He then assaults her with body of his wife, woman leaving a St Paul Wiiams is and Brooks. Jury also Supreme Execution set for Jan. rapes and murders . a handgun and She was raped liquor store. He shoots her arrested in finds Williams guilty Court affirms 29,1981. Stayed McGarry’s neighbor, forces her to and shot by twice, drives her to a seduded Lincoln after he of raping Brooks. He Williams’ about 2 months later Catherine Brooks, who prepare him two Williams, who area, rapes her and leaves her hopped a freight admits to, but is not conviction and by state Supreme cametoMcGarry’said. meals. fled in her car. for dead. She survives. train west. tried for, other crimes, sentence. Court Source: AP f / * 1987 f 5, |lj?|?|l|s|i|j |j| 7, k&i 1 March 3,1987 March 16,1993 July 13,1994 Nov. 9,1994 Williams files his first Federal judge throws Execution date set for 8th U.S. Circuit Court atT federal lawsuit OW death sentence Nov. 16,1994. of Appeals delays Car' claiming his rights in McGarry case; execution for 30 days Ant ' were violated. upholds sentence in to allow more time to dmi Brooks’case. consider appeal. ^ Bar Jaw E» 9