William - Execution Eve

Execution
Eve

Also by William J. Buchanan

Nonfiction

A Shining Season

Attack of the Midnight Screamer

And Other True Stories

Running Toward the Light

Fiction

Present Danger

One Last Time

Execution
Eve

William J. Buchanan

New Horizon Press

Far Hills, New Jersey

Copyright Acknowledgment

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the following copyrighted material:

To Kill or Not to Kill by Allan Trout. Copyright The Courier-Journal. Used with permission.

Copyright 1993 by William J. Buchanan

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical, or any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission should be addressed to:

New Horizon Press

P.O. Box 669

Far Hills, NJ 07931

Buchanan, William J.

Execution Eve

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-60568

ISBN-13 (eBook): 978-0-88282-458-1

New Horizon Press

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

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Dedicated to the memory of my father

Contents

I wish to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to my father, Warden W. Jesse Buchanan, who made his personal papers available to me and answered myriad questions with candor; to Governor A. B. Happy Chandler, Deputy Warden Porter Lady, Death House Supervisor John Rankin and Columnist Allan Trout who added invaluable details during my research; to my mother, Margaret Kagy Buchanan, and sister, Margaret Baldwin Clements, for their contributions about Frog Island, and other key events; to Father Thomas Libs, who related events not a matter of public or church records; and to the three convicted murderers, Thomas Penney, Raymond Baxter, and Robert Anderson, who shared intensely personal recollections and thoughts with me during the final days, hours and minutes of their lives.

Thanks also to Clara Wiedemann, Frances Baccus, O. Thomas Bell, William Biggs, A. Waller Clements, Hugh and Mary Louise Greene, Porter Lady, Jr., James Park, Jr., Frankie Thomas, Jim Thomas, Odell Walker, and others who wish to remain anonymous, for their help during my more recent research for the book.

Finally, a special thanks to my wife, Milli, for her encouragement and priceless assistance during the final composition of the manuscript.

My original research into this story was for a segment for my college thesis, Men Facing Death: A Study of Capital Punishment in America (University of Louisville, 1950). It was only recently, following an upsurge of legal executions in the United States, that I decided to expand those original notes into a book.

Much of what occurs in the narrative to follow I witnessed firsthand. The remainder is based on public accounts, trial records, private papers, and incidents that were related to me by those involved, including the three condemned men central to the story. In attempting to recreate actual events and dialogue I have used a reasonable literary licence within narrow confines of truth and credibility. Nonetheless, all scenes are recounted as closely as possible to how I witnessed them or how they were told to me.

Oh, how well do I remember the night Poor Willie died,

The flowers lay lowly drooping in the mud,

And the warden had agreed that to suit Poor Willies need,

He would stop the circulation of his blood.

Underground ditty,

Kentucky State Prison

Execution
Eve

Raymond S. Willie Baxter lay clutching his blue woolen blanket close beneath his chin, gazing up through the barred window high in the rear wall of his cell. For twelve months that tiny window had provided Willies only view of the outside world. Through it he had watched the seasons change, had gazed at the stars long into the night, andhis greatest pleasurehad listened to the songbirds that nested in the towering black gum tree in the prison yard. Willie liked birds.

This February morning the sky was leaden. A mantle of low-hanging clouds had induced a chill in the usually mild pre-spring Kentucky weather. Worse, it had blotted out the sun. That annoyed Willie, for he and the sun had conspired in a pastime that delighted him. On better days the golden rays filtering through the bars cast a latticework of shadows that inched their way across the barren cement floor and slowly climbed the opposite wall. Willie watched the shadows intently, trying to guess the time of day as they made their slow progression. Despite months of trying, hed never mastered itnot the way Tom had. Tom could predict the hour within two minutes of the actual time registered on the face of the large Seth Thomas clock mounted above the green-and-tan door directly across the corridor from Willies cell.

Sun or not, Willie had slept late this morning. The muted hubbub of sounds rising from the main prison yard just below his window told him that the day was well underway. Captain Rankin had let him sleep late. Captain Rankin did that often, for Willie never ate breakfast anyway. But thered be coffee, rich and freshly brewed by Captain Rankin in his office, with plenty of sugar and canned milk to stir in it. Death house inmates were the only convicts allowed unlimited amounts of sugar and milk for their coffee. Even on the outside, Willie had heard, few people in these wartime days of 1943 could obtain unlimited amounts of sugar and milkeven if they could find coffee. Willie smiled at the thought. Captain Rankin was good to him.

Willie kicked back the cover, stood, and stretched long and hard beside his bed. A small man, he stood only five-and-a-half feet tall and weighed 115 pounds. He was twenty-eight. Beneath a thick shock of sandy hair, which on most days he brushed straight back without a part, his pock-marked face, deeply sunken cheeks, prominent off-center nose, and melancholy brown eyes gave him the look of an emaciated weasel. His ever-sallow complexion, accentuated by months of incarceration, extended over his entire body. On the inside of his arms, at the bend of his elbows, an unsightly patch of long-healed scar tissue bore mute testimony to a life of drug addiction.