Then it happened. A Texas-hot, mid-summer sun raised my bubbling point to bursting one afternoon. I am convinced the sun in Texas dips down from its arc over the globe by a few million miles, but then, if the winters are that of a foreign country, then why shouldn’t the summers be also. I walked up to the sergeant on Main Street and asked, “Do you have a political view that you want to talk to me about?”
“Well, that depends. Are you a Republican or are you a Democrat?”
“Whatever my political beliefs are do not matter, but what does matter is the State of Texas decided that I should get off Death Row. Now if you have a problem with that, then you should take it up with the State of Texas.”
He made some smart remark and turned away. After that, he kind of backed off a little, but not much. He was also one of the guards that I had complained to Warden Nancy Botkin about. Maybe she had spoken to him. But overall, the persecution continued, so I again complained to Warden Botkin, who called me into her office.
“Warden, I am so tired of constantly being harassed. Can’t you do something?”
“Pam, it’s because your case received so much attention and that you are what we call ‘high-profile.’ Eventually, it will die down. These things always do.”
And it did, maybe by the width of a hair. Then in late autumn, what once looked like green grass turned brown and bitter. It was a Saturday. That morning, Christina and Joseph had visited me. Around eleven that night, I was sitting in the day room watching TV when two officers approached. One was a high rank, maybe a sergeant or a lieutenant.
“Ms. Perillo, would you step out in the hallway?” When I did, they handcuffed me and took me to Ad Seg.
“What is this for? Why are you taking me there?”
No answers, and their frowns said as little as their silence. With no sheets for my mattress, not even toilet tissue, I waited in that cell until Sunday morning when they escorted me to Major Henson’s office. When I entered, I looked with awe at everything I owned—what little there was— scattered and open all over her carpet, in front of her desk, to the sides, everywhere a tornado could have dropped them. Everyone was standing when I entered, including a man in a suit who asked me to step into an adjoining office. Without any introduction, he said, “Sit down. Did you have a visit with your mom and son Saturday, yesterday morning?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Did you discuss the escape?”
“Escape? What escape? What are you talking about?”
“Just answer my question. Did you discuss the escape?”
“Sir, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“We received two anonymous telephone calls yesterday,” he paused and glared, “that your adopted mom and your son were going to break you out of prison at twelve o’clock that night. You do know about this?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Just answer my question. Did you discuss the escape?”
“No, that’s ridiculous. Why would she risk a high-paying career, and why would my son risk his future when he is about to graduate from Texas A&M? Why would they risk their lives to break me out of prison and go on the run with me? Especially since I have just gotten off Death Row and will be eligible for parole. I would never ask them to do something like that. If they were ever going to attempt something that stupid, why didn’t they do it when I was two days away from execution? Not now. That doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make even good nonsense.”
I was screaming at this point and he kept yelling back, “Just answer the question! Did you discuss the escape?” The interrogation pretty much ended, and they took me back to the lockup in Ad Seg.
Warden Botkin called me into her office two hours later and said, “Pam, just calm down. I’m sure this is all some bizarre mistake, maybe some kind of a joke, but we do have to take these things seriously. We will be making an investigation, and as soon as that is complete, I am sure you will be able to come back up [out of Ad Seg].”
“Warden, I don’t know who is making these phone calls, but whoever it is knows that I have a mom and a son. Maybe it’s one of the officers or maybe it’s someone on the outside who is mad because I got off Death Row. But they do know I have a mom and a son. I don’t understand…”
“Well, whoever it was, we know that it was a female, and we did hear children in the background.”
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. Why would my family give up their lives to do something like that?”
“Don’t worry about it, Pam. It will all work out.”
On Tuesday, they packaged me up and moved me from Hilltop into the Mountain View Unit and into their Ad Seg. Printed on the card outside my cell: “Transient Pending Investigation.” For ten days, I could not see my family, no one. And Warden Page of the Mountain View Unit kept telling my family and me that everything would be all right. Finally, Christina reached her ignition point and called the Warden early that Friday.
“This is preposterous. You haven’t even questioned her son or me in this matter. You either charge her or let her up from Ad Seg, or you can expect a lawsuit on your desk Monday morning.”
At five o’clock that evening, they released me into the general population—no comments, no explanation. I have never heard another word about the Great Escape, nor has any of my family.
About a month later, the mark of Cain appeared again. My supervisor, several others, and I were painting the walls of the visiting room. The door was locked. When a pair of handheld garden shears turned up missing from a crew working outside, the unit went into a lockdown that continued for four days. During this period, the warden called me into her office and said, “Because of the incident at Hilltop, did you take the hand clippers and were you going to try to use them to get out?”
“Come on,” I said. “Now, what would I do with a pair of hand clippers? Where would I go with them?”
“I know it sounds crazy, Pam, but I have to ask you this question because of what you recently went through over at Hilltop.”
“No, ma’am, I did not take the hand clippers,” and a few days later, they found the clippers where the yard girl had left them. For several years, when something went wrong it was pick on Pam; she must have done it.
CHAPTER 24
In addition to constant harassment in my new environment, I endured another type of unexpected adjustment: noise. Whereas I had been in a private cell with a few other inmates on Death Row, I was now housed in a dormitory with thirty-four other women. We each had an open-top cubicle containing a bed with a table attached to it. It was frightening. I couldn’t sleep with all these other people around me. For almost twenty years, I had been more or less alone. A background roar rumbled through the partitions nonstop, day and night, 24/7. Not the soothing sound such as that from a fan or air conditioner, no sleep-inducing hum; no, this motor had a huge megaphone attached that randomly blared out screams and yells, pleas for mercy, and most frequently, curse words. A women’s prison dorm is a different sort of village.
***
By 2004, the State of Texas tightened its coils in preparation to strike Frances Elaine Newton, the last of the three who began Death Row with me. The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole recommended their customary 120-day stay of execution to Governor Rick Perry, who on the next day signed the executive order for the stay. This reprieve stressed the need for an additional ballistic analysis on the alleged murder weapon and a review of the nitrates (gunshot residue or fertilizer) on the hem of Frances’ skirt. The first question, which still remains to date: Why did police wait two weeks to arrest Frances when the second day after the murder the Houston Police Department Crime Lab had confirmed that the gun hidden in Frances’ blue bag was indeed the murder weapon? Most feel that Sgt. J.J. Freeze’s testimony stating that he heard of a second gun might have been responsible. Sgt. Freeze also told Frances’ father that t
hey would release Frances because the ballistic test did not implicate her. The second gun (never recovered), coupled with Sgt. Freeze’s refusal to talk to counsel for Frances, still leaves a dark cloud over this one of two pieces of circumstantial evidence.
On the other piece of “evidence,” the state originally used a destructive test to determine nitrates per se, thereby preventing the defense from using a test that would differentiate between gunshot residue and fertilizer. It was noted that Frances’ daughter had contact with fertilizer from her uncle’s garden and could have transferred the nitrates to the hem of Frances’ dress—certainly consistent with the hugging action of a twenty-one-month-old girl. As also noted earlier, Frances would have had to have shot her family with her hands on the floor. Procedures were available at that time to make a differential in nitrates, but HPD decided not to use them. They also placed the skirt in the same evidence box with the victims’ clothing, thus introducing cross-contamination.
The stay of execution for Frances was only that, a paper stay. An execution date was set for September 14, 2005. A writ of habeas corpus and a motion for a stay of execution were then filed in the 263rd Judicial District Court of Harris County in May 2005 and subsequently denied.
Two days before Frances’ scheduled execution, the Texas Board of Pardons(132) voted 7–0 to deny her request for a commutation to life imprisonment. Like Betty Lou Beets, Frances made no final statement and refused a request for a last meal. I understand that to the end, Frances expected to receive clemency. There is no doubt in my mind that she was innocent. Those who oppose the death penalty do so for many reasons. The first and primary reason was embodied in Frances Newton: murdering the innocent. I did not get to see Frances before she left. Warden Baggett was no longer there, and the new warden, Nance, would not allow me to visit her.
On the day they executed Frances, I was working in maintenance, the day’s task consisting of digging a large hole because of a broken water pipe. Early September is still summer in Texas; fall doesn’t start until months later and is a brief respite at best. The temperature reached the mid-nineties that afternoon. When I got off work at four, I returned to my dorm. After a shower, I just lay on my bed and prayed. I did not eat dinner. I did not listen to the news. I did not want to hear about Frances’ passing. At the customary 6 p.m. deadline, they injected the poison. I am sure the media reported that she coughed once, closed her eyes, and died peacefully, but that is their interpretation. No one knows how peaceful it was. I’ll ask Frances when I see her again.
Shortly after 6 p.m. that September 14, 2005, Warden Nance and Chaplain Nelson came to the dorm and asked me to step outside. Chaplain Nelson did most of the talking: “Pamela, we stopped by to let you know that the execution went as planned. I am sure she now rests in the arms of Jesus. We felt it better to let you know this personally rather than hear it from another source.” I thanked them. It helped.
I understand that there were the usual for-and-against protests in Huntsville but with a much, much smaller crowd than that for Karla Faye. Executing women had now become a sort of ho-hum affair as the State of Texas “pharoahed” its heart to become super tough on crime. It was just the same as any other day in the general population. Few of the inmates even knew who Frances Newton was. But I knew her, and I anguished over why God had taken Karla Faye, Betty Lou, and now Frances instead of me. She was the third female executed since the Civil War and the third of those who had been with me for almost twenty years on Death Row. Who will take joy in her sweet gentle spirit? Maybe that is why God took her home to be with Him.
This handwritten note was on the back of her picture, below, in flowing script:
Frances Elaine McLemore Newton
To Pam:
God has a purpose for us all; sometimes that purpose is not revealed to us. Even so, we have to press on and glorify Him each day. Some days are harder than others, but I know that if we keep our focus on Him, He will sustain us in all of our ways.
Running for Jesus,
Frances
CHAPTER 25
At the end of 2009, I applied for the Faith-Based Dorm program. The Faith-Based Dorm was the inspiration of Karla Faye Tucker. She had a dream whereby inmates could come together and share the love of Jesus in a separate dormitory. The dorm was reserved not for just those who had found Christ, but also for those who were searching. The chaplain at Mountain View asked Linda Strom(133) to head this newly created program. I interviewed with Linda in the Chapel of Hope and within a week moved into the program.
The Faith-Based Dorm program lasts eighteen months. At the end of the program, there is a graduation ceremony and a certificate of completion. It is an excellent program. The dorm is similar in layout to the general-population dorms. There are cubicles for fifty-six inmates. They follow the same rules and regulations, except there is a mandatory quiet time from noon to 2 p.m. Everyone returns to their cubicle and there is no talking, no music playing, just silence—the only location on the whole compound where there is ever pure peace and quiet. It is such a blessing. One may pray, read her Bible, or meditate in “…the peace of God, which passeth all understanding…”(134) In the evening, one of the inmates gives a devotional. The devotional leader moves daily from bed number one to the next bed in line until all fifty-six have ministered, and then it begins anew. The devotional lasts from fifteen to twenty minutes, and the person may give a testimony, read from the Bible, or share a faith-based moment in her life. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, volunteers from the outside present Bible studies such as those from Dr. Henry Blackaby(135) and videos from Dr. David Jeremiah.(136)
On Sundays, two services are held in the chapel, morning and evening, with mandatory attendance. When you graduate, you have a firm foundation in Christ, good Biblical knowledge, and meaningful fellowship with others. Further information appears in a live interview by CBN.(137) If you look closely, you can see me in several frames.
Also, note the two remarkable things that glisten in this video: the spirit-filled eyes of the believers and the perspiration on their faces. The Faith-Based Dorm, like that of the general population, is not air-conditioned.
God speaks to us. He speaks to us in a jillion different ways: directly, such as in the Garden of Eden, to appearing in dreams to Joseph, both of these in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, in a blinding vision to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.(138) God speaks to each of us differently according to the makeup of our soul and according to our needs. One of His ways that I treasure most is through dreams. One knows when a dream is from God because it is not the average snippet, the little pieces of anxiety or old memories we receive every so often. And though such mundane dreams may seem very real, we know they are but earthly; spiritual dreams are on a much higher plane. They always remain a hundred percent intact in our memory. You immediately know the difference—the lighting is supernatural, the location is somewhere far from dreamland, and the voices penetrate your deepest being to an indescribable extent. This dream is one from God that I will treasure to my last breath:
My dad, who passed away in 1987, and I were in a room where there wasn’t any furniture except two straight-backed, wooden chairs. Everything was white—the chairs, the room, everything, a bright white, an indescribable white—white that was transparent with every color and shade hidden within, a white that was shiny and haloed, a white that only God could create. Dad told me that he loved me, and I told him that I loved him also. He asked for my forgiveness, which I readily offered. Then we hugged each other, and I could feel the tears on both our faces. As our contact faded, I awoke. I have never experienced such joy and peace.
***
After I graduated from the Faith-Based program, I entered the service dog program. The program is called Patriot PAWS Service Dogs and is based in Rockwall, Texas, just east across Lake Ray Hubbard from Dallas.(139) In addition to their many other trainers, inmates from
the Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville also train service dogs. The dogs assist disabled American veterans and others with physical and emotional disabilities, such as those who have lost limbs and those who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). For the physically disabled, we teach the dogs to get emergency help, retrieve items, open and close doors, and even pull a wheelchair. For PTSD and TBI, what better service could a dog provide than being man’s best friend? When the dogs graduate from the inmate-training program, they are presented to the veteran, usually in a ceremony at the location where the dogs were trained. At this ceremony, the dogs and their new owner choose each other. It is amazing to see how they instinctively match up. And the dogs know the difference between their new owners and us, their trainers. This is obvious by their expressions and response to commands. The emotion shown by these heroes who are missing limbs and hurting, as well as the emotions shown by the trainers—that passion is overwhelming. Neither the trainers nor the veterans ever have dry eyes.
I have always loved animals, and this is my way of giving back to the world from which I took so much. I will always be most grateful to Lori Stevens, the founder and executive director of Patriot Paws, and to all the Rockwall, Texas, trainers for giving me the life-changing opportunity to participate in their program.
I still participate in the Faith-Based Dorm program. I go to their graduations, to the reunions of former graduates, and to the baptisms. I reside in the general-population dorm. There are many other programs for Christians at Mountain View, such as Kairos.
One should interpret kairos (140) as God’s special time when a person reflects upon the past and the future and his opportunity to know the Kingdom of God, that special moment during an indeterminate interval in unbounded time when God’s salvation enters one’s heart and soul.
Salvation on Death Row Page 17