The Executioner's Song (131 page)

Schiller heard three shots, expecting four. Gary’s body did not jerk nor the chair move, and Schiller waited for the fourth shot and found out later that two must have come out simultaneously. Noall Wootton tried to look at Gary at that point, but couldn’t see anything from the rear of the crowd and went out the door before anyone else, and straight to his car which was up by Minimum Security, got in it, drove out. There were reporters interviewing people and photographers, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t want to talk to anybody.

Vern just heard a ,e.at big WHAM! When it happened, Gary never raised a finger. Didn t quiver at all. His left hand never moved, and then, after he was shot, his head went forward, but the strap held his head up, and then the right hand slowly rose in the air and slowly went down as if to say, “That did it, gentlemen.” Schiller thought the movement was as delicate as the fingers of a pianist raising his hand before he puts it down on the keys. The blood started to flow through the black shirt and came out onto the white pants and started to drop on the floor between Gary’s legs, and the smell of gunpowder was ew erywhere. Then, the lights went down, and Schiller listened to the blood drip. He was not certain he could hear it drip, but he felt it, and with that blood, the life in Gilmore’s body seemed to lift off him likei smoke. Ron Stanger, feeling dizzy, said to himself, “You’re the only

THE TURKEY SHOOT
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one that’s going to pass out, and it will be embarrassing to end on the ground with all these people here,” and he staggered backward from the force of the contraction in his back, put his arms out, grabbed hold of somebody to steady himself, and turned back to get another look at the body. That was when he saw Gilmore’s right hand lift.

Ron closed his eyes and when he opened them again, the blood was a pool in Gary’s lap, running to his feet and covering his tennis shoes, those crazy red, white and blue tennis shoes he always wore in Maximum. The shoelaces were now blooded over.

A doctor came along with a stethoscope and shook his head. Gilmore wasn’t dead yet.

Ron thought of the day when Gary was in Fagan’s office for a moment, and in that ten seconds Gary was all over his desk like a butterfly. He opened the desk drawer and took out a spoon, and shoelaces, went through everything like a guy leading an orchestra. It was beautiful. Gilmore was a talented thief, after all, and finished just as Fagan said, “Yeah, okay, Joe.” By the time the Lieutenant turned around, old Gary was sitting there calm as a nodding owl, and Stanger on the other side of the glass had his eyes wide open.

Gary made jokes about the shoelaces after that. They were good enough to hang himself by, he would tell Ron, and now the hand that had done the stealing moved up in the air and came down. It could have been pointing at the blood on the shoelaces.

They waited about twenty seconds. Then the doctor went up again, and Father Meersman came up, and Sam Smith, and the doctor put the stethoscope to Gary’s arm once more, turned to Sam, and nodded. Sam Smith unloosened the waist strap, slid Gilmore out from underneath the head strap, and looked behind the body at the shot pattern where the holes came through.

Stanger was furious. The moment Gilmore was shot, everybody should have been walked out, and not served for a party to all this. Even as Sam was examining the body, Gary fell over into .Meersman’s hands. The padre had to hold the head while Sam went fishing all over Gilmore’s back to locate the exit wounds. Blood started com

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ing onto Meersman’s hands, and dripped through his fingers, and Vern began to weep. Then Father Meersman wept. An officer finally came around and said to the people standing behind the line, “Time for you to leave.” Schiller walked out saying to himself, “What have we accomplished? There aren’t going to be less murders.”

. All.the while Father Meersman and Cline Campbell were unbuckling :Gilmore’s arms and legs. Campbell kept thinking of the importance of the eyes. He said to himself, “Why doesn’t somebody move? We’ve got to save the eyes.”

Over at the Warden’s office, just a few minutes earlier, Gordon Richards had received a phone call from an Assistant Clerk in the U.S. Supreme Court, who was saying that the full Court-with Justice Brennan not participating —had just acted on the application for a Stay from the ACLU and had denied it. Richards got a little upset. This Clerk who was named Peter Beck had been told nothing about “Mickey from Wheeling, West Virginia.” Well, did Mr. Beck know, Richards asked, where Mr. Rodak was born and what his nickname was? “Is it Mike?” said Beck. Richards then asked if Mr. Rodak could call him. Before he knew it, he got put on hold. “Hurry, please,” Richards called out to Beck, “it’s crucial.” There he was sitting with unconfirmedinformation from the Supreme Court. So he called out to the prison officials there with him in the Warden’s office, “Tell them to hold at the cannery.” The officials shook their heads, however. The enecution had just been carried out.

Three minutes later, Rodak came on the line. Richards asked for his nicknar6 and his birthplace. The nickname was Mickey, he said, but he had been born in Smock, Pennsylvania.

“Wdaat about West Virginia?” asked Richards. “I was born in Smock,” said Rodak, “but I went to West Virginia. I’m a member of the West Virginia Bar.”

Had he offered this information to Earl Dorius. asked Richards.. Didn’t think so, said Rodak. Finally, he remembered. “Oh, yes, the fellow wanted to make sure that he didn’t get any false calls.” Right. “Is,” asked Rodak, “the execution over yet?”

THE TURKEY SHOOT
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“Wouldn’t it have been horrible,” said Richards to one of the officials, as he hung up, “if that had been simultaneous calls?”

Vern, Bob Moody, Ron Stanger, and Larry Schiller got into a car and drove over to the Administration Building. During that minute, they discussed whether or not to issue a press statement ahead of the Warden.

Stanger said, “I think we ought to. What do you say, Larry?” Schiller replied, “We have no obligation. The first person who gets there is the first person the press will talk to,” and Stanger said, “Let’s beat the Warden to the punch.”

Vern said, “Can you answer questions about the execution, Larry? I don’t want to talk about that.”

The press conference was being held on the second floor of the Administration Building in a large conference chamber that looked like a courtroom. It was already as crowded as the Board of Pardons Hearing, same bedlam of media, cameras and crazy white light, people pushing to get in, close to Too degrees inside. No room to breathe.

Trying to get upstairs, they were buffeted every way. Some TV guy was working with a couple of electric cables in front of Bob Moody, and got so rude about letting Moody pass that Bob just grabbed a male-female connection crossing his path and yanked it apart. The TV man cried out, “My God, I’ve lost power, lost power,” as Moody went by.

When they reached the stage, Schiller said to Vern, “Why don’t you talk first?” and Vern sat on a chair to rest his aching leg.

He did not speak long. “It was very upsetting to me,” Vern said, “but he got his wish, he did die.., and he died in dignity. That’s all I have to say.”

Bob Moody told them: “I think it’s a very brutal, cruel kind.of a thing, that I would only hope that we could take a good and better look at ourselves, our society and our systems. Thank you.”

figure.

QUESTION

SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

iness.

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SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

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den?

SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

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SAM SMITH

we can handle the traffic.

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG THE TURKEY SHOOT
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Ron said, “He was always trying to keep the spirit light because he made the statement he had received a gift, and that gift was he knew he was going to die, and he could make the arrangements and, therefore, he was indeed fortunate. He always said that lae looked forward to the time when he could have quiet, when he cotild meditate, and today, Gary Gilmore has quiet, and he has quiet through eternity.”

Schiller said, “I’m not here to express any of my personal feelings, but after Vern has left, I’ll be more than glad to relate any of the facts anybody here would like to know. I don’t think it would be proper to relay them in Vern’s presence, but I will answer your questions then.” He threw a look around the morn and the only smile that came back was from David Johnston of the L.A, Times and tlae Orem TraveLodge. Then Gus Sorensen gave a wink.

ANNOUNCER FOR THE TV POOL Leaving the platform row are Ron Stanger and Robert Moody, two attorneys who have helped Gary Gilmore in the last couple of months to get the wish that he said he wanted, at that time, that he wanted to die, these men helped to see. that he got there. Also leaving, Vern Damico, Gilmore’S uncle from Provo, Utah, the man who took Gilmore in after he was paroled from a prison. And now, Lawrence Schiller, a literary agent/film-maker who’s been involved in this case for some time.

Dave Johnston, watching Schiller, decided to give points to the guy’s cool. Here, at this press conference with everybody hating his guts for tieing up the story, Schiller was still doing a real rePotter’s job. His adrenalin had to be high enough to make his frame shake, thought Johnston, yet not a quiver was showing.

Schiller spoke of the yellow line and the Mack hood and the black T-shirt Gary was wearing and the white pants, and the shots. “….tSlowly, red Mood emerged from under the Mack T-shirt and onto the white slacks. It seemed to me that his body still had a movertnts for approximately fifteen to twenty seconds, it is not for meto de,termine whether it was an after-death or prior-to-death movement The minister and the doctor proceeded towards Gary,” Schille said, and kept on speaking in slow, dear sentences, trying to make the note-taking easy for tired reporters.

Then it was Sam Smith’s turn

SAM SMITH I have no formal statement. I think Mr. Schiller pretty well covered the detail. I will respond to questions,

What was the official time, Warden?

The official time was 8:07.

How did you give the signal?

I didn’t really give the signal. I indicated all wasin read-

How did you do that?

Just by a motion.

Was there a squad leader?

Yes, there was.

,,- .

Did the squad leader give the signal?

What happened inside of them, I have no knowledge. Who were the forty people present?

Well, I didn’t count the same as Mr. Schiller

But you disagree with his figure of forty, though, War-

Yes, I would definitely disagree with that

How many were there?

Less.

- .

Thirty? Twenty?

I wouldn’t give you an exact number.

Wardenl can we inspect the site now?

As soon as we find out that everything is clear and that

When Sam Smith stepped off, Johnston went up to Schiller and said, “You amaze me. You really are a journalist.”

Schiller got a glint in his eye. Johnston could see the compliment go all the way in. “Yes, it was swell,” said Johnston, “but why did you give it all away?” Larry cocked his head, and got a sly grinlike a .big German shephered who is lolling its tongue. He said, “I didn’t give away anything that mattered.”

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

But he couldn’t keep it in. “Gilmore’s last words,” Schiller con fessed, “were not what I said they were:”

Johnston laughed. He had a feeling there was more to the story. “Larry, there are some,” he said, “who might look on that as a lie.”

“No,” said Schiller, ” ‘Let’s do it’ was the last thing everybody heard,”

Johnston said to himself, “This is one secret he’ll have to tell. He’s like a kid who’ll have to tell one person anyway.”

“Well,” said Larry, and swore him to secrecy, “Gary spoke in Latin to the priest.”

“He did? What were his words?”

“If I knew them, I couldn’t pronounce them,” said Schiller, and gave his sly grin again. “But I’ll find out.”

They drove over together to the execution site. When they got inside the cannery, Schiller couldn’t believe what he now saw. His description of the events had been accurate in every way but one. He had gotten the colors wrong. The black cloth of the blind was not black but blue, the line on the floor was not yellow but white, and the chair was not black, but dark green. He realized that during the ex ecution something had altered in his perception of color.

He left the place of execution a second time with a memory of reporters swarming over the chair, the sandbags and the holes in the mattress, creatures of a’n identical species feeding, all feeding, in the same place, As he went out the door, one man was explaining to another that steel-jacketed bullets had been used so they would make no larger hole in the rear than in the front, which would avoid, thereby, the worst of the mess, and the body jumping from the im pact.

The Fading

of the Heart

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While Earl stood in the corridor, one of the newsmen came running by and said, “Gary Gilmore is dead.” Again, Earl looked out the win dow and saw other newsmen down in the plaza, and the sun shining in Denver, and people going to work. When he came downstairs to the main lobby, Sandy Gilmour of Channel 2 television in Salt Lake asked to interview him, and Earl said, “Yes,” and Gilmour asked him how he felt to be the one to inform the prison that the execution could proceed, and Earl explained his only responsibility was to let them know the Tenth Circuit had overruled Judge Ritter. That was all, he said. He did not feel like discussing the intricacies of his emotion.