ArkansasArkansas on Monday carried out the first double execution in the US in 16 years. Jacob Rosenberg witnessed the murderer Marcel Williams being put to death
At 9.34pm we entered the execution chamber. I passed through a door with a large sign on its front showing two letters, “EC”, and took a seat among a few rows of chairs that faced four large rectangular windows. Some lights were on, but it was mostly dim. A black curtain was drawn behind the windows in front of us.
Behind that curtain, strapped to a gurney in an even smaller room, was Marcel Williams.
In Arkansas, we do not get to see the placement of the IV for lethal injection. So, from the time we entered until the curtain opened, I saw nothing. We just stared forward at those windows, waiting for them to reveal Williams, 46, who was sent to death row for the 1994 rape and killing of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station.
We had done this earlier in the night, when a last-minute stay had us waiting in the chamber for over an hour. During that time, we later learned, Williams had been strapped down on the gurney. Now, as then, with the stay lifted, I simply looked at the black curtain, knowing almost nothing about what was happening to the prisoner.
The curtain created a reflection of the room behind me, like a mirror. I could see other witnesses, and myself, fidget.
At 10.16pm, after 32 minutes of IV placement, the curtain opened.
Light from fluorescent bulbs cast a strange yellow glow in the room in front. Marcel Williams’s eyes looked right up at the ceiling. He was on a gurney, tied down. His head was locked in place and the right side of his body was facing us, the viewers. He said no final words.
At this point, the first lethal injection drug – the controversial sedative midazolam, whose expiration date at the end of this month has prompted Arkansas’s unprecedented wave of judicial killings – was supposed to be administered. No one announced that a drug was being given . The process simply moved along. I watched and tried to follow.
His eyes began to droop and eventually closed (the right one lingered slightly open throughout). His breaths became deep and heavy. His back arched off the gurney as he sucked in air.
I could not count the number of times his body moved in such a way, rising off the gurney.
Procedure dictates that five minutes after the introduction of midazolam there should be no movements. But, at 10.21pm, Williams was still breathing heavily and moving. The man in the room checked his pulse and touched his eyes and said something. (The audio was cut off for us.)
At this point, it is likely another dose of midazolam was given. I cannot be sure it was administered. I was watching him breathe heavily and arch his back and then the breathing began to shallow out. By 10.24pm, Williams looked completely still.
The first consciousness check was clearly at 10.21pm, and then it seems the breathing subsided, but the situation became confusing as the official continually checked Williams by touching his hands and face. At 10.27pm, the official ran a finger across Williams’s eyelids again. Was this the second consciousness check? Did they determine Williams was unconscious? Would the second drug be administered now?
These questions are crucial because the next drug was a paralytic, which stops all movement.
I do not know when the second drug, which would mask all pain, was administered. I did not see the IV placed. The audio was cut so I could not hear whether he was moaning, and I could not see how many times each drug was administered – meaning, even as a witness, I could not say if Marcel Williams felt pain or what happened during his death by the midazolam three-drug protocol.
The process is designed to feed me details as a viewer that suggest peaceful passing. But this will not have been the experience of Marcel Williams.
Protocol ensures that by the time the potassium chloride, which stops the heart and can be excruciatingly painful, is administered, even if the prisoner feels pain, the viewer will not see it. The paralytic is in place.
Near 10.31pm, they switched off the IVs. The man who had been checking for consciousness pulled out a stethoscope and put it to Williams’s heart. He called in a coroner. I remember seeing Williams, there on the gurney, not moving.
And then, the one detail you can’t obfuscate. That nothing can hide. The time of death was 10.33pm.
Jacob Rosenberg is a reporter with the Arkansas Times, which is also publishing a version of this article.
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