I originally posted what you see below on this blog in October of 2006, after I witnessed the execution of Jeffrey Lundgren at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. After hearing Ken Robinson's reports on the execution of Frank Spisak, I thought it worthwhile to kind of add my own "two cents worth" on what it's like to witness an execution.
Update on my medical condition. You can read more in the blog entries below, but I have a surgery at Cleveland Clinic on Thursday, February 24 to restore the function of the left side of my mouth. Still planning to be back on the air Monday, March 7.
On Tuesday, October 24, 2006, I had closure on one of the most unusual, spectacular and gruesome stories that I have dealt with in nearly 30 years of being a radio news reporter and anchor. I witnessed the execution of Jeffrey Lundgren, the leader of what has commonly become known as the “Kirtland Cult”, even though that name unfairly degrades the community of Kirtland. What follows is a chronicle of that day. I decided to write it as sort of a catharsis, and so that I could share this unique experience.
Years ago, when I was a reporter for 1300 WERE, we learned on the evening of January 3, 1990, that police, the FBI and prosecutors were out at a farm on U.S. 6 in Kirtland, digging up the floor of the barn. This was being done because of a tip given to federal agents from a member of a group that had lived in the farmhouse up until the previous spring. That night, they found the body of Dennis Avery. I wasn’t on duty that night, but the next morning, I was sent to that farm. Additional searching was to go on that day, and that’s when the bodies of Dennis’ wife Cheryl would be found, along with their daughters, Karen, Rebecca and Trina. I was gone from the farm by then, as it was time for another reporter shift.
I was there, though, when then-prosecutor Steve LaTourette, Kirtland police chief Dennis Yarborough and others announced that Jeffrey Lundgren, his wife Alice, and their son Damon, had been arrested in southern California. They were taken before a judge in San Diego, and extradited to Ohio.
Later that year, all three Lundgrens were put on trial, along with 10 other members of the cult. I covered portions of most of the trials. I shared coverage of the trials of Jeffrey, Alice and Damon along with reporters from five other radio stations, none of which were co-owned; we’d each cover the trial for a half-day, then drive our tape back to Cleveland, cut it up, and feed it to the other stations, either via telephone, or through the dedicated lines used for their traffic reports. The trial of Jeffrey Lundgren is the one that I’ll remember the most, in part because of the graphic nature of the testimony, but mainly due to the five-hour unsworn statement that Jeffrey gave to the jury during the sentencing phase of his trial.
He went on and on, quoting from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, saying he was justified for killing the Averys, and that as a prophet of God, he was not worthy of the death penalty. The jury, however, did not agree, and recommended that Jeffrey D. Lundgren be put to death. Lake County Common Pleas Judge Martin Parks followed the jury’s recommendation, and set execution for April 17, 1991, two years to the date after he killed the Averys. As we know, that date was pushed back to October 24, 2006, due to numerous appeals. Those appeals ran out just before 9:00 a.m. on October 24.
When I went to bed on October 23, we were still waiting to see if the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would overturn a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost, who ruled that Jeffrey Lundgren’s execution should be stayed so that he could join a suit filed by other death row inmates, challenging the use of lethal injection by the State of Ohio. Just before 11 that evening, I got a call from Carmen Angelo in the WTAM 1100 newsroom that the appeals court had overturned Judge Frost’s ruling. That meant there were only two more “outs” for Jeffrey Lundgren. Governor Taft could recommend clemency, and of course, the U.S. Supreme Court could send the Court of Appeals decision back for further review. Knowing there was a better chance that the execution would go on, I went back to sleep, and planned to wake up in enough time to make the three-and-a-half hour drive to Lucasville.
I arrived at 7:15 a.m. on the 24th at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville along with other reporters. Channels 3, 5, 8 and 19 all were represented, as were The Plain Dealer, The News-Herald, The Associated Press, WCMH-TV of Columbus and a local radio station from Portsmouth, Ohio. Also present was a documentary producer from the Discovery Channel, who was gathering information on a proposed series on cult and cult leaders.
Five of us from the media were scheduled to actually witness the execution; two were “pool reporters”, and three were “media witnesses”. I was chosen by the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (DRC) as the radio pool reporter, while Fox 8 had been chosen by the DRC to assign one of its reporters to be the TV pool reporter. Reporter/Anchor Kevin Freeman had been given that assignment. Our job as pool reporters was to not only witness the execution, but to also go before the other media people after the execution, and report to them on what I had seen. Maggi Martin of The Plain Dealer, Tracy Read of The News-Herald and John McCarthy of The Associated Press witnessed the execution to be able to file reports on it to their respective media (under DRC guidelines, the AP is entitled to send a reporter to witness each execution; the other two “media witness” slots are given to reporters from the largest newspaper from the county where the crime was committed, and the largest metropolitan daily paper in that part of the state).
At 8:40 that morning, Andrea Dean of the DRC came into the media room to brief us. She informed us that Governor Taft had denied clemency. In late September, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority voted 8-0 against recommending clemency for Lundgren, so the governor’s decision was no surprise. Andrea told us, though, that we were still possibly in for a long day, as Jeffrey Lundgren’s lawyers had indeed filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, and Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro had filed counter-motions, so there was no way of knowing when we’d hear from Washington. The execution was set for 10:00 a.m., but the death warrant was good until midnight, so we could, in theory, be there for another 15 hours. Andrea wrapped up the media briefing by telling us that Lundgren had eaten the standard breakfast for inmates, which included Rice Krispies, pancakes, fruit juice, coffee and milk, and that he was meeting with the prison’s religious advisor. His attorneys were not on the prison grounds, but they’d have access to Lundgren as soon as they arrived.
Andrea finished that briefing, left the room briefly, and then came back in to inform us that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied the motion from Lundgren’s attorneys, so the execution would go on as scheduled. That meant that I and four other media people would indeed, in less than two hours, see Jeffrey Lundgren put to death, in order to carry out, as Steve LaTourette would later say, was the sentence imposed by “twelve good men and women of Lake County”.
Was I nervous? Of course I was. We all were, even the reporters who were simply going to sit in the media center and wait for Kevin and myself to tell them what happened in that small building in the middle of the prison compound. That’s when you hear a lot of nervous laughter, and sometimes tasteless jokes. That’s often how we in the media deal with the reality of the tragedy on which we report.
I did a couple more reports for WTAM 1100 on what was happening down here. Getting to the outside world was difficult, as my cell phone didn’t work inside the prison, and the direct-dial phones that were provided for us only worked using calling cards, so I relied a lot on R.C. Bauer and Steve Gatins calling me from Cleveland on one of those prison-provided phones.
Shortly before 10, Kevin, Maggi, Tracy, John and I were gathered together. We were told to take everything out of our pockets (standard procedure for people going into areas where inmates are). We were given steno pads, pen and pencils, which we could take in to the witness room. Andrea and another staff member of the DRC then escorted us out of the main prison building, across a courtyard, and into the “death house”. On the way, we passed the hearse that was waiting to take Jeffrey Lundgren’s body. Since no family member would claim his body, he would be buried at the cemetery adjacent to the state prison at Chillicothe.
We walked up five steps into the building, to the right, and into the witness room. There are actually two witness rooms, separated by a wall and a door. Witnesses for the victims usually sit and stand in the room the right, and witnesses for the inmate are usually in the room to the left. Since there were no witnesses for Lundgren (even his attorneys were not present), the three chairs in there were taken by Maggi, Tracy and John. Kevin and I stood in the area reserved for the victim witnesses. Shortly after we came in to the witness room, the other witnesses were led in. They were: Congressman Steve LaTourette, who as mentioned before, was Lake County Prosecutor at the time of the murders; current Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson; Donald Bailey, younger brother of Cheryl Avery; and two women who serve as victim advocates in Lake County. The victim advocates took two of the three chairs, while the rest of us stood behind them. The witness rooms are separated from the death chamber by windows, through which the inmate can hear and see the witnesses, and vice versa.
At 10:01 a.m., closed circuit TV monitors were turned on. From above his bed, we could see Jeffrey Lundgren, still in his holding cell, lying there as DRC staff prepared him to put the shunts in his arms through which the lethal cocktail of drugs would be fed into his veins. When the video monitor came on, one of the victim advocates said, “that’s it, buddy.”
Lundgren stared straight upward during the entire procedure. He was completely expressionless. I kept watching the monitors to see if there were any change, and there was not. In the witness room, Donald Bailey said, “they’re having trouble finding a vein.” Charles Coulson responded by saying “no nurse has ever been that gentle with me.” Bailey’s response was, “they need a nurse; they do a better job.” My thought was that the whole procedure didn’t seem all that much different from the times that I’ve donated blood to the Red Cross.
By 10:10 a.m., the shunts were placed in both of Lundgren’s arms, and the medical technicians were using tape to secure them to his arms. At 10:13, Lundgren got up from the bed, and walked the 17 steps into the death chamber, where he lay down on the table, to be secured with Velcro straps, and then, the IV tubes which would carry the lethal mix of chemicals into his bloodstream were inserted into the shunts. Seven DRC staffers were in the death chamber, along with Warden Edwin Voorhies. During all of this, Lundgren continued to look straight up toward the ceiling, as he did in the holding cell. He did not look at the witnesses, he did not look at the warden or the DRC staffers.
When Warden Voorhies took a microphone and asked Lundgren if he had a final statement, he said, “For my last words, I’d like to profess my love for God, my family, my children and my beloved wife, Kathryn. I am because you are.” Personally, I was stunned, because Lundgren said so much during the sentencing hearing at his trial (remember, he went on for five hours) but said so little when it was his chance to make his final statement on Earth.
After the final statement, the warden put the microphone back in its holder, then stood next to the injection table. The IV tubes were full of saline solution. At about 10:16, upon a secret signal from the warden, an unseen technician behind one-way glass in another room began the flow of three chemicals into the IV tubes. Sodium Pentothal would put Lundgren to sleep. Pancuronium Bromide would collapse Lundgren’s lungs. Potassium Chloride would stop his heart.
I noticed that for the first couple of minutes, Lundgren continued to blink his eyes. Then, they began to flutter, and eventually close. This meant he was asleep. Kevin Freeman noticed that a bit later, Lundgren’s chest rose up and down with his breathing, but eventually stopped. All of us in the witness room just watched and waited. Donald Bailey had taken up a position standing next to the glass, hoping that Lundgren would look over, but Lundgren never did.
At 10:25, a curtain was pulled across the glass. It is during this time that a doctor examined Lundgren to make sure there were no signs of life. After the doctor concluded that Lundgren was indeed dead, the curtain was pulled back at 10:27. Warden Voorhies took the microphone and announced to the witnesses that Jeffrey Lundgren had been pronounced dead at 10:26 a.m., October 24, 2006. The curtain was again pulled back across the glass, and the media witnesses were led out of the room.
My first impression upon walking outside the death house, and back toward the main prison building was the brightness of the sky. The witness rooms and the death chamber were dimly lit, so even though the day was cloudy, it seemed to me as if it were a sunny day. As we walked back to the main building, Andrea asked all of us if we were okay. She pointed out that even though, as part of her job, she has witnessed more than 20 executions, she still feels the need to talk to someone. She offered to let us, as individuals, talk to the prison’s religious advisor, and also offered to let us call her in the coming days.
After entering the main prison and returning to the media center, the next order of business was to face the other members of the media. First, Andrea went to the podium to make the formal announcement of the time of death. Then, it was my turn. Mike O’Mara from Channel 3 had flipped a coin before we went to witness the execution. I won the toss (or lost it, depending on your perspective), so I went first. The two of us stood at the podium, looked at the cameras, and relayed back to our fellow media members what you have already read here. A few minutes later, Steve LaTourette and Donald Bailey made brief statements and answered some questions.
After calling back to Cleveland, and doing some Q and A with Darren Toms (portions of which we fed to Fox News Radio and other Clear Channel stations, so that my voice was on all over the country), I packed up, and went out to my car. When my cell phone worked again, I discovered a message from Ohio Public Radio. I did an interview with their Bill Cohen about what I heard and saw. Then, it was time to head home.
As soon I pulled my car out of the prison parking lot and onto Route 728, I immediately noticed the beauty of the landscape. The changing color of the leaves and the rolling hills left a big impression in my mind. Maybe seeing all of nature’s beauty that morning was a sign. What that sign was, I still don’t know.
As I drove north on U.S. 23, I was on the phone with my wife for quite a while. She is a talker, but she also wanted to hear about what I had experienced (albeit in not too much detail). She wanted to make sure that I was okay. I assured her that I was. In my mind, what I had just witnessed seemed to be no more innocuous than watching a man fall asleep. But in this case, I also knew that the man in question would never wake up. The image in my mind came about in part because Jeffrey Lundgren seemingly went willingly to his death. He didn’t resist. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t complain. He just lay back and let the drugs do their thing. The man who ruled his cult with so much bluster, and who was so defiant in that Lake County courtroom all those years ago, went out with a whimper.
As I write my last personal chapter in the story of Jeffrey Lundgren, I close with the question: did I do the right thing by agreeing to witness his execution, and then talk about it? On a professional basis, the answer is yes. On a personal basis, I also think the answer is yes. Why is that? I think seeing a man die before your eyes can help reinforce your belief in life, and help you remember that life is precious. It’s not something to be thrown away.
Update on my medical condition. You can read more in the blog entries below, but I have a surgery at Cleveland Clinic on Thursday, February 24 to restore the function of the left side of my mouth. Still planning to be back on the air Monday, March 7.
On Tuesday, October 24, 2006, I had closure on one of the most unusual, spectacular and gruesome stories that I have dealt with in nearly 30 years of being a radio news reporter and anchor. I witnessed the execution of Jeffrey Lundgren, the leader of what has commonly become known as the “Kirtland Cult”, even though that name unfairly degrades the community of Kirtland. What follows is a chronicle of that day. I decided to write it as sort of a catharsis, and so that I could share this unique experience.
Years ago, when I was a reporter for 1300 WERE, we learned on the evening of January 3, 1990, that police, the FBI and prosecutors were out at a farm on U.S. 6 in Kirtland, digging up the floor of the barn. This was being done because of a tip given to federal agents from a member of a group that had lived in the farmhouse up until the previous spring. That night, they found the body of Dennis Avery. I wasn’t on duty that night, but the next morning, I was sent to that farm. Additional searching was to go on that day, and that’s when the bodies of Dennis’ wife Cheryl would be found, along with their daughters, Karen, Rebecca and Trina. I was gone from the farm by then, as it was time for another reporter shift.
I was there, though, when then-prosecutor Steve LaTourette, Kirtland police chief Dennis Yarborough and others announced that Jeffrey Lundgren, his wife Alice, and their son Damon, had been arrested in southern California. They were taken before a judge in San Diego, and extradited to Ohio.
Later that year, all three Lundgrens were put on trial, along with 10 other members of the cult. I covered portions of most of the trials. I shared coverage of the trials of Jeffrey, Alice and Damon along with reporters from five other radio stations, none of which were co-owned; we’d each cover the trial for a half-day, then drive our tape back to Cleveland, cut it up, and feed it to the other stations, either via telephone, or through the dedicated lines used for their traffic reports. The trial of Jeffrey Lundgren is the one that I’ll remember the most, in part because of the graphic nature of the testimony, but mainly due to the five-hour unsworn statement that Jeffrey gave to the jury during the sentencing phase of his trial.
He went on and on, quoting from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, saying he was justified for killing the Averys, and that as a prophet of God, he was not worthy of the death penalty. The jury, however, did not agree, and recommended that Jeffrey D. Lundgren be put to death. Lake County Common Pleas Judge Martin Parks followed the jury’s recommendation, and set execution for April 17, 1991, two years to the date after he killed the Averys. As we know, that date was pushed back to October 24, 2006, due to numerous appeals. Those appeals ran out just before 9:00 a.m. on October 24.
When I went to bed on October 23, we were still waiting to see if the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would overturn a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost, who ruled that Jeffrey Lundgren’s execution should be stayed so that he could join a suit filed by other death row inmates, challenging the use of lethal injection by the State of Ohio. Just before 11 that evening, I got a call from Carmen Angelo in the WTAM 1100 newsroom that the appeals court had overturned Judge Frost’s ruling. That meant there were only two more “outs” for Jeffrey Lundgren. Governor Taft could recommend clemency, and of course, the U.S. Supreme Court could send the Court of Appeals decision back for further review. Knowing there was a better chance that the execution would go on, I went back to sleep, and planned to wake up in enough time to make the three-and-a-half hour drive to Lucasville.
I arrived at 7:15 a.m. on the 24th at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville along with other reporters. Channels 3, 5, 8 and 19 all were represented, as were The Plain Dealer, The News-Herald, The Associated Press, WCMH-TV of Columbus and a local radio station from Portsmouth, Ohio. Also present was a documentary producer from the Discovery Channel, who was gathering information on a proposed series on cult and cult leaders.
Five of us from the media were scheduled to actually witness the execution; two were “pool reporters”, and three were “media witnesses”. I was chosen by the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (DRC) as the radio pool reporter, while Fox 8 had been chosen by the DRC to assign one of its reporters to be the TV pool reporter. Reporter/Anchor Kevin Freeman had been given that assignment. Our job as pool reporters was to not only witness the execution, but to also go before the other media people after the execution, and report to them on what I had seen. Maggi Martin of The Plain Dealer, Tracy Read of The News-Herald and John McCarthy of The Associated Press witnessed the execution to be able to file reports on it to their respective media (under DRC guidelines, the AP is entitled to send a reporter to witness each execution; the other two “media witness” slots are given to reporters from the largest newspaper from the county where the crime was committed, and the largest metropolitan daily paper in that part of the state).
At 8:40 that morning, Andrea Dean of the DRC came into the media room to brief us. She informed us that Governor Taft had denied clemency. In late September, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority voted 8-0 against recommending clemency for Lundgren, so the governor’s decision was no surprise. Andrea told us, though, that we were still possibly in for a long day, as Jeffrey Lundgren’s lawyers had indeed filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, and Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro had filed counter-motions, so there was no way of knowing when we’d hear from Washington. The execution was set for 10:00 a.m., but the death warrant was good until midnight, so we could, in theory, be there for another 15 hours. Andrea wrapped up the media briefing by telling us that Lundgren had eaten the standard breakfast for inmates, which included Rice Krispies, pancakes, fruit juice, coffee and milk, and that he was meeting with the prison’s religious advisor. His attorneys were not on the prison grounds, but they’d have access to Lundgren as soon as they arrived.
Andrea finished that briefing, left the room briefly, and then came back in to inform us that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied the motion from Lundgren’s attorneys, so the execution would go on as scheduled. That meant that I and four other media people would indeed, in less than two hours, see Jeffrey Lundgren put to death, in order to carry out, as Steve LaTourette would later say, was the sentence imposed by “twelve good men and women of Lake County”.
Was I nervous? Of course I was. We all were, even the reporters who were simply going to sit in the media center and wait for Kevin and myself to tell them what happened in that small building in the middle of the prison compound. That’s when you hear a lot of nervous laughter, and sometimes tasteless jokes. That’s often how we in the media deal with the reality of the tragedy on which we report.
I did a couple more reports for WTAM 1100 on what was happening down here. Getting to the outside world was difficult, as my cell phone didn’t work inside the prison, and the direct-dial phones that were provided for us only worked using calling cards, so I relied a lot on R.C. Bauer and Steve Gatins calling me from Cleveland on one of those prison-provided phones.
Shortly before 10, Kevin, Maggi, Tracy, John and I were gathered together. We were told to take everything out of our pockets (standard procedure for people going into areas where inmates are). We were given steno pads, pen and pencils, which we could take in to the witness room. Andrea and another staff member of the DRC then escorted us out of the main prison building, across a courtyard, and into the “death house”. On the way, we passed the hearse that was waiting to take Jeffrey Lundgren’s body. Since no family member would claim his body, he would be buried at the cemetery adjacent to the state prison at Chillicothe.
We walked up five steps into the building, to the right, and into the witness room. There are actually two witness rooms, separated by a wall and a door. Witnesses for the victims usually sit and stand in the room the right, and witnesses for the inmate are usually in the room to the left. Since there were no witnesses for Lundgren (even his attorneys were not present), the three chairs in there were taken by Maggi, Tracy and John. Kevin and I stood in the area reserved for the victim witnesses. Shortly after we came in to the witness room, the other witnesses were led in. They were: Congressman Steve LaTourette, who as mentioned before, was Lake County Prosecutor at the time of the murders; current Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson; Donald Bailey, younger brother of Cheryl Avery; and two women who serve as victim advocates in Lake County. The victim advocates took two of the three chairs, while the rest of us stood behind them. The witness rooms are separated from the death chamber by windows, through which the inmate can hear and see the witnesses, and vice versa.
At 10:01 a.m., closed circuit TV monitors were turned on. From above his bed, we could see Jeffrey Lundgren, still in his holding cell, lying there as DRC staff prepared him to put the shunts in his arms through which the lethal cocktail of drugs would be fed into his veins. When the video monitor came on, one of the victim advocates said, “that’s it, buddy.”
Lundgren stared straight upward during the entire procedure. He was completely expressionless. I kept watching the monitors to see if there were any change, and there was not. In the witness room, Donald Bailey said, “they’re having trouble finding a vein.” Charles Coulson responded by saying “no nurse has ever been that gentle with me.” Bailey’s response was, “they need a nurse; they do a better job.” My thought was that the whole procedure didn’t seem all that much different from the times that I’ve donated blood to the Red Cross.
By 10:10 a.m., the shunts were placed in both of Lundgren’s arms, and the medical technicians were using tape to secure them to his arms. At 10:13, Lundgren got up from the bed, and walked the 17 steps into the death chamber, where he lay down on the table, to be secured with Velcro straps, and then, the IV tubes which would carry the lethal mix of chemicals into his bloodstream were inserted into the shunts. Seven DRC staffers were in the death chamber, along with Warden Edwin Voorhies. During all of this, Lundgren continued to look straight up toward the ceiling, as he did in the holding cell. He did not look at the witnesses, he did not look at the warden or the DRC staffers.
When Warden Voorhies took a microphone and asked Lundgren if he had a final statement, he said, “For my last words, I’d like to profess my love for God, my family, my children and my beloved wife, Kathryn. I am because you are.” Personally, I was stunned, because Lundgren said so much during the sentencing hearing at his trial (remember, he went on for five hours) but said so little when it was his chance to make his final statement on Earth.
After the final statement, the warden put the microphone back in its holder, then stood next to the injection table. The IV tubes were full of saline solution. At about 10:16, upon a secret signal from the warden, an unseen technician behind one-way glass in another room began the flow of three chemicals into the IV tubes. Sodium Pentothal would put Lundgren to sleep. Pancuronium Bromide would collapse Lundgren’s lungs. Potassium Chloride would stop his heart.
I noticed that for the first couple of minutes, Lundgren continued to blink his eyes. Then, they began to flutter, and eventually close. This meant he was asleep. Kevin Freeman noticed that a bit later, Lundgren’s chest rose up and down with his breathing, but eventually stopped. All of us in the witness room just watched and waited. Donald Bailey had taken up a position standing next to the glass, hoping that Lundgren would look over, but Lundgren never did.
At 10:25, a curtain was pulled across the glass. It is during this time that a doctor examined Lundgren to make sure there were no signs of life. After the doctor concluded that Lundgren was indeed dead, the curtain was pulled back at 10:27. Warden Voorhies took the microphone and announced to the witnesses that Jeffrey Lundgren had been pronounced dead at 10:26 a.m., October 24, 2006. The curtain was again pulled back across the glass, and the media witnesses were led out of the room.
My first impression upon walking outside the death house, and back toward the main prison building was the brightness of the sky. The witness rooms and the death chamber were dimly lit, so even though the day was cloudy, it seemed to me as if it were a sunny day. As we walked back to the main building, Andrea asked all of us if we were okay. She pointed out that even though, as part of her job, she has witnessed more than 20 executions, she still feels the need to talk to someone. She offered to let us, as individuals, talk to the prison’s religious advisor, and also offered to let us call her in the coming days.
After entering the main prison and returning to the media center, the next order of business was to face the other members of the media. First, Andrea went to the podium to make the formal announcement of the time of death. Then, it was my turn. Mike O’Mara from Channel 3 had flipped a coin before we went to witness the execution. I won the toss (or lost it, depending on your perspective), so I went first. The two of us stood at the podium, looked at the cameras, and relayed back to our fellow media members what you have already read here. A few minutes later, Steve LaTourette and Donald Bailey made brief statements and answered some questions.
After calling back to Cleveland, and doing some Q and A with Darren Toms (portions of which we fed to Fox News Radio and other Clear Channel stations, so that my voice was on all over the country), I packed up, and went out to my car. When my cell phone worked again, I discovered a message from Ohio Public Radio. I did an interview with their Bill Cohen about what I heard and saw. Then, it was time to head home.
As soon I pulled my car out of the prison parking lot and onto Route 728, I immediately noticed the beauty of the landscape. The changing color of the leaves and the rolling hills left a big impression in my mind. Maybe seeing all of nature’s beauty that morning was a sign. What that sign was, I still don’t know.
As I drove north on U.S. 23, I was on the phone with my wife for quite a while. She is a talker, but she also wanted to hear about what I had experienced (albeit in not too much detail). She wanted to make sure that I was okay. I assured her that I was. In my mind, what I had just witnessed seemed to be no more innocuous than watching a man fall asleep. But in this case, I also knew that the man in question would never wake up. The image in my mind came about in part because Jeffrey Lundgren seemingly went willingly to his death. He didn’t resist. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t complain. He just lay back and let the drugs do their thing. The man who ruled his cult with so much bluster, and who was so defiant in that Lake County courtroom all those years ago, went out with a whimper.
As I write my last personal chapter in the story of Jeffrey Lundgren, I close with the question: did I do the right thing by agreeing to witness his execution, and then talk about it? On a professional basis, the answer is yes. On a personal basis, I also think the answer is yes. Why is that? I think seeing a man die before your eyes can help reinforce your belief in life, and help you remember that life is precious. It’s not something to be thrown away.
