excerpt   

...witnessing the hanging of Westley Allan Dodd in Walla Walla on January 4, 1993...

John K. Wiley, an Associated Press writer in Spokane, Washington, filed his first-ever first-person story after witnessing the hanging of Westley Allan Dodd in Walla Walla on January 4, 1993:

I expected it to be gruesome.

Death penalty opponents had gone to court Monday to argue that hanging is barbarous, cruel and unusual punishment. But the quick and clinical way the state put to death child killer Westley Allan Dodd today surprised me.

At 12:02 a.m., a screen in front of a second-floor window in the death chamber was raised and the 31-year-old Dodd spoke his final words, a hard-to-hear message of a last-minute religious conversion.

When Dodd finished, at 12:04 a.m., the screen was dropped and the silhouettes of two hangmen could be seen. One placed the black hood over Dodd's shoulders. The other chewed gum as he placed the noose around Dodd's neck and made it snug behind his left ear.

At 12:05 a.m., the chamber's stillness was broken by the crack of the trapdoor springing open. Dodd's bound body dropped into sight in a lower window.

There was no violent movement or noticeable twitching. I watched Dodd's hands, which were slightly crossed in front of his groin.

Corrections Department officials had said earlier that if they prepared correctly for the nation's first hanging since 1965, the 7-foot, 1-inch drop would snap Dodd's neck with very little suffering.

At 12:06 a.m., Prison Superintendent Tana Wood closed the blinds on the lower chamber.

Corrections Department spokesman Veltry Johnson picked up a white telephone and announced that a doctor had set the time of death at 12:09 a.m.

Tears welled up in the eyes of Darrell Lee, the lawyer who had helped Dodd cut through appeals so the execution could go quickly.

Jewell Cornell, the mother of one of the boys Dodd killed, patted Lee on the back. Clair Neer, father of Dodd's two other victims, shook Lee's hand. Both parents quickly left the chamber.

I tried to cover the hanging with a reporter's detachment and wasn't sure how it would affect me.

When I got back to my motel room, I threw up.