Paris Police Department officer Brad Ruthart, a school resource officer assigned to Paris High School, reflects on his experience viewing the nation’s first execution of 2012, on Jan. 5 at Oklahoma’s death row at McAlester, Okla. (eParisExtra.com photo by Charles Richards)
By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
The nation’s first execution of 2012 occurred earlier this month in Oklahoma, and Paris police officer Brad Ruthart was among about a dozen witnesses who saw Gary Roland Welch, 49, die from lethal injection for the 1994 murder of a man in northeast Oklahoma.
Ruthart, a school resource officer assigned to Paris High School, teaches two criminal justice classes and takes students on a field trip each year to the Oklahoma state prison at McAlester to get a first-hand look at what prison life is like.
condemned inmate Gary Welch
When he heard of this execution coming up, Ruthart got permission from Oklahoma state prison officials to join reporters in the media witness room for the execution shortly after 6 p.m. on Jan. 5. He also got approval from Paris Police Chief Bob Hundley and from Paris ISD superintendent Paul Trull.
“The best thing I could liken it to would be a funeral, with the exception that the person wasn’t dead yet,” Ruthart said in an interview with eParisExtra.com. It was all over within 15 minutes, and Ruthart was impressed with the professionalism and solemnity of everyone concerned, including prison officials and journalists.
The next morning, Ruthart talked about the experience with his students.
“They were sitting on the edges of their seats. They asked a lot of questions,” Ruthart said. “They wanted to know all about the guy, what he said last, how he acted, what it was like.”
On Aug. 25, 1994 — four days after Welch’s 32nd birthday – Welch and a co-defendant chased Robert Dean Hardcastle, 35, of Miami, Okla., from his residence and beat and stabbed him to death with a knife and broken bottle on the side of the road in view of those who were passing by.
Oklahoma's "H-Unit," which houses 67 death row inmates.
Welch was convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder and had been on Oklahoma death row at McAlester since. He was denied clemency on Dec. 5, 2011, by a 3-2 vote of the Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board.
“The best way I could describe the whole situation – it was very unusual, surreal in a lot of ways. The whole experience was enlightening. I learned a lot from it, I think,” Ruthart said.
“A spokesman for the prison had told us, ‘Don’t be surprised if you hear some banging on the walls and doors.’ And sure enough, while we waited in the law library before being escorted into the viewing room, the prisoners began banging, as a show of solidarity, unity among the death row inmates. By the time we got to the viewing room, it had stopped, but they banged on their doors for probably 10 minutes,” Ruthart said.
Ruthart sat on the far end of the second row.
The victim’s family was in one viewing room, only feet from the gurney on which Welch was bound. Ruthart, six journalists, a police chief, and a county attorney looked on from an adjoining viewing room.
“He had no family there. The victim had three family members there. They were on the other side of the wall from me, but I never saw them or heard them at any time,” the Paris police officer said.
No recorders, cameras, cell phones or other kinds of electronic devices are allowed into death row. Each of the media representatives was given a pen and a notepad and encouraged to write down what they saw and heard, Ruthart said.
“I took pages of notes about what was happening in front of me,” he said.
the media viewing room is on the left; the victim's family viewing room is on the right, beyond the gurney.
“When we walked into the room and sat down, my heart was beating pretty fast. It was like when you’re about to get on a midway ride, and you don’t know what’s coming,” he said.
“I assumed we would see him walk in, and it would be set up in front of us, but that wasn’t true. He was already on the gurney with needles in both arms. They raised the blinds and there he was. From where I was sitting to him was probably 15 feet at the most, not very far. He was covered with a sheet except for his head. I could see the IV lines going from holes in the wall into both arms. The lines weren’t clear. They were cloudy,” he said.
“The only one who was rough around the edges was the condemned man, and when he spoke, he didn’t appear to be scared. He spoke so loud when he gave his last statement, and so strong. They had a microphone and speaker, but you didn’t really need them because you could hear him both ways – through the speaker and through the wall.”
Prison warden Randy Workman stood directly over Welch during the execution process, which began at 6:03 p.m.
“The only thing the warden said was, ‘Would you like to make a last statement?’ “ Ruthart said.
The condemned man responded:
“Well, sir, I was just going to ask everybody if they could hear my brothers out there,” referring to the other death row inmates who were banging and clanging in their cells in support. “I know it’s kind of quiet now. I want to acknowledge that my brothers are here with me to send me off on my journey. They are here on my behalf. They have already given me my little send-off.”
There was a little bit of a pause, officer Ruthart said, and the condemned man looked at the wall beyond which three executioners waited to inject a three-drug lethal cocktail into IV’s leading to the inmate’s arms. The inmate added: “So let’s get it on, because that’s what we’re here for.”
Then, Ruthart said, Welch said “in a real strong, loud voice” the words “Valhalla, Odin, Slay the Beast!”
The warden said: “Let the execution begin.”
It was 6:04 p.m.
Welch continued to chant:
“Valhalla, Odin, Slay the Beast!
“Valhalla, Odin, Slay the beast!
“Valhalla, Odin, Slay …”
During his fourth chant, the prisoner lost consciousness.
Welch, seated, during his clemency hearing in December.
“From the time he was as normal as you or me until the time he was asleep was 20 seconds, maybe. They sat there and didn’t do anything for probably three or four minutes. I read in one of the journalists’ accounts that he turned a little gray, but I couldn’t tell that.”
At 6:10 p.m., a physician pronounced Welch’s time of death.
Valhalla is a word from Scandinavian mythology and refers to “the hall of Odin into which the souls of heroes slain in battle and others who have died bravely are received,” according to www.dictionaryreference.com.
“From what I was told, he believed that when he left this life he would go to a river, and if he was able to slay the beast then he would be able to move on to his next life, or whatever. He seemed to be the most relaxed person in the room,” officer Ruthart said.
Ruthart was not in uniform during the execution.
When Ruthart arrived at the prison an hour or so before the execution, a guard found his name on the approved list, and showed him to the visitors center. Soon, he was visiting with an assistant warden and with a prison spokesman out of Oklahoma City.
Ruthart had been told, when he requested permission to view the execution, that he would need media credentials. He attended the execution with credentials issued by eParisExtra.com and faxed ahead a letter of authorization from the Internet news and information outlet.
“When I arrived at the prison, they told me, ‘You know, we debated whether to allow you to do this.’ They checked out eParisExtra.com to confirm it was a legitimate news outlet.” And they asked him to send copies of whatever is written about his experience.
Ruthart said in the days leading up to the execution, he talked to a number of people about his plans.
“Most of them said, ‘Why? Why are you going?’ I told them I wanted to see what it was all about. Now, if someone asks if I would want to go back and witness another execution, I’d probably say no. I’ve seen one.”
Asked if he had trouble sleeping after he returned to Paris following the execution, Ruthart said: “None whatsoever. Not at all.”
He didn’t have feelings one way or the other about capital punishment before going, he said, and that hasn’t changed.
“Just as there is punishment for violating the speed limit in an automobile, there is punishment for killing someone,”he said, “and that punishment is execution.”
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(Photographs, above, from Death Row at the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester, Okla., were taken by reporter Rachel Petersen of the McAlester News-Capital)
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Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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