Salvation on Death Row

by John T. Thorngren

  Similar to what I had planned for my execution, Betty Lou chose just two witnesses. She solicited her attorney, Joseph Margulies, who had fought to the end for clemency. His remarks after the execution concerning Governor Bush’s lack of intervention regarding Margulies’ clemency request(118) were anything but complimentary.(119)

  Margulies is a well-known attorney with considerable experience in alien-detention law. He is currently “a Visiting Professor of Law and Government at Cornell University…Counsel of Record in Rasul v. Bush [then President Bush] (2004), involving detentions at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station…[and has] written two books…”(120)

  For her second witness, Betty Lou chose her pastor, Dr. Paul Carlin, whom she met during his prison ministry.(121) Betty Lou declined her last meal and did not give a last statement. Reports state that she smiled before her final moments.(122)

  ***

  Margulies gives a far different account of Betty Lou’s execution than that found in the media. Proponents for the death penalty, and those whose feelings are neutral, should read his publication, “The Execution of Betty Lou Beets,” Reprieve.org.uk.(123) In that article, Margulies dispels the ancient cliché-myth published by reporters who witness executions with such words, as he points out, as “coughing twice and lapsing into unconsciousness.” For whom do they print such euphonic prose? Is it for those with some sensitivity for the gift of life, those who pray silently for the soul of the condemned? Or perhaps, and more likely, as a cynical taunt for those with vengeful hearts, those who would rather read about the condemned thrashing and screaming in agony for an hour.

  Margulies points out that Betty Lou, who was barely over five feet in height, was strapped to a large, man-sized, Procrustean gurney, the straps of which he assumed were to prevent her small form from falling to the floor as she fell gently to sleep. In reality, he noted that the straps kept her from lurching off the gurney onto the floor, violently in a death-throe agony, during her last breath. Not the gentle cough the media would have us believe. And no, she was not smiling when she died. She was smiling at Dr. Carlin and Margulies, whom she could see, before that final cough.

  “A line of spittle flew out of her mouth and landed on her chin. Her eyes opened wide like discs, and she looked terrified, as though someone had struck her violently from behind, and she knew in that instant that she would die…she gasped, grimacing, trying to draw in the air that had just shot from her body…her eyes closed, and never opened again.”(124)

  Dr. Carlin(125) was the other witness. In addition to his prison ministry, he is pastor of Shady Grove Baptist Church in Crockett, Texas. His wife, Jeri, taught Sunday school, and through her various meetings with Betty Lou, she joined their church by proxy. They always had an empty chair with her name on it during their meetings. Jeri sent Betty Lou the lessons each month along with the study questions. Betty Lou always returned her answers.

  Dr. Carlin said Betty Lou “showed great remorse for her crimes. She deeply regretted her failure as a mother. Before her execution, she asked Jeri and me to find her daughter whom she had not heard from in ten years. She wanted desperately to reconcile with her daughter. After tireless searching, we did finally locate her. Ironically, she was a TDCJ prisoner incarcerated right across the street from Mountain View prison where Betty was. The system arranged for them to visit just prior to her execution date.”

  Dr. Carlin gives a much more peaceful description of Betty Lou’s final journey. “I was there for her execution, visited with her before in her waiting cell, prayed with her, and left her in both of our grief. It was sad. I can say that Betty died quietly. However, the effect it had on me to witness her execution cannot be put into words. It affected me emotionally like nothing ever had before or has since. It is not something I would ever like to do again. We did arrange for her funeral. We did meet with her family at the graveyard, conducted a brief service, and spread her ashes over the grave of (I believe) her mother. It was not the type of funeral a pastor enjoys. Comforting a family in these circumstances is never easy. Betty had made a clear profession in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She did give evidence of her peace with God.”(126)

  ***

  Betty Lou never admitted to any of us on Death Row that she murdered either of her husbands. This fact (that she never admitted her guilt), I understand, was primarily responsible for the board not considering giving her any reprieve or clemency. To get to know Betty Lou was difficult. As I have said before, she didn’t trust women. I would have to classify her as a hermit. When Mike Barber or Bill Glass in their prison ministries came and talked with us, Betty Lou came out of her cell, participated in our activities, and was friendly and a joy to our little family. But as soon as they left, she returned to her cell and did not talk to anyone. As sometimes happens to every person when they meet another, an invisible curtain falls between them, a curtain of dislike, a curtain of avoidance—an unexplainable fabric of mutual hostility. This barrier was, in part, instrumental to the strange relationship between Betty Lou and me, one of instant dislike. The other part was that in any time of trouble, we turned to each other. When her mother and son died, both in the same year, Betty Lou lamented to me.

  I received a letter from her three days after her execution that she wrote during her I-am-about-to-die preparation in the Goree Unit. She told me that if I had to go through this, the people there were very nice. They put a television outside her cell so she could watch her soap operas. They gave her makeup. The director of TDCJ came and visited her just as he had done for Karla Faye, and he was very nice. It was rather strange receiving a letter from her just after she was no longer with us, and remarkable that she would write to me at that point in time. But looking back, that was typical of our unusual relationship. I know that one day, Betty Lou, Karla Faye, and I will all be together and celebrate the unfathomable love of our Father. That earthly rag of a curtain between Betty Lou and me will be no more. This I know. This I believe. This I affirm.

  CHAPTER 22

  I vaguely remember a country-and-western song about December being the “coldest time of year.”(127) It came out in mid-1970, but that was during my continuous high—the bottom of my life—so I don’t remember all the words. In Texas, however, the coldest time of year is usually in January and February, and it is a different cold, often described as having the North wind separated from the North Pole by a single strand of barbed-wire fence somewhere in the Texas Panhandle. A damp cold, a dreary-gray sky outside that amplifies the dreary-gray concrete inside—the coldest time of year. February, a gloomy end to being without Betty Lou every day. With Karla Faye also gone, it was a double shot of angst.

  Then March came. March, as the adage says, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Again, not true in Texas. March does come in like a lion with gusty winds that roar all day. But she doesn’t bleat lamb-like into April; no, she continues to howl sometimes all the way into May. And her breath may be warm or freezing. As I have always said, compared to California, Texas is a foreign country. Even the weather is foreign. Looking through my window, the outside world came through a fist-wide thickness of Plexiglas, as if looking at freedom from inside a fishbowl. On the second of March, I could see the effects of the lion, evergreen trees afar off bending from side to side like fat old ladies doing aerobics in double time. I could almost feel it coming through the cracks, but there weren’t any cracks, just a solid barrier to a distant land.

  And also on the second of March, a guard came to my cell and said I had a call from my attorney. She frisked me, handcuffed me, and took me to an office there on Death Row. All five of my attorneys from Baker Botts were on speakerphone. One spoke, “Pam, you might want to sit down before we tell you this.”

  I said, “I am too nervous to sit down.”

  “The state has lost all of their appeals. The U.S. Fifth Circuit has affirmed your petition for relief. Their decision upholds a lower-court ruling that th
e State of Texas, within 120 days, must either retry you or set you free.”

  No one can imagine the elation, the gratitude to God, the emotional relief of the possibility that I may soon be free from this poisonous snake whose mouth had gaped open for twenty years with fangs poised over the vein in my forearm! That constant threat of impending death in itself should be considered a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.” However, several weeks passed while the Texas attorney general’s office decided whether to appeal this last ruling. For whatever reason, they chose not to pursue it. A plea bargain was on the table, and two officers drove me to Houston.

  Like a kite without a tail, our patrol car flopped from side to side with a growl from the March lion. As usual, whenever I made this trip, I noticed how the world outside was growing: more cars with different shapes and flashy colors, colors like bright purple and chartreuse with sparkling speckles; more new buildings growing ever taller; more people; and more people dressed in different styles. The world outside was growing while mine inside was rather stagnant. Oh, there were some changes if one considered removing certain simple pleasures, but not like changes on the outside. And there was growth in prison if one considered more prisoners and more buildings, but not like the outside. Freedom versus prison is so precious, freedom that no child should ever want to trade for a drug euphoria.

  As we departed from the patrol car in the garage under the Houston County Jail, a gust of March wind bowled through the brick-lined alleys into the parking entrance and forced the pungent smell of exhaust into my lungs, a smell long forgotten. Up the familiar back elevator and into the fluorescent midday sunshine of the 248th District Court where soon the bailiff chanted, “All rise. The Honorable Judge Joan Campbell presiding…”

  For reasons unknown, the court had appointed me two more attorneys although I still had the five pro bono attorneys from Baker Botts. The district attorney then offered me a choice: a plea bargain for life imprisonment or a retrial. It was not a simple Oh, I’ll take door number one for life. There was a chance that on retrial, I might get a lesser sentence. I asked, “Your Honor, could I think it over?” She let us use an office room downstairs in the basement.

  In addition to my five Baker Botts attorneys and two court-appointed attorneys, also present were Mike Barber of Mike Barber Ministries and his wife, DeAnne; my adopted mom, Christina; and my son, Joseph. It was not a conference room, so some of us had to stand. One could almost smell old legal discussions where the fate of one lay in the wisdom of others. One of the attorneys from Baker Botts opened:

  “Pam, allow me to go over the details of a meeting we had with people from the district attorney’s office. They feel that all the support you have, like Mike Barber Ministries, and your good behavior for twenty years in prison weigh heavily in your favor. The case is old, and there is little chance they can get Linda Fletcher out of California to testify in a new trial, plus her prior testimony was tainted. All of that, along with the addition of mitigating circumstances regarding the death penalty, could preclude a death sentence. Therefore they have offered you a plea bargain.

  “These are the details: The two capital murders would be dropped down to two aggravated robberies. The sentence would be life on one of these and thirty years on the other. The sentences would be concurrent.”

  I responded, “You are saying that my sentences would be stacked? Then what about the twenty years I have already been in prison? What about parole?”

  The attorney answered, “The twenty years you have served counts as eligibility for the life sentence. After another ten years, you will be eligible for a full parole.”

  Mike Barber responded, “Pam, I think you should turn down the plea bargain. As I understand it, the chances are good that you could get a lot less time.”

  “No, Pam,” said Christina, “I would not recommend another trial.”

  Then my son said, “Mom, please don’t take a chance at a trial again and possibly getting the death penalty.”

  With his humble request, and the pleading look in his eyes that I shall never forget, all I had to do was reflect for a microsecond on how swift my first trial had been, and how quickly they sentenced me to death without any witnesses. Death, based upon nothing but my sincere, conscience-cleansing confession. I decided to go with the plea bargain. I think Mike was upset with my decision, but I felt and still feel that it was the best choice.

  The next day, Judge Campbell formally asked me if I had made a decision regarding the plea bargain. After my answer in the affirmative and to the affirmative, Judge Campbell read a summary of the plea bargain and sentenced me to life and thirty years concurrently. But it was not life without parole, a somewhat new concept gaining popularity in Texas compared to the death penalty. It was a blurry event, mechanical voices from far off. Back in my cell, the fog lifted, and I knew that Karla Faye, Betty Lou, and the angels were singing in heaven. My heart joined them silently.

  I was in the Houston County Jail for several more days while the wheels of paper moved slowly. Needless to state, my emotions were high. I guess one of the guards sensed this, and he offered me a cigarette. About five years had passed since the smoking ban appeared in the prison system. At the time, a cigarette sounded like a good idea. After one puff, I got dizzy, nauseated, and almost threw up. Even the smell of it was making me sick. Surely another drag would be better. It wasn’t, and that was the last of any cigarette that I hope and pray I will ever try again.

  ***

  A quick return to the general population at Mountain View? No, a change in a prisoner’s status takes paperwork, legal stampings, red tape, and time. Lots of time. Even exoneration for a false conviction does not guarantee immediate, on-the-spot release of the inmate. In those instances, the State of Texas reminds me of a dog returning a fetched ball, and when you say, “Drop it,” he looks at you with some sort of deep grin in his eyes until you pry it out of his mouth.

  The Texas penal system refers to my “in limbo” status as being in transit, and the inmate, a transient. They kept me in the high-profile tank in Houston for about a week, the same high-profile tank where I had been when I met Karla. Then I moved to the Plane State Jail.

  The Plane State Jail(128) was founded in 1995. There is no town named Plane, Texas; the facility was named for Lucile Plane,(129) the former warden of Mountain View. Plane State is a small women’s prison housing low-level offenders and transients such as me, the ball in the dog’s mouth as he runs about, refusing to bring it home. It was only a forty-five minute drive to the Plane State Jail in Dayton, northeast of Houston. Immediately, I went into Ad Seg, separated from the general population because of my high-profile status. I was there for a week, primarily to get a new number; my old number, 665, was an execution number. My new number, 932235, became the one I would bear for years to come.

  After I received my new number, I journeyed to the Goree Unit in Huntsville, again as a transient, entering their diagnostic unit for evaluation and classification. As noted earlier, all female prisoners, including myself, were transferred from Goree to Mountain View in 1981 when Goree converted into a male prison unit. However, it still is used for female transients. After several weeks there, I entered the Reception Center at the Crain Unit. For forty-five days, I was still in transit. This status might as well be synonymous with incognito: No one knows where you are or how to contact you.

  Christina and Joseph had frantically called almost every telephone number for TDCJ trying to find me, but to no avail. Finally, the warden at the Hilltop Unit,(130) also located in Gatesville, agreed to take me. Looking back, it was as if no one wanted me since I wasn’t dead.

  Hilltop started out wonderfully. The unit is a small facility for female youth offenders, housing probably no more than 400 inmates at that time. I was there as a youth offender counselor and was enjoying my purpose in life.

  CHAPTER 23


  The greener grass on that side of the fence turned brown overnight. I discovered that one who “cheats the hangman” is open to scorn from both officers and inmates. I had received the mark of Cain:(131) they would not kill me, but they would shun me. Whenever I was coming to or from work across the yard, along the main street of the Hilltop Unit, there was always a group of guards, a group of inmates, or a mixed group of guards with inmates pointing at me and talking. One conversation between two guards spoken just a few feet from me was most memorable, and they did not try to hide it.

  “I did some figuring the other day, and do you know that all of the tax money we’ve spent to keep her on Death Row would have put our children through college?”

  “Yeah,” said the other, “she did beat the system.”

  “No doubt about it, they should have executed her.”

  My “house” was always in shambles when I returned to it from wherever I’d been, my belongings scattered on the bed and floor. Even the faceplate for the electrical outlet was often unattached. Invariably, my radio was missing, and I had to go to the property room and beg it back. On many occasions while I was walking on Main Street, a guard would commandeer me into a shower and subject me to a strip search.

  One of the sergeants at the Hilltop Unit was always on my back, making snide remarks and giving me frequent pat-downs—constantly in my face, as they say—another of those self-appointed justice dealers, but far more persistent.