I Am a Killer by Danny Tipping & Ned Parker

Author:Danny Tipping & Ned Parker [Parker, Danny Tipping and Ned]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PAN BOOKS

6

KILLER IN THE EYES OF THE LAW

Kenneth Foster

‘I’ve learned a lot about the Lahoods. The father was a good man, from everything I’ve learned about the family. The father had three boys, Michael Junior, Nicholas and a younger brother. I learned Michael had a lot of potential that was cut short. I understand from his family’s perspective they kind of view me as responsible. There’s a point I had to come to in my life when I realized I put myself in this position.’

Kenneth Foster’s execution, for the murder of Michael Lahood Jnr, was six hours away. He shared an emotional goodbye meeting with his father and grandfather. Refusing to walk to the prison vehicle that took him to the execution unit, he lay down on the floor and was manhandled on to a stretcher by a phalanx of guards wearing riot gear. As the hour of his death approached, family and friends were driving to the prison where they would witness him being killed by lethal injection. So, too, were the brothers of the victim whose murder he was charged with.

Inside Huntsville Unit, the Texas State Penitentiary building that houses the busiest death chamber in the USA, preparations were well under way for Kenneth’s final journey. In his last permitted phone call, his elderly grandfather refused to say goodbye, buoyed even then by the hope of a last-minute reprieve. But as the old man drove towards the prison, the clock was ticking inexorably towards the hour of his grandson’s death by lethal injection.

Nico Lahood and his younger brother Marc were also on the road, making the four-hour journey from their homes in San Antonio to witness the second of the men convicted of murdering their older brother go to his death.

With the time ticking away until Kenneth was due to be taken to the chamber, mobile phones began to ring in both cars. Newspaper and television journalists were on the lines: had they heard that the reprieve had been granted by the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry? There had been no official contact, and even a call to the Huntsville Penitentiary by Lawrence Foster, Kenneth’s grandfather, was not reassuring. Officials had not been notified of a reprieve. Both cars carried on in the direction of the jail until finally the media story was confirmed: Kenneth Foster was not going to die that day.

On what was to be the last day of his life, his sentence was commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole before he has served forty years.

For Kenneth, the news was delivered brusquely by a prison officer, and within ten minutes he was on a prison bus taking him away from Huntsville, to be reprocessed back into the prison system, no longer a Death Row inmate. In prison for more than ten years, he described that day in 2007 as the moment the second half of his life began.

His reprieve was due in large part to a campaign on his behalf, with protest marches,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.