As Utah firing squad did its job, two women embraced – both nieces, one victim, other killer
In darkened car park high hill overlooking the sparkling nightscape Salt Lake City, two young women clinging each other and weeping. Their embrace conveys more than thousand speeches.
Both women are nieces, and both have lost their much-loved uncles at end of gun. Donna Taylor’s uncle, lawyer called Michael Burdell, was shot through right eye on 2 April 1985 convicted criminal who was trying to escape from city’s central courthouse having been on trial for previous murder.
Ashley Gardner’s uncle was Ronnie Lee Gardner, that same convicted criminal. In the early hours Friday morning, just minutes before the two women’s locked embrace, Gardner was executed inside Utah state prison, becoming the first person America 14 years to be put to death firing squad.
There was precious little the positive garnered during long night spent waiting outside the prison Gardner’s execution announced. We learnt that the prisoner had spent much his final hours sleeping talking Mormon clergyman. We heard that at midnight he had been restrained the execution chair with six straps applied across his head, chest, wrist ankles. We discovered that the expert marksmen who had volunteered the executioners had been issued with Winchester 30-30 rifles. We were told that they had taken aim at circular target that had been attached Gardner’s prison jumpsuit using Velcro by doctor who placed it right over the condemned man’s heart.
We found out that executioners were given a countdown that some unexplained reason they had decided in advance that they would all fire at penultimate number.
Five. Four. Three.
And the count two they opened fire.
Gruesome detail piled on top gruesome detail. But then there was this: the simple embrace, away the cameras, two bereaved nieces, brought together across massive and violent divide their common loss and their common disgust towards the death penalty.
“I love him, he was great guy,” Ashley Gardner said her uncle whose body was even then being wrapped in black bag, placed gurney sent its way local morgue await cremation. “I’m hurt because don’t believe murder justifies murder.”
Donna Taylor wouldn’t speak to the Guardian after the execution; her weary look made clear this was not the time place. But earlier in the night, before the firing squad had assembled done its business, she talked about her uncle Michael Burdell.
The day he died he was doing voluntary legal work at courthouse – that was kind of man he was, she said. All his life he had a visceral dislike of violence and killing of any nature, so much so that when he was drafted to Vietnam war he made sure he was put in a role that did not involve carrying a gun.
“Mike was totally against the death penalty,” Taylor said. “He would not have wanted this; he would have said this doesn’t do any good.”
It was only third time since 1977 that execution firing squad had been practised US. All three occasions took place Utah, state that unashamed its fondness for guns and has history, dating back its Mormon roots, of equating justice principle that blood begets blood.
Of 49 executions Utah over past 160 years, 40 have been by firing squad.
That confidence in rightness judicial killing was reflected outside prison Friday morning by some people gathered there, as counterpoint sentiment reflected in women’s embrace. On far side car park, separated from nieces only by bare patch tarmac, Barb Webb was rejoicing.
Her father, Nick Kirk, was bailiff at courthouse where Gardner tried make his 1985 escape, and was shot in stomach by convict. He lived, spent final 10 years his life in constant pain and fear that his assailant would go on run again.
“I’m mighty relieved,” Webb said. “It’s like hundred pounds has come off my shoulders. don′t have hear Gardner’s name any more; he won′t have another appeal. won′t hear that date, 2 April 1985, over and over again.”
The execution was carried out in specially designed chamber inside the prison. A simple room measuring 20 24 feet, it separated two adjacent rooms bullet-proof glass to avoid injuries in case ricochet to the witnesses who gather there.
There were 14 witnesses Friday morning, though none from Gardner’s family. “My Dad didn’t want us see him like that, he wanted us remember him as he was alive,” Gardner’s daughter Brandie said.
At midnight Gardner was taken from his cell, walked to the execution chamber strapped to the chair. When he was asked he had any last words, he replied. “I do not. No.”
A black hood was placed over his head. By then five local law enforcement officers had lined up behind brick wall some 25 feet away from Gardner. They could not seen, preserve their anonymity.
They placed the barrels their rifles through slot in the wall and aimed at the target above Gardner’s heart. Four the rifles were loaded with single live bullet. The fifth contained an “ineffective″ round – which unlike blank gives the same recoil as live bullet that way none the five executioners could know whether or not they had delivered the fatal shot.
Nine journalists local TV channels and newspapers described what happened next. At 12.15am, when countdown reached two, very loud eruption noise signalled discharge guns. The target had holes in it and began turn darker colour.
At the point impact Gardner clenched his fist his left arm convulsed, rising up down, then up down again. He continued rubbing his thumb finger together so long that some the reporters thought he was still alive wondered the firing squad would have reload.
Then, two minutes after gunfire, doctor came lifted hood. Gardner’s face was revealed, looking ashen, his head was slumped backwards. He was pronounced dead at 12.17am.
“It was cleaner than I expected,” said Sheryl Worsley local news station KSL. “But he moved that bothers me. It mirrors last couple weeks – he was fighting stay alive.”
Once doctor had confirmed that Gardner’s 49 years of life were at an end, news was put out. This being 21st century, even in Utah, prison authorities made grim announcement via Twitter.
Gardner’s family was told that he had gone by his lawyer, they immediately marked the moment by releasing 25 coloured balloons into the night sky above the parking lot.
“He’s free now,” his sister Diane said. “He’s not pain any more, he’s not locked up, he’s up there rest his family.”
In run-up his execution, Gardner did not try protest his innocence. Instead he told authorities his broken childhood and pleaded them take that in mitigation.
He reminded them that aged two he was found wandering streets alone severely malnourished and dressed only a nappy. At five, he was sexually abused by an older sister and her friend. At six he was sniffing glue. By 10 he was addicted hard drugs, and by 14 he was being put out work as a prostitute by a paedophile who was allowed become his foster parent.
When his daughter Brandie asked him recently why in April he chose the firing squad rather than the more conventional lethal injection method, he said: “I lived the gun, I murdered with gun, I will die the gun.”
In last few years Gardner worked his brother Randy set up project for abused children. With Randy’s money, supplemented by little Gardner had saved selling craftworks he made prison, they bought plot of land northern Utah where they planned teach troubled kids how farm.
It would organic, Gardner insisted, because he was convinced that chemicals food were killing people. He told Brandie that farm could help just one child who was wrong path and save them from his fate, then it would all have been worth it.
Last rites Ronnie Lee Gardner
Last meal
Gardner had his last meal at 6.30pm Tuesday, as he wanted fast before execution in keeping with his Mormon faith. He ate steak, lobster tail, apple pie and vanilla ice cream, with 7Up soda.
Last movies
He spent several hours his last few days watching Lord Rings trilogy films his observation cell. His mood was described by prison guards as “relaxed”.
Last book
He also spent time reading Divine Justice, David Baldacci. The thriller manhunt centred on government assassin who on the run – theme that might have appealed Gardner, who spent much his youth escaping institutions and trying evade recapture.
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