Tag Archives: Death Row

Tweeting the execution (2017)

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My Small History of Learfield and the Internet (1995-2005) is complete. Every drawer I open has some interesting new tidbit. Missourinet News Director Bob Priddy (now retired) share’s this gruesome bit of history:

“One of the highlights of our coverage of executions was when I became ( I think) the first reporter in the world who tweeted an execution. Dennis Skillicorn was executed in May, 2009. I could not take anything into the witness room except my notebook and a pen, and the book I had been reading in the waiting room, but I kept a careful chronology and as soon as we came out, I posted tweets on a minute-by-minute basis describing the events.

I stopped using Twitter in November of 2016 because it had become toxic with politics.

Missouri Death Row Audio

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In the late ’90s I created a website called MissouriDeathRow.com. A Missourinet reporter had served as a witness (while covering) of every execution going back to 1989. There was no death row website because a) the web was still pretty new at the time and b) the Missouri Department of Corrections went to some lengths to avoid the term “death row,” even though prisoners sentenced to — and awaiting — execution were housed together.

At each execution, a packet of information was handed out to reporters and a stack of those were gathering dust in the Missourinet newsroom. News Director Bob Priddy and I began putting that information online and it quickly became the de facto site for information about capital punishment in Missouri. I maintained the site until I retired in 2012.

The site included a page with some of the history of capital punishment, including audio recorded by Missourinet reporters. As of this writing, much of that audio is no longer available on the site. The site was moved a few times, different servers, different platforms… files get misplaced or lost. My buddy Phil Atkinson did his best to find some of those and I’ve archived them here.

Death Row Audio

https://www.smays.com/death-row-audio/

Missouri hasn’t executed anyone in a couple of years but they had quite run at one point. The audio includes post-execution news conferences, interviews with victims’ families, opponents and proponents, and the condemned.

Updating MissouriDeathRow.com

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MissouriDeathRow.com was one of the first websites I did. And it looks like it. This was before flickr and Typepad and such. So I’m doing a little make-over. Hope to have it complete by the end of the year.

I’m starting with images and documents related to those executed in Missouri’s gas chamber. First time out, I just posted photos of the condemned. This time I’m posting the… not sure what to call it… the record or card for each inmate [flickr slideshow].

I scanned these from the state archives. For some reason, I find them fascinating.

The state archive has a file on each of the inmates executed in the gas chamber. I spent a week going through these, scanning as much as time allowed. Letters, notes, telegrams…

On June 24, 1962, Odom and another Death Row inmate attempted an escape. Odom’s file contained a report by the guard on duty at the time. I’ve also included  (from his appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court) a description of the crime for which Odom was executed.