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| Holding cells at "The Walls" Unit, Huntsville, TX. The death chamber where executions are carried out is located at the far end of the corridor. |
This text was dictated by Billy Vickers to Hank Skinner after he survived an execution date on December 9, 2003 at The Walls Unit, in Huntsville, Texas. Billy waited until midnight (time when the death warrant expires) in a death watch cell next to the execution chamber at the Walls Unit (left).
Billy Vickers wanted to share his experience with as many as possible. Billy and Hank were in cells next to each other and Billy no longer had the strength to write. He asked Hank to transcribe their conversations about the last weeks of his life, between two execution dates. Billy was executed on January 28th, 2004.
It all started when I got "the date" in September. Up until then it was just something in the distance. Now it was all too real. It seemed like a giant weight descended onto my shoulders. Suddenly the calendar seemed bigger and every number on it had ominous portent. Every day, hour and minute that passed I kept having these recurring thoughts like "Well, I’ll probably never get to do (or: see, hear, say, read, etc.) this again. Everything seemed to take on this flavor of oppressive finality. My mind would run on and on and on for hours and hours. Every new day I woke up to the realization that it’s one less I’d be here.
I remember sometimes thinking of people I’d known in the world who’d died horrible deaths and I found myself envious of them. For them, bad as it was, it was still over and done with in a few minutes/ moments. For me, it’s stretched out over eleven (11) years. It’s always been there (death). But now it’s right on top of me. Yet still days away. I couldn’t imagine how in the world I was going to survive it until the end, then laughed at myself for the insanity of that thought.
On the day of execution I haven’t slept at all. I don’t seem to think cohesively for any length of time at all. It seems like an eternity, yet I keep wondering where the time went. Then the regrets start in, as I’m mostly thinking of my family and how this is hurting them. I keep thinking about things I should’ve said to my family but forgot. Things I should’ve written. But now it’s too late. It seemed time kept growing less and less, as I visit with them and tell them over and over that I love them and goodbye.
The next think I know I’m being shackled and loaded in the van and it’s too late to say anything. All those thoughts and regrets are repeated over and over in my mind during all those hours I sat in the death house waiting to die at any time.
In the death house, I keep thinking of my family. I pray for some way to release them from the pain and torment, for me to just go on and handle this alone, as my problem, to face it. Then I caught myself thinking of the thoughts I had during the ride to Huntsville, with my senses heightened to the point of being painful. I hear the van tires on the pavement as a rushing noise in my ears with every car, tree, building or house we passed I thought, "Well, I’ll never see that again". Then, I start to hear every beat of my heart as if I’m holding it up to my ear. But at the same time, it really hurts and I can’t figure out how it can keep beating and beating that hard.
Then my thoughts are broken when the warden comes into the death house to tell me what will be taking place when the time comes. He points to a door I can see from my cell and tells me behind that door is the execution chamber. When the time comes they will come and get me. If I can’t walk, they will carry me, but either way I’m going. He tells me the chaplain will be here soon.
The chaplain comes and tells me, while I’m on the gurney he will be there holding my ankle to offer comfort.
As these people talk to me, I know they’re people, but at the same time I think of them as something else or, in a bad way. As these thoughts just seem to hang there and it seems to be getting dark but it’s the middle of the day and there’s lights everywhere. Then I see the door that the ambulance will back up to, to pick up my body and that’s when it strikes me all over again, "this is it". There’s no way to describe the pressure I feel as I pray they’ll hurry up and get it over with.
Every time the walkie-talkie bursts to life, a door slams, the phone rings, I nearly jump out of my skin. This is almost constant for six (6) hours. The chaplain tells me that if I hear rustling and movement in the back, he says It’s just the execution team getting ready and for me not to be "alarmed", (they’re just coming to kill you. Don’t be “alarmed"! H.W.S.). They kept me "alarmed" for those long hours of torture.
I talk to the chaplain some while pacing the cell. I’m thinking I’m going to have a heart attack before they get me onto that horizontal cross with needles in my arms instead of nails. I’ve been broke out in a cold sweat for 2 hours. Can’t think. Just pace, pace, pace. Back and forth, back and forth. 3 ½ steps. I can’t remember the subjects or details of anything the chaplain said, just a bunch of words.
I eat some of my last meal but I can’t taste a thing. I just look down and see that some of it is gone.
Six o’clock comes. Nothing. Pace, pace, pace those 3 ½ steps. Seven o’clock. 8 o’clock. Same thing. My mouth is so dry no amount of water can wet it. I know they’re going to open that door any minute and confront me with that gurney and those needles. This is it. This is it. Every time I blink the sweat out of my eye I see it open, I think, that door.
Nine o’clock. I’m still pacing. I can’t take any more of this! Can’t escape it. "Lord," I pray, "just let it be over. Just let it be done one way or another". It feels like my mind has been stretched in a million directions until it has stress holes like Swiss cheese.
Ten o’clock. Pace, pace, pace. I know the attorneys are filing stuff and I want to have hope, but that door… I believe, if a stay was coming they’d already have announced it.
Eleven o’clock. Pace. Pace. My whole body feels like it’s going to explode into a mist. This can’t be real.
Ten minutes to midnight. I’ve gotten so confused and fuzz-minded that all these jumbled thoughts, in pieces, are plying through my mind every direction, so fast it just seems like a constant hum or moan. They say it’s too late, they can’t do it. Tell me to get ready to go back to Polunsky. I can’t comprehend this. I’m supposed to be dead. I barely remember coming back. I can’t walk straight.
The next days I feel so strange, like I’m out of place, out of reality somehow. I’m not able to think, I can’t believe I’m still here. They let the warrant expire. I think now that they must be required to give me life. I got only one set of appeals so it follows they get only one chance to execute me, right? There was no legal reason not to they just failed to. Maybe I should feel lucky but I just feel cheated and cursed. I can’t even get executed right! Yet, I am so grateful and happy to be alive, just for my family. My greatest worry was thinking of them having to go through all this with me, on account of me.
Then, last week I found out from my lawyer that they have set me another execution date. On January 28th, 2004 I’ll have to go through all this again. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what in the world I’m going to say to my wife and kids. I sit down in my cell, trying to comprehend this and start crying. I think I have never shed so many tears over others over so many days in a row or had my heart twisted out of socket this bad. There just are no words for how this feels. Now the whole nightmare starts all over again. I cannot believe it. I know I won’t last through another round of this.
By Billy Frank "Sonny" Vickers
January 2004
Source : The Case of Hank Skinner
Billy Vickers wanted to share his experience with as many as possible. Billy and Hank were in cells next to each other and Billy no longer had the strength to write. He asked Hank to transcribe their conversations about the last weeks of his life, between two execution dates. Billy was executed on January 28th, 2004.
It all started when I got "the date" in September. Up until then it was just something in the distance. Now it was all too real. It seemed like a giant weight descended onto my shoulders. Suddenly the calendar seemed bigger and every number on it had ominous portent. Every day, hour and minute that passed I kept having these recurring thoughts like "Well, I’ll probably never get to do (or: see, hear, say, read, etc.) this again. Everything seemed to take on this flavor of oppressive finality. My mind would run on and on and on for hours and hours. Every new day I woke up to the realization that it’s one less I’d be here.
I remember sometimes thinking of people I’d known in the world who’d died horrible deaths and I found myself envious of them. For them, bad as it was, it was still over and done with in a few minutes/ moments. For me, it’s stretched out over eleven (11) years. It’s always been there (death). But now it’s right on top of me. Yet still days away. I couldn’t imagine how in the world I was going to survive it until the end, then laughed at myself for the insanity of that thought.
On the day of execution I haven’t slept at all. I don’t seem to think cohesively for any length of time at all. It seems like an eternity, yet I keep wondering where the time went. Then the regrets start in, as I’m mostly thinking of my family and how this is hurting them. I keep thinking about things I should’ve said to my family but forgot. Things I should’ve written. But now it’s too late. It seemed time kept growing less and less, as I visit with them and tell them over and over that I love them and goodbye.
The next think I know I’m being shackled and loaded in the van and it’s too late to say anything. All those thoughts and regrets are repeated over and over in my mind during all those hours I sat in the death house waiting to die at any time.
In the death house, I keep thinking of my family. I pray for some way to release them from the pain and torment, for me to just go on and handle this alone, as my problem, to face it. Then I caught myself thinking of the thoughts I had during the ride to Huntsville, with my senses heightened to the point of being painful. I hear the van tires on the pavement as a rushing noise in my ears with every car, tree, building or house we passed I thought, "Well, I’ll never see that again". Then, I start to hear every beat of my heart as if I’m holding it up to my ear. But at the same time, it really hurts and I can’t figure out how it can keep beating and beating that hard.
Then my thoughts are broken when the warden comes into the death house to tell me what will be taking place when the time comes. He points to a door I can see from my cell and tells me behind that door is the execution chamber. When the time comes they will come and get me. If I can’t walk, they will carry me, but either way I’m going. He tells me the chaplain will be here soon.
The chaplain comes and tells me, while I’m on the gurney he will be there holding my ankle to offer comfort.
As these people talk to me, I know they’re people, but at the same time I think of them as something else or, in a bad way. As these thoughts just seem to hang there and it seems to be getting dark but it’s the middle of the day and there’s lights everywhere. Then I see the door that the ambulance will back up to, to pick up my body and that’s when it strikes me all over again, "this is it". There’s no way to describe the pressure I feel as I pray they’ll hurry up and get it over with.
Every time the walkie-talkie bursts to life, a door slams, the phone rings, I nearly jump out of my skin. This is almost constant for six (6) hours. The chaplain tells me that if I hear rustling and movement in the back, he says It’s just the execution team getting ready and for me not to be "alarmed", (they’re just coming to kill you. Don’t be “alarmed"! H.W.S.). They kept me "alarmed" for those long hours of torture.
I talk to the chaplain some while pacing the cell. I’m thinking I’m going to have a heart attack before they get me onto that horizontal cross with needles in my arms instead of nails. I’ve been broke out in a cold sweat for 2 hours. Can’t think. Just pace, pace, pace. Back and forth, back and forth. 3 ½ steps. I can’t remember the subjects or details of anything the chaplain said, just a bunch of words.
I eat some of my last meal but I can’t taste a thing. I just look down and see that some of it is gone.
Six o’clock comes. Nothing. Pace, pace, pace those 3 ½ steps. Seven o’clock. 8 o’clock. Same thing. My mouth is so dry no amount of water can wet it. I know they’re going to open that door any minute and confront me with that gurney and those needles. This is it. This is it. Every time I blink the sweat out of my eye I see it open, I think, that door.
Nine o’clock. I’m still pacing. I can’t take any more of this! Can’t escape it. "Lord," I pray, "just let it be over. Just let it be done one way or another". It feels like my mind has been stretched in a million directions until it has stress holes like Swiss cheese.
Ten o’clock. Pace, pace, pace. I know the attorneys are filing stuff and I want to have hope, but that door… I believe, if a stay was coming they’d already have announced it.
Eleven o’clock. Pace. Pace. My whole body feels like it’s going to explode into a mist. This can’t be real.
Ten minutes to midnight. I’ve gotten so confused and fuzz-minded that all these jumbled thoughts, in pieces, are plying through my mind every direction, so fast it just seems like a constant hum or moan. They say it’s too late, they can’t do it. Tell me to get ready to go back to Polunsky. I can’t comprehend this. I’m supposed to be dead. I barely remember coming back. I can’t walk straight.
The next days I feel so strange, like I’m out of place, out of reality somehow. I’m not able to think, I can’t believe I’m still here. They let the warrant expire. I think now that they must be required to give me life. I got only one set of appeals so it follows they get only one chance to execute me, right? There was no legal reason not to they just failed to. Maybe I should feel lucky but I just feel cheated and cursed. I can’t even get executed right! Yet, I am so grateful and happy to be alive, just for my family. My greatest worry was thinking of them having to go through all this with me, on account of me.
Then, last week I found out from my lawyer that they have set me another execution date. On January 28th, 2004 I’ll have to go through all this again. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what in the world I’m going to say to my wife and kids. I sit down in my cell, trying to comprehend this and start crying. I think I have never shed so many tears over others over so many days in a row or had my heart twisted out of socket this bad. There just are no words for how this feels. Now the whole nightmare starts all over again. I cannot believe it. I know I won’t last through another round of this.
By Billy Frank "Sonny" Vickers
January 2004
Source : The Case of Hank Skinner