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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

Texas: Jonathan Green's Execution Halted

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HUNTSVILLE — Condemned murderer Jonathan Green (left) has been spared from execution after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to look more closely at arguments he was delusional and too mentally ill to be put to death.

The Associate Press says the order from the state’s highest criminal appeals court came less than four hours before the 42-year-old Green could have received lethal injection Wednesday evening for the abduction, rape and strangling of a 12-year-old girl near Houston 10 years ago.

Green already had been taken to the death house in Huntsville when he received word of the reprieve.

Green was convicted in the death of Christina LeAnn Neal, who disappeared while walking home in the rural community of Dobbin on June 21, 2000. A onetime star running back for Montgomery High School, Green was accused of grabbing the girl shortly after she left a friend's house that was about 100 yards away from his residence. Neal's body was found in a gray blanket stuffed into a laundry bag behind a chair in his home.

Source: Houston Chronicle, June 30, 2010
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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

Published
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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 
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