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.
Ever since a Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that spiritual advisers are allowed in the chamber if death row inmates want them there, Hood has been traveling around befriending the condemned. "My job is to come into their lives when they have six to three months left to live and become their best friend," he explained not long after the execution of David Hosier. Hosier was convicted for the murder of his former lover in 2009 and died on June 11 by lethal injection.
"I become their best friend in order to be their best friend when they die," the Catholic priest added when speaking to USA Today.
Hood went on to describe the unreal moment he entered the execution chamber in Missouri as Hosier lay there strapped to the gurney. After looking at the window inside the small room, he saw himself staring back at his own face.
Unlike every other execution he's been present at, the window to this death chamber was one-way only so that witnesses on the other side can see inmates but inmates can't see them. "It's like a house of horrors. It's very, very bizarre," he noted.
Hosier's repeated last words to the priest were "Give 'em hell, Jeff," which was a reference to Hood's hope to see the death penalty abolished. The reverend said Hosier was 100% convinced of his innocence in the death of Angela Gilpin. The married mom of two was shot to death after having a relationship with Hosier and then getting back with her estranged husband.
Hosier maintained his innocence until the end of his life while Hood read the Bible holding onto his shoulder. The nearby intravenous line delivering the lethal pentobarbital was described as "poison" by Hood, who gave Hosier absolution for his sins as he did not confess to the crime in his last moments. "I think that in the last few weeks, David got a lot of his dignity back," Hood said.
Hosier said in a final statement given to reporters: "I'm the luckiest man on Earth. I've been able to speak the truth of my innocence ... I leave you all with love."
Throughout the seventh execution he'd witnessed, Hood admitted to being tortured by his own emotions during the process but was fully focused on making sure Hosier felt love and felt like a human being. He said: "You feel like a murderer. I'm called to be there for my guy. I'm called to pray. I'm called to read scripture. For all of my good intentions, I ultimately do nothing to stop it ... I sit there and watch someone I love be murdered. In my inaction, I join the team of murderers. Being a part of the entire process is moral torture."
Yet despite death threats made against his family, Hood is compelled to carry on with his work for death row inmates and has three more executions to attend over the next six months. He's also currently working with around two dozen other inmates across the country.
While every execution is a disturbing experience for Hood, one in particular stands out for him - the death of Kenneth Eugene Smith on January 26 of this year in Alabama. Smith was convicted for his role in a murder-for-hire plot of a preacher's wife in 1988 and died by nitrogen gas.
Hood described the horrific scene of the condemned man "literally heaving back and forth," with his face "hitting the front of the mask," as "mucus and slobber drizzled" down inside the front of the mask. "It was like his veins all over his body were spidering and that there were ants up on his skin that were moving in every single direction," he added.
Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney, who also witnessed the execution, reported that Smith "appeared to convulse and shake vigorously for about four minutes after the nitrogen gas apparently began flowing through his full-face mask." He went on to say that it was "another two to three minutes before he appeared to lose consciousness, all while gasping for air to the extent that the gurney shook several times."
Hood likened lethal injections to medical procedures when compared to the "very vicious, horrible murder" appearance of the nitrogen gas method. Before he was suffocated, some of Smith's last words included: "Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward."
Since his death, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that it "marked the first time in the nation – and the world – that nitrogen hypoxia was used as the method of execution," adding that the state "achieved something historic.
In September, Alabama is set to execute another death row inmate, Alan Eugene Miller, with nitrogen gas for the 1999 killing of three people during two workplace shootings in Birmingham. However, Miller filed a lawsuit to block the method following Smith's "botched" execution, with his lawyers saying the state was unable to conduct such an execution “without cruelly superadding pain and disgrace, and prolonging death.”
