Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist
Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.
However, the disturbing events surrounding Medina's 1997 execution would become permanently seared into his memory and trigger severe episodes of PTSD—as he witnessed Medina endure a 15-minute death by burning following a chilling "loud pop."
McAndrew, 87, speaking from his Dunnellon, Florida residence, told the Mirror US: "Medina's execution was something that sent me to a dark place and forced me to take a really strong look at myself and what we were doing in terms of killing our fellow men."
"He was placed into the electric chair, and there are five people who do that," reports the Mirror US. "It's supposed to be done instantly, so there is no waiting around and you are not torturing the person any more than they are already being tortured."
"He was very quickly put into the electric chair, and my job was putting the leather strap on his right ankle. That put me in a position to see the bucket of the saline solution into which you dip the electrical instruments that are going to be connected to him. It's a very heavy saline solution that you put a sponge into. You take this sponge out, and then it's placed on top of his head."
"You squeeze a little of the water out of it, but you leave a lot of water in the sponge to help conduct the electricity."
"And then, you put a copper helmet over the top of this, which is attached to the electrodes that carry the deadly electricity. I could see the electrician who was responsible for that job squeezing the sponge and, in my opinion, squeezing more water out of the sponge than I had noticed in the prior two executions."
"I asked his boss, who was also there, 'Carl, did he leave enough water in that sponge? He said, 'Yeah, boss, we're good, we're ready.' So, I trusted this man. That's why I asked him, instead of the guy squeezing the sponge. And so, we were supposed to be ready to go."
"I allowed the chaplain to come forward for just an instant, and I made sure the doctor was standing next to me to pronounce his upcoming death. Then, I gave the signal to the executioner, who was wearing a hood over his head, so he could not be recognized. And he was behind a short wall.
"I gave him the signal to commence the electricity. But the instant the electric hit Pedro's head, there was a spark and a loud pop. Even in one's home, if you flick an electric switch and you get a pop, you know darn well something has gone wrong."
What unfolded next bears disturbing similarities to a harrowing scene from The Green Mile, an adaptation of a Stephen King novel in which a death row prisoner endures a drawn-out execution in the electric chair following a failure to properly soak the sponge.
Thick plumes of black smoke filled the chamber with such force that McAndrew had to open windows, with the smoke drifting to other prisoners.
McAndrew adds: "Suddenly, a plume of black smoke came out from under the helmet, followed by a flame. It came right up in front of my face, and there was a very serious tightening of the body."
"You could see the hands squeezing the ends of the arms on the chair with the force of a mighty man. And the rest of the body heaving. These were motions I had not seen in the first two; there was a great deal more resistance."
"I suddenly realized we are not electrocuting this man; we were burning him to death—because it continued to burn on the top of his head. The smoke continued to come out. It filled the chamber, so I ordered the colonel to open the window of the death chamber."
"It was something I had to do, because I had 26 witnesses watching me. I'd be accused of doing something dark if I didn't clear things up the best I could. The smoke went out of the window, with the smell going straight upstairs to all the other inmates on death row."
"So, not only could they hear this emotion, they could smell it and see the smoke. That in itself, to me, was torture to those waiting their turn."
"We had to go through the full cycle. So, I don't know when he actually died, but I know that we did this for about 15 minutes. So, 15 minutes later, the doctor examined him, and I remember seeing the doctor come back with a stethoscope, and there's a piece of skin on it—another reason I say we burned this man to death. It was horrible."
He stepped down from his position as warden of Florida State Prison in 1998, having carried out a further five executions by lethal injection.
Four years later, he permanently withdrew from the prison system, emerging with a fundamentally changed perspective on capital punishment.
McAndrew said, "It was just something that was ingrained in me as a child; that's what everybody I knew felt about the death penalty, that it was right."
"If someone was executed, we would hear about it on the radio, and there would be comments, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. These things stuck with me as a child, then as an adult. And then, along comes Medina."
He added: "It's the wrong thing to do. Killing people is no way to show our children that killing is wrong."
Today, he remains committed to campaigning against capital punishment, despite a surge in executions.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 47 executions across the U.S. last year, up from 25 the year before. So far this year, there have been 17.
Florida conducted 19 in 2025, the highest total in state history and more than double its previous record, according to Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP).
Another factor driving his continued activism against capital punishment is the execution of a man he believes may have been wrongly convicted: Leo Jones.
Jones was found guilty in 1981 of killing a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida, before being executed seven years later. The Death Penalty Information Center continues to list him as someone it claims may possibly have been innocent.
Jones signed a confession following hours of police questioning but subsequently alleged the confession was obtained under coercion. The non-profit organization maintains that numerous witnesses have stepped forward, identifying a different suspect in the case, while the officer who arrested Jones and the detective who secured the confession were eventually removed from the force due to ethical violations.
McAndrew, who made it his practice to thoroughly review cases prior to executions, said he was able to identify flaws in the investigation.
He said, "I always read the courtroom material: the police investigations, the charges, and some of the testimony. It was in an inmate file."
"All this stuff. All these papers follow them to the prison. And in reading these documents, I had already come to the conclusion that we almost executed someone that I believe very possibly was innocent. That was Jones, who was executed after I transferred away from Florida State Prison. I had him on death watch."
"But he got a stay, and thank goodness I was not responsible for his execution, because the evidence did not support his charge. And I had been an investigator with the Department of Corrections. I knew a good investigation. I also knew a bad one."
"And this was a very bad investigation."
Source: irishstar.com, David Rivers, July 25, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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