during his years serving is regina's chief executioner gerry wood here in the swear they were innocent. when you hear a person going to his death may stick it out and he was innocent to the last syringe go into his body he's taken out that he was innocent on his last words as last. give me something to think about as execution and it place some doubt there there was one young man in particular washington jr. he was tried to tell society back then that he was innocent to get no one really paid no attention. in one nine hundred eighty three earl was arrested in culpepper virginia and brought in for questioning he thought it was for

a burglary he had committed. a question by different. and we'll use it at our data. and they know i want to quote. call kept. the death penalty. after intense questioning police officers extracted a confession from earl for the brutal rape and stabbing murder of a one thousand year old mother of three. at his trial experts testified that earle had an i.q. of only sixty nine and was extremely suggestible casting doubt on his confession. despite inconclusive evidence the jury found guilty and the judge sentenced him to death. he was taken to mecklenburg

a supermax prison in virginia. he was scared to death he was tempted he didn't want to come out of so. he's mentally retarded he couldn't read he couldn't write i walked in to the cell and canadian thing bangle door come see what you want that was earl the whole time he was on the road he was. scared to have it. all as they were for me my mom dating. a promise once or. a movie was an aide to see the mom would have me. two weeks before earl's date of execution the guards came to transport him to the death house in richmond. a charity mob put him in a way saying handcuffs shackles and then walk him out. literally drug him out and

meanwhile everybody's banging on the door to hear that the proselyte ards. joe reached out to his caseworker marie deans to see if anything could be done. i called marie in a panic as i was. out of this god did or not but i don't think he did i'll bet this god knows what's going on when early arrived at the death house he was handed over to jerry i received earl from mecum ber and when he came in i gave him a good trade into the infirmary he was given a complete physical. at that time we only had. death by electrocution chair so he didn't have a choice. you could her you know how you had led to as i went through to your home and have a date with all we got was the. he said he would get a new rating from. i have been ill. and that became mother will no longer

want me to go i go again knowing or no way. working day and night jo ann marie secured a rare stay of execution marie was convinced that earle had been pressured into falsely confessing my work with mentally retarded defendants and we know that this was a what we would call a coerced confession whether it was course psychologically when someone did you kill that woman next. but you told the police that you did. yes why did you tell the police that you did it. oh no no no no you understand then that you were being. accused of a murder. they didn't understand most. new d.n.a. tests proved earl was not the murderer he was moved off death row but he remained

in prison virginia law at the time did not allow the introduction of new evidence. gerry heard little about what happened to earl his focus was on preparing for the next execution. one year after the boston marathon bombing a memorial service brought everyone together for the first time. when we walked. down the road to the site. ron and i and christie stopped at each side and said a prayer. a week later carolyn ron united with survivors at the two thousand and fourteen boston marathon. they cheered their friend celeste in a symbolic run across the finish line. i

am angry at what he did and. when i see my friends and they struggle and i see other survivors. i don't want my decision to be based on how angry i get in those instances. that fall judge will tool announced the trial would be held in boston. and we have two choices we can either let him stay alive and have his interaction and have his joys. or put him to death and have that be the end of it. they don't get to see their little boy playing baseball anymore or reading him a story at night and this young man is in jail and he's reading stories that he

likes he's got books available to him that he enjoys or he meets with his sisters and gets to see pictures of their children growing up and i just don't think it's fair that they have had their their joys taken away from them and he still is able to experience that. care and decided to attend the trial. i want to be there to see. justice. in philadelphia nearly four years after vicki instils daughter shannon was murdered the police got a lead. in two thousand and one there'd been a series of assaults started taking place in fort collins colorado they put out a report to police agencies all across the united states. so they sent

d.n.a. from shannon's case to fort collins. the d.n.a. was a match. the suspect was married and employed at an air force base. so about eight o'clock that night twenty third day of april. two thousand and two this fellow and his wife walked into the police station and by midnight that night they had a full confession for the dozen different cases. the man they arrested twenty nine year old troy graves philadelphia's elusive center city rapist graves was accused of multiple counts of sexual assault and one count of murder in the death of shannon schieber. the prosecutor was district attorney lynn abraham. the prosecutor in the city of philadelphia who is known as a pretty deadly d.a.

in other words she put more people on death row then i at any other prosecutor in pennsylvania and probably any large number around the country. graves was found guilty and the district attorney wanted the death penalty but the she bers did not . it meant they would have to fight for the life of their daughter's killer. we had said to each other and consulted with our very large families that what would we do if they ever caught a ball we would stick to our principles and if someone was going to want him put to death we were going to argue for a life without the possibility of parole. the district attorney voiced her disagreement and outrage. the district attorney there became very very upset she became very public with her and with her opinion and she said i don't care what the schieber said the death penalty was the appropriate sentence for their daughter's murder. why were they not one. for vicki

instilled the answer was clear. we just can't let this anger this natural human anger and pain overwhelm us and make us so then full and hateful because it would just over time destroy us and we know that. vicki and still received piles of hate mail the qs ing them of not loving their daughter. you know if you can't stand by your principles when it's difficult they're not your principles. several years past before jerry learned that her washington was not guilty. it had to be like fifteen or twenty executions at that girl who was released from death row that i found out that he was he was innocent as it wound as that's as close

calling you know he came within days in how to execute an innocent person. a criminal justice system supposed to be the best in the world. i don't think we make those mistakes and yet when you see a person like girl washington. something happen here. in the aftermath of the oklahoma city bombing in one thousand nine hundred five congress passed legislation to escalate death sentences the result was a dramatic increase in executions by one thousand nine hundred nine jerry was putting to death more than one person per month. the death certificate reads. death by almost i. you know don't make sense i don't want to be consider person deaths committed almost but that's what every. six to two

executions and the only kill bit accuracy was myself and i refused to look into the mirror. he nearly took the life of her washington and couldn't help but wonder if there were others. research now shows that for every nine executions there is one inmate found innocent and exonerated. one out of ten who might have been mistakenly put to death. you cannot operate as united nations this is not just wouldn't but un d.p. world health organization and in fact other international organizations like the international committee of the red cross you cannot work in a place like gaza without pragmatic cooperation with the local storage fees which are hamas in this case here or have been for most of the last few years.

i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter the u.s. is over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth he longs to be ultra rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred trade per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only number you need to remember is one one business show you can afford to miss the one and only boom bust. join me every thursday on the

alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest on the wall the politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. l.f. if it was government official of president of the f.c.c. the system i sort of got it i'm too liberal the system that sets aside for the life of this woman. is broadly. defined the poor here for different reasons the loss of job loss all. most people in philadelphia are only a ballot to paychecks away from homelessness. and

. nearly two years after the bombing the trial was about to begin. karen left her home in new hampshire early to arrive for the opening statements. it was the first time she had scenes or niam since the arraignment. inside the courtroom karen and the other survivors were seated just twenty feet away he refused to look at them. the defense team would make the case that so cars are naive was unduly influenced by his older brother. the prosecutors would argue that he was fully responsible for his actions. many victims shared their experiences including the father of eight year old martin who described having to choose between comforting his dying son and saving his daughter. over the

next four weeks karen and other survivors relive the horror of the bombing. they reached out to each other for support. coming to court it was amazing how quickly and how close we all got it was where like a family. but her husband ron stayed away. since the bombing ron has changed and it's a hard thing to watch the man that you. struggle so desperately and be so angry he's just not the same as he was before federal jury convicted john hartson i have all thirty counts he was facing for the boston marathon bombing just eleven hours the jury found our native guilty of all charges now they would decide if he should be put to death. the survivors were divided. karen's friend celeste

was for a death sentence. the richards not wanting to go through years of appeals but decided against it. it's a long tough process to really examine. why you feel what you feel. you really have to look at yourself. pretty hard to decide. as soon as vicki and sil learned the identity of the man who raped and murdered their daughter vicki wanted to know more. i want it i want to know why i want to stand what he did why was this going forward like that what was going on where was his background with that to talk to his mother i wanted to understand who he was vicki located troy graves mother and gave her a call were you were on the phone together for many many hours in tears

mysterious sobbing with each other i said but just to understand what you were going there i want to share with what i'm going through and maybe we can help each other and learn from each other and just come to some kind of peace with all this because god you must be going to a terrible time lost your son and you know and she says oh this is schieber i. grieve some other blamed herself for her son's actions. and i said i don't think of what when he said she said it got more and more violent and i. and my kids would come to me and it's say please money let's go this is a bad danny's bet i was telling them i can't i don't have a job i don't have you know education i can't support you oh my god how can i be angry. that he began meeting with inmates on death row. she discovered a system of victims on all sides we can just hear stands that mom and dad now that

you know about the system the terrible flaws the bias the racial the geographic bias of caught cos if they don't get their lawyers just all that i can go on not you know what you can to do upon. they began advocating across the country and quickly found that many people thought all victims wanted the death penalty. they say that the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families want that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite and we've been through this and this isn't the way you loose chopper you guys hole in heart and. so you have to you have to kind of learn to live with this hole in your heart. either we can continue to do well on it and then of well up the misery and sustain that misery. that we incurred because of what was going on or we can

we can try and force things to change to the extent we can. they countered their grief by sharing their story and providing testimony that would influence death penalty legislation. losing a loved one to murder is a tragedy on imaginable proportions this all happened to her testimony helped maryland become the eighteenth state to repeal capital punishment i've told my daughter story now twenty two different states and i have seen the tremendous effect of this whole system on murder victims' family members. in an ongoing tribute to the memory of their daughter vicki and still continue their efforts to end the death penalty. in boston nearly three weeks have passed since our nail was found guilty but the

federal jury had yet to make a decision about whether he should be put to death. karen went to the courthouse nearly every day. over the course of the trial she had become one of the main spokespersons and media contacts for the survivors. but for now there was nothing to do but wait. wait. you mean suddenly a text from a clerk inside alerted her that the jury was close to a decision. they're going to be coming out starting any time now i would prefer it be you know and the death penalty just because i think that's a fair thing the right thing. is awful if that is. i think it's the jeff thing that's what i hope. and we are coming on the air because the jury deciding the fate of boston marathon bombers has reached

a verdict. they have sentenced him to death. news of the verdict traveled fast thank know that there is still a long. would that but right now it feels like we can take a breath and thank you. actually breathe again you know without even realizing all the crap at once and her ticking and it's like now we can start here no point. knaves fate sealed karin began the long drive home. i don't think it evens the score i don't think that it teaches anybody anything. i don't believe that it's going to be a deterrent to the next young man who has anger but i just think that that's nothing no other choice in my mind that is fair.

after seventeen years and sixty two executions jerry's time as executioner came to an abrupt end. in the midst of preparing for another execution he was subpoenaed by a grand jury and accused of money laundering gerry claimed he was innocent but the court found him guilty. the sunday after his sentencing jerry's long held secret about his role as executioner became public. they printed in the paper you see the men that carry out execution orders for this data but ginia was found guilty once i was out i mean i'm expose so i gotta come forward i got a camel why is this in the truth about this here. why me know

all because i didn't see you i don't want you to have to go through what happened go to. gerry served his time he learned that earl washington received a full pardon and after seventeen years was finally released from prison about four percent of the guys that have executed and they stuck out that they were innocent so in napa earle's case you know a place doubt here to find out that innocent people were there on death row. after serving his time jerry worked hard to rebuild his life. he began speaking out against the death penalty one of the few executioners to do so we need to do that we need to change and i didn't enjoy killing people so what can we do to prevent these things from happening. jerry thought often about

washington. if i ever get to see him i want to say oh you know i'm sorry i'm glad that things didn't go in a way there was plan to go and i'm glad to see you on a side because i can apologize to you after that take your life you know after i had biden that's it. i'm glad i didn't get a chance to hit so i apologize to the name thanking the way i thought she was guilty. jerry decided to visit her to talk with him face to face. though it had been many years jerry and earl swapped stories and quickly we discovered a shared custody that's all you know one day i was at madame de i was

a native. i went to ritual follow soaring through the oak that's what it looked each year you know i won the woodwork going to you know went through your mind not doing it he was innocent oh mamma hid it all we're here she's a bloody raise your blood get me through. just. this is a good thing that i didn't give it you know because i'll bring it to wed he didn't do anything wrong. and also isn't something that i would have to face. but to see him crossing that bridge into meet him and how the innocence of it. and if. you don't know because you were much you.

there.

except someone for who they are not what you want them to be this is the advice a therapist might give to a couple in a relationship crisis apply this wisdom to geopolitics and you'll see that trying to change the weakness of the other. can go pit ideology aside and learn to fully accept each other.

you cannot operate as united nations this is not just one run but un d.p. world health organization and other international organizations like the international committee of the red cross you cannot work in a place like gaza with pragmatic cooperation with the local storage fees which are hamas in this case or has been for most of the last few years.

all right and much is that up. in the top stories of the week just minutes off to blast off and hurtling toward space a rocket malfunction forced the quick thinking crane to abandon their mission i'm face a nail biting punch but. almost two weeks on this still no answers to what's happened to a prominent journalist who vanished after entering the saudi embassy in. making claims he was murdered something riyadh denies and. if we are fortunate enough to win back the house and or the senate that's when civility can started.