Death Row DVDs

Lately I’ve been on a mission. And I don’t think anything is impossible when you never say die. I’ve been trying to get death row inmates final DVDs to watch. I hear about “victim’s rights” all the time. But what about killer’s rights? I mean they were found guilty. They are paying for the crime, often with their life. And did it ever occur to anyone that the people they murdered might have had it coming? New York State may not enforce the death penalty but 31 other states do, so with the help of local congressmen, lawyers, and other officials I’ve been successful in getting “final wish” to include a portable DVD player and favorite film for these convicted felons along with their last pie a la mode.

Prisoner Justin Lockwood murdered over 37 people in assorted drug disputes. “Wasn’t nothing personal,” he confessed matter-of-factly during his arraignment. Justin requested a copy of Big Momma’s House, Like Father Like Son, the third installment of the Big Momma franchise starring Martin Lawrence. “Probably won’t live long enough to see part 4” he sadly confided in me, after exhausting countless stays of execution. We should all be so lucky, Justin.

Harry Stewart’s last wish was to watch Ron Howard’s firemen saga Backdraft– not surprising since Harry set fires to many houses during his year long reign of terror, burning whole families alive. “I want to see the flames dance one last time,” he ecstatically moaned from his cell. “Is that too much to ask for?”

Duke Johnson wanted a copy of Gone With The Wind, a seemingly odd choice for the angry, violent young man accused in a string of subway stabbings. “Why that film?” I asked him. “Because it’s fucking long,” he replied.

Helen Herbert, who drove over her husband 109 times with her car, and whose defense was: “the brakes slipped,” wanted a copy of The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants. “The last thing I want to watch is something heavy,” she said, “and one of the gals on the cell block said it was really good.”

Jerry Abrams wanted the Wes Craven horror film Shocker about a death row killer who cheats death by turning himself into electric current. One suspects Mr. Abrams’s wishful thinking informed that selection.

Sandra Levinson was convicted of driving her five children down to a lake in her Honda Civic, locking them in, then pushing the car straight into the water. She then hitchhiked home- borrowed the neighbor’s car, rounded up their three youngsters and drove them to the same lake, pushing that car in too. When asked for her final DVD choice she strangely picked Yours, Mine And Ours (the original 1968 comedy starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda about a widowed mother of eight who married a widower with ten children). “Call me crazy,” Sandra said cheerily, “but I just love kids….”

Hector Price, who brutally bashed his wife’s head in with both a hammer and meat tenderizer and whose lame defense of “restless leg syndrome” nearly got him laughed out of court wanted a copy of Unforgiven as his last request. “One, I think that Clint Eastwood is a damn fine director,” Hector said, “And two, there’s some sweet irony in the title too.”

One convict I feared tangling with was Adam Baker, who started committing murders when he was in his teens, only to escalate his killing in his 30s and 40s, targeting the elderly and physically impaired. “There’s something about a wheelchair or a walker that makes me want to get out my killing hat,” he stated during his allocution. The warden cautioned me that he spelled trouble, but my conversation with him was convivial. His request of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang did confound me, though. Unfortunately, he yanked the DVD out halfway through and slit the throat of a guard, which caused a temporary halt to my program for several months.

The toughest request was the last wish of notorious child killer Bob Fowler, who was convicted of snatching kids right in front of their house, biting off their big toes before strangling them. Bob craved to see the movie Inchon. Damn, that one stumped me. This was a 1981 movie set during the Korean War about General Douglas MacArthur’s (Laurence Olivier) surprise military attack on North Korea. Led by an International cast ((Jacqueline Bisset, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Roundtree), it was produced by Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church and cost over 46 million dollars, The film made, maybe, $100 at the box office. Never available on home video, I got outbid on eBay for a DVD bootleg. Luckily the title came up again and after a fierce bidding war I finally got my hands on a copy. Regrettably, by then Mr. Fowler had had his date with lady lethal injection and his unclaimed remains were dumped in a landfill somewhere outside of Cincinnati.

I still steadfastly believe- it’s the thought that counts.