Reflections on an execution -- Recalling the state killing of Jim Chambers Nov. 15, 2000

It is unclear what exactly happened at the Country Club Lounge in Arnold that fateful May day in 1982. There's no dispute Jim Chambers fatally shot Jerry Oestricker. Considerable evidence supports Jim’s claim he fired in self-defense. His death, nonetheless was a tragedy; our thoughts and prayers go out to his family members and friends who continue to mourn his violent passing. There is also no doubt of a second tragedy: state workers intentionally and legally pumped fatal doses of poison into Jim's body soon after midnight, Wednesday morning, November 15. I witnessed this contemptible crime.

Years ago, I told myself I should never witness an execution. I feared I would try to destroy the lethal-injection machine. But as the days were slipping by, I understood Jim's wife Darlene might be alone as the sole witness present to support Jim. I didn't want her to be without a friend during that painful time. I also wanted Jim to be able to look up from the execution gurney and see people who cared for him, recognizing him for the good human being he was.

I met Darlene in October 1997 at a national abolitionist conference in St. Louis. She had been and continued to be Jim's most persistent advocate. A few months later I met Jim at the Potosi prison. I traveled down to visit/interview him on three other occasions. We talked on the phone a few dozen times. Both of them became my friends, so I asked a day before if they would want me to be present for both of them, when Jim was scheduled to be killed. They both said they'd appreciate that, so I agreed.

(As it worked out, thankfully, both of Darlene's sons, Kevin and Eddie, and her nephew Rob were there for both Darlene and Jim. They offered much comfort and strength for her. Missouri Methodist Bishop Ann Scherer was also present to Jim as a spiritual guide after visiting with him over the weekend. Later, she remained with Darlene, her relatives and I, as Jim was killed. Her prayerful words and dignified presence meant a great deal to Darlene. Rev.Ray Redlich with the New Life Evangelical Center served as a second spiritual advisor to Jim).

I got my last chance to visit with Jim alive in the isolation cell for about a half-hour late Tuesday afternoon. The day before he had been transferred to this dog-kennel size cell, crammed full with a toilet, bed, chair, TV and just enough room to stand and pace a short step or two. The cell is fronted by a heavy steel corrugated wall, one which seemed to prevent easy focus on Jim and to exaggerate my attention on the wall that separated us. I told Jim we still hoped to ultimately have he and his wife come to our Columbia home for dinner one distant evening, provided Gov. Roger Wilson would intervene. Jim knew better at that time. I was still hanging onto a thread of hope, Darlene still refused to consider any other but a positive outcome.

Once a prisoner gets an execution date, Missouri's prison system demotes him in essence to the caste of "untouchable." All contact visits with guests are halted. In the isolation cell, the terms of outcasting are even more pronounced. A line marked on the floor tells the visitors (only two allowed at a time) not to cross nor advance toward the cell 2-3 feet away. Jim, like other men who receive an execution date, are prohibited from touching anyone. The state seemed to send the message that Jim, however, was unworthy of such affection, even from his wife of 18 years.

As is customary for the “execution protocol,” Darlene had to leave the prison at 7:00 p.m. I rejoined her, along with some of her relatives at her mother’s home about a dozen miles from the prison. At 11:00, however, Darlene's world began collapsing. She quickly picked up the phone after the first ring. It was Jim. She relayed the toxic words to our group, longing for some good news, "The Governor's refusing to stop the execution." Darlene slightly turned more of her back toward the rest of us seeking some privacy, while subtlety seeming to recoil slightly as the unthinkable became all too probable. "Jim, the governor could still change his mind," she frantically tried to assure him, and herself. From our end of the phone, it seemed Jim struggled calmly to prepare her for the worst. "No, no, no Jim," she began sobbing.

A few minutes later we tried to give to Darlene phone numbers of three cellular phones for various family members so Jim could call her while we drove to the prison. Dread and numbness however, were beginning to overwhelm Darlene and she was unable to relay the numbers to Jim. She gave me the phone and I gave him the numbers. (The Department of Corrections, during this most brutal practice, does compassionately allow condemned prisoners access to the phone for outgoing and incoming calls from about 8 AM to late in the evening for their final two days of life. Only Jim could call out after 10). I told Jim I was grateful for getting to know him. He thanked us for the work we had done on his behalf. I told him I loved him and then said good-bye. Sadly I learned when I got to the prison, that Darlene received no phone called en route. Perhaps prison officials ruled no more communication, perhaps the signal got waylaid among the steep hilly roads of Washington County, or maybe Jim just didn't have it in him to stretch out good-bye to his wife over the ride.

Driving into the prison on that execution night was surreal in so many ways. There was an additional checkpoint at the main entrance and dozens of armed guards. It had the aire of self-righteous zealots taking a defensive stand. Some might say the law-enforcement officers were defending the will of the people (revenge-driven as it is). Perhaps they felt insecure. And for good reason, as these actions of the state, I believe, violate a higher moral/spiritual and international law. Our group was directed to a waiting van where we were scanned with a metal detector. Officers told me to take off my boots so they could check if I was concealing a weapon (absurdly suggesting they’d prevent harm coming to anyone).

Out of the van, a DOC official led us to the main prisoners' visiting room. It was where Jim and Darlene visited almost weekly over the last 10 years, she recalled with a wobbly voice. We met there with Bishop Scherer, Rev. Redlick and Rev. Paul Powell, the Potosi prison chaplain. Tears flowed steadily as Darlene cried, worrying that Jim was probably incredibly frightened and anxious. Knowing him, we assured her, his greatest concern was most likely her welfare. After five minutes the phone rang, shocking Darlene with a startle. I approached the prison worker who told us nothing after he had picked up the phone. Nobody had been on the line, he said. Maybe God was trying to get through to awaken the prison workers' conscience, I suggested, encouraging them to halt the execution. His non-response was indeed predictable yet disconcerting.

Darlene had begun trembling visibly. Not surprisingly, nothing proved calming when a scheduled calamity was fast approaching. The minutes coldly ticked away. Darlene pleadingly spoke out, "God wouldn't let this happen." Bishop Scherer gently reminded, this deed was being planned by people not God. She then led us in a moving prayer asking for God to grant both Darlene and Jim comfort, strength and courage in the minutes ahead.

At about ten of midnight, Rev. Powell oddly read out a Department of Corrections (DOC) note, explaining dispassionately about the "operation" (doublespeak for murder) which was about to take place. He listed the three chemicals--sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride-- which were to be injected and their lethal properties. It still mystifies me why this explanation was rendered. Was it intended to somehow comfort relatives?! Torture them? Or just coldly inform? Rev. Powell did say he was directed by the state to read that statement. Just following orders: a steady theme for this morally-bankrupt "operation."

A couple of minutes before midnight, the phone rang again. An official calmly and unemotionally said, "It is time to go." Darlene began to sob intensely, and was unable to stand on her own. Her sons helped lift her to her feet. We were then led toward the execution site. Executions at Potosi are committed in a room adjacent to the prison's infirmary. It was bizarre walking past the clinic which serves as a center for healing in daytime, then transforms (akin to the switch from Jekyl to Hyde) to a place for preparing the instruments of death-- the IV needles and tubes-- on the night of state murders.

The DOC official took us to a small room with six chairs screwed onto a two-step riser. We sat down as instructed. Darlene haltingly took the center seat on the lower tier. Before us was a window with two Venetian blinds drawn down. After a few intensely elongated minutes, two DOC officials stationed themselves, one each holding a cord on the far sides of the window. Both seemed intent not to block any part of the window frame or window. Either from a radio or from an official behind us, a signal was apparently given. The two workers earnestly pulled their cords simultaneously. Up went the shades revealing Jim laying on his back strapped to a gurney. He focused immediately on Darlene. On his other side, across from us was another window where another 8-10 people sat. They were the legal witnesses and reporters. At Jim's feet was another separate room where relatives of Jerry Oestricker sat behind another thick pane of glass to witness the execution.
Darlene and Jim screamed (muted by the glass but still audible), "I love you, I always will" to each other. Jim then blurted out after perhaps a minute or so, "It's coming, I can feel it." His eyelids fluttered then closed, forever. Darlene frantically shouted, "Wake up Jim!" When he offered no response, she sobbed uncontrollably, wailing, "No, no, no, no!" She banged her hands against the glass. Efforts to comfort her were understandably ineffective and rejected. She slammed her head onto the window twice. Crying hysterically, she collapsed to the floor. The officials closed the blinds. At first they demanded she and our group leave the room. Thankfully, after we urged they practice empathetic patience, the officials allowed us to remain an extra 10 minutes to grieve. Then they insisted it was time to move on.

We took turns helping support Darlene as we left that room and tried to leave the prison. Over the past 15 minutes, she looked as though she had aged 10 years, the joy and vibrancy which normally imbued her spirit, drained out of her as life was sucked out of Jim. Darlene fainted as we moved into a carport and neared the DOC van. Ironically, some of the medical staff who had helped bring about Jim's death and her suffering, now more appropriately, were assisted in trying to revive his widow. They brought her back into the infirmary with her sons and nephew. There they suspected she had suffered a heart attack.

Once stabilized, an ambulance drove her to the Washington County hospital. It was immensely refreshing to encounter medical personnel doing life-affirming work. They showed great compassion and true professionalism. IV tubes and needles were used for the designed healing purpose, injecting saline solution and a sedative into Darlene to help calm her. Many family members maintained a vigil between her emergency room and the hospital lobby. Other friends compassionately joined us, including Christy Mercer, whose husband George "Tiny" Mercer was executed in 1989. Darlene commiserated with her about how the ordeal left her without the ability to feel anything at all. At about 3:30 a.m., Darlene was finally released and allowed to go home under the care of her sons. They determined there was no heart attack. Clearly though, her heart and psyche had sustained a brutal assault.

I know I never really wanted those blinds to ever be pulled up. (Darlene has told me she never wants to ever have such blinds any place she may live in the future). Not seeing what was transpiring on the other side of those blinds, would have meant it wouldn't have happened, I guess I rationalized, in a manner similar to many citizens in our society who may still see executions abstractly. Over the past decade, I have helped coordinate and joined dozens of vigils protesting scheduled executions, but yet I still perhaps considered the poisonings on some mental level, still in the abstract. No longer,...

No other human being was in the room with Jim as he was executed. By the mere absence of people, the setting appeared designed to suggest that the vague "state of Missouri" and not a single individual, was ultimately responsible for Jim's impending execution. There indeed were 2 or 3 people out of sight who simultaneously pushed buttons. Only one of those persons actually pushed the engaging control (the other two punched dummy buttons) to activate the lethal injection machine. It helps, it seems, to dilute individual culpability. Try as we might, we can't however, escape the fact that in a real sense we are all guilty in these executions. I include myself among the guilty citizenry. If we do not strive to halt a state killing, by putting our own body nonviolently in the way of the executioner, we bear some blame as well, just as surely as if we stand quiet, knowing a neighbor is being coldly, methodically killed.

Recently, I received a letter from Darlene thanking FOR and other groups for efforts undertaken to prevent Jim’s death. She also shared however, some troubling views into how traumatizing the death of a loved one can be and at the brutalization which comes with the death penalty. She writes, ”I was in denial (of Jim’s death) for about three weeks. Then I found out from a friend who knows the Oestricker family, that on Nov. 14, Tuesday night, they had a big party at Carol Vaughn’s (a friend of the deceased) bar in St. Louis to celebrate him being put to death by the state. It was horrible. I got sick to my stomach when I heard,… They even had signs and a banner up. One sign she recalled said,’ You Screwed with Oestricker so We Juiced You Jim Chambers’. They even cheered at midnight,…I hope Jim wasn’t able to see that. After I learned this, I just freaked and started my crying and deep depression. I’ve been having bad, nervous headaches and losses of memory. People can be so horrible to one another,….”

-- Jeff Stack (Funding for Jeff's outreach efforts and his death-penalty abolition efforts are made possible through a grant from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and gifts from a couple dozen Missouri supporters of nonviolent alternatives to the death penalty).

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