As you read this I ask that you keep in mind that between Monday, January 04, 1993 and Wednesday, March 17, 2004 I was on death row in Missouri, Condemned Prisoner (Capital Punishment) Number CP-101 (later changed to 990101). As you know, I’m now serving LWoP, known as “the other death penalty”.
I arrived on death row on Wednesday, January 06, 1993, 2 days after I was sentenced to death. Though I pleaded guilty and asked to be sentenced to death I wasn’t at all prepared for what I would experience.
3 weeks to the day of my arrival on death row the State of Missouri committed a state-sanctioned (if you don’t know, on the death certificate it says “homicide”) murder, the 8th since the death penalty was reinstated in Missouri in 1981. His name was Martsay, he was 36. I didn’t know Martsay personally, as I’d just arrived, but I knew of him. Martsay was accused of killing another inmate (this blog isn’t going to touch on innocence and/or guilt, that’s not my place) 14 years earlier.
There are a couple of cruel ironies in this.
First, Martsay was a 1st for me, a 1st in what would become a much, much bigger number.
Two, Martsay was killed at 12:01am and by 8:30am I was given his storage containers (I didn’t have any at the time), his body wasn’t even cold yet. Someone, in their less than infinite wisdom, thought it would be cute to do this, and it shook me. I wasn’t superstitious, yet it gave me an eery feeling to see his name emblazoned on the side of the containers, about 2 inches tall, like an omen and a wake up call. I used an SOS pad to try to scrub his name off, I melted the plastic in my vain attempt. This would be my first negative interaction with staff. I couldn’t bear this, it made me cry, and I caused a disturbance. The Warden responded, as he always did when an incident involved a death row inmate. The Warden asked me what was wrong, and I told him; he wasn’t happy. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a $20 bill. which he handed to an officer and instructed him to go to Wal-Mart and purchase new storage containers. The Warden stayed with me until the new storage container arrived and then he apologized to me.
The atmosphere surrounding Martsay’s killing was odd. At that time the prison was locked down at 7:00pm the day before, so on Tuesday, January 26 there was a prison wide lock down, no movement outside the cells. Another infinite wisdom moment. The prison actually showed Rated X movies on the prison TV channels, no joke. I later came to find out that this was meant to be a distraction from what was really going on, it darn sure didn’t work for all of us. The staff even acted different, some were more intense, others toned down their posture. This prison was single man cells from 1989 until 1997, so in my early years here I was always alone during the state-sanctioned murders, as were are others guys. Among the inmates there was always a dark cloud looming when there was to be a state-sanctioned murder, it didn’t matter who the guy was. And, in all fairness some staff also felt the same way. We all knew who was sympathetic to the plight of death row, and some staff even elected not to come to work on the day of, for one reason or another.
I should tell you that up until just a couple of years ago a guy would remain in the general population (GP) until virtually the “last minute”. In Missouri, for the longest time, the day of and time of execution was always Wednesday morning, 12:01am. With this in mind, often a guy would be taken out of GP (or wherever he was housed at the time) the Friday ahead of the scheduled date. We called it, ” kidnapping” and “here one day, gone the next”. Other times it might be threeweeks in advance. Ironically enough, most times the guys were placed in protective custody (PC) awaiting their date, so the guy with the least to lose was put with those with the most to fear, strange.
Back to GP. Missouri integrated (as a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of past, present and future death row inmates) death row with GP in 1992, called mainstreaming, and to my knowledge it is the only state with death row in GP.
Missouri state-sanctioned murders were committed at the Potosi Correctional Center (PCC) between January, 1990 and March, 2005, and the place where they were done was smack dab in the middle of the medical department. Yep, right in the middle of where lifesaving takes places, the state-sanctioned murders happened, 10 feet from the prison emergency room, and I’m not even kidding. Is this not the textbook definition of an odd and unfortunate, even cruel and diabolical, juxtaposition, life next to death? Again, what happens in the dark.
On the Tuesday immediately preceding the date, with the prison on full lock down, the mood was dark and somber. Everyone knew what was going to happen at 12:01am; no distraction could sweep this under the carpet. There was always extra staff, inside and outside, the law enforcement footprint was increased, for obvious reasons. I can tell you there was never a single incident related to a state-sanctioned murder, not one, the so called “monsters”, the “worst of the worst”, didn’t cause one problem when we knew, full well, that one of our own was being put down, knowing our number was moving up by one. What does this say? You decide.
As the hour approached the mood in the prison always shifted, you could feel it and sense it. It was palpable. Sometimes guys would pray out loud, other times some guys would yell out the name of the guy, and sometimes there was the deafening sound of silence. Myself, I always withdrew and pondered the gravity of the situation. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Would he show remorse and be remorseful? Would he tell the truth if he hadn’t done so? Would he truly be forgiven? Where would his soul go? What about the victims family? What about his family? Would anyone pay attention to what was happening in the dark? Many questions, few answers, sadness for sure. With each state-sanctioned murder I was acutely aware that my number was moving up by one, so these questions I pondered because one day I’d be asking them, it was surreal.
At the appointed time I would always look out my cell window, which gave me a partial view of the outside world, I wanted to see if the light of the stars dimmed, even if just a little, was there a perceptible change in anything? For Martsay it was snowing, there was lots of snow on the ground, a scene so serene and idyllic that belied the state-sanctioned murder that was happening just feet from where I stood. I’m telling you I cried for every state-sanctioned murder, I cried for the guy, I cried for his victims and their family, I cried for his family, I cried for the staff that participated (for they knew not what they did), I cried for a process that was so arbitrary and unfair, and, I cried for myself knowing that my own day of reckoning was coming. We would all know when the state-sanctioned murder was actually done because the officers would come around and silently and respectfully nod, or, we may even hear the announcement over their radio, “Stand down!”, which we came to know that it meant, the dirty deed is done.
Life in prison, even after a state-sanctioned murder, moves along, after any event, or tragedy, the staff makes a concerted effort to get the routine back on track as quickly as possible. I could never sleep after one of these killings, it was too much to bear, I would lay in bed and toss and turn. The prison was always on lock down from 7:00pm the day before until 11:30am the day off, what the administration called a cool down period. Breakfast the morning of, just 5 hours later, for many years, was a sack lunch, with hard boiled eggs and other snacks that we considered to be another feeble attempt at distraction. Before the lock down was lifted staff would make frequent rounds to “check the temperature”, to see how we inmates were acting, specifically death row inmates, and if there was a deviation from normal behavior the lock down could be extended.
I’ll tell you this. One time, upon being released from lock down, after the state-sanctioned murder of a well liked guy, Sugar Bear, a few other guys and I on death row exited our cells and just happened to be wearing some article of clothing that was black. We didn’t plan this, nor did we even notice right away, I promise. Well, the staff noticed and this was dealt with instantly and decisively, we were told to remove the black clothing, right on the spot, or go to the hole. This will give you more insight into the mood and atmosphere.
With the lock down lifted things would slowly work back to normal, though there was always talk about the guy we’d lost, sometimes we might share a meal and kick around some memories. We all felt raw and emotional, sometimes more than others, and there were many tears shed in the open. On death row, at least here, there was always a certain kinship, we are in it together, and so if one of us were cut we would all bleed. Everyone might not get along, this was definitely the case, but when a state-sanctioned murder happened all pettiness was cast aside, and we rallied in our own ragtag ways.
Missouri did an about-face in 2005 when it changed the place where state-sanctioned murders would happen, moving them right down the road from PCC to the Eastern Region Diagnostic Correctional Center (ERDCC) at Bonne Terre. Why? It was said that this was done to eliminate the emotional hardship it placed on staff to get to know guys and then have to participate in their killing. It’s widely believed that this is yet another attempt at distraction, we’ll do this over here and maybe nobody will see or care.
I told you about Martsay, but I also want to give a shout out to Frankie, DJ, Sugar Bear, Tony, Bad Bob, Big Ralph, Cool Sam, AJ, Dirty, Hog, Big Roy, Benny, Wally, Leroy, Baby Harris, Bimbo, Mo, SD, Mongo, Squirrel, Mike T, Lil Rodge, J Dub, Big Paul, Rusty, Slim, KJ, Raheem and Big Drawers, the nicknames of 29 of the 92 state-sanctioned murders that I’ve been witness to between January, 1993 and June, 2024, all guys that I knew personally, some that I called friend and brother, all that lived a life similar to mine, who met a cruel fate that I believed for 11 years would come to me. I’ll tell you, but for the grace of God, there go I.
The mood and atmosphere surrounding a state-sanctioned murder is dark and gloomy, it’s sad but true. A saying I like says, “All the darkness in the world can’t put out the light of even one small candle”, a saying that’s fitting for this blog. What happens in the dark always comes to the light.
There are at least two documentaries about Missouri death row, called, I believe, “The Execution Protocol” and “Execution Past Midnight”, that you may find interesting.
Contact Info:
Robert Shafer #990101
Write to him via email:
https://www.securustech.net
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Step 4: Search for Robert Shafer in the state of Missouri. The facility on Securus is listed as Missouri Department of Corrections.
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