Thy Will Be Done: The Plight of a Young Man Sentenced to Die in North America's Electric Chair

By K. C. Kennedy

Prisoner number SOO23 closed his eyes and prayed. He opened them to absorb a scene more grotesque than his mind had hitherto been able to conjure. In a life and death struggle, Nathan Nelson endured twelve long years on Death Row and the agony and the ecstasy of lifes fateful twists and turns that followed. What thoughts play havoc in a young mans mind, knowing that a painfully agonizing death is imminent? Follow Nathan on this amazing journey through a world hidden from public view and recognized only by those known as societys condemned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504948593

K. C. Kennedy

K.C. Kennedy is a former high school English teacher, who studied the United States criminal justice system for several years and the particular case of a young African-American male sentenced to die in 1961. Interviews ranged from those of a former Pennsylvania Commissioner of Prisons, a journalist who witnessed the execution of a convict in Pennsylvania’s electric chair,lawyers and federal judges to family members, inmates, and even a U.S. marine drill sergeant. Penetrating, captivating, and spiritually motivating are how Kennedy describes her year long research in various locations in the United States. Her quest was born of a desire to accurately portray the sights, sounds, and the characters’ innermost thoughts and feelings in Thy Will Be Done.

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© 2015 K. C. Kennedy. All rights reserved.

Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for the use of the electric chair cover photograph.

Though based on real conversations, all names, places, dates, and quotations, except for Biblical quotations, have been changed and are totally fictitious. All documents and letters are written as fiction, except for Nathan’s last words in court after having been read his death sentence as well as Nathan’s speeches and letter from Death Row to his mother.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1952 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Published by AuthorHouse  09/09/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4860-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4861-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4859-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015914598

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

1.   The Execution

2.   Lessons from Childhood

3.   Building Men

4.   Paying the Price

5.   Death Row

Judgment and Redemption

The Second Judgment

Sanctification

6.   The Waiting Game

7.   Free At Last!

8.   At What Price Freedom

9.   The Tallest Tree

10.   Blessed Assurance

This book is dedicated to my precious husband and children, and of course, Nathan, who stood in the face of adversity and witnessed tragedy turned into triumph…

Chapter 1

The Execution

Death lived to be fed behind the green steel door. Death— in all of its full fist-clenching, wisp-o’-smoke rising, purple foam-choking form. Knowing that the next clanging of the cold, metal keys, the next hollow footsteps he heard might be those of the guards leading him to his execution, prisoner number S0023 closed his eyes and prayed.

He opened them to absorb a scene more grotesque than his mind had previously been able to conjure. The slick, oaken chair, with a ghoulish henchman, soaking electrodes in a tub of brine behind it, loomed dark against the sea of foam grey walls.

Two guards adjusted electrodes to the prisoner’s ankles and wrists as the condemned man slouched, staring at the five silence signs on the walls, the only forms of deference in an otherwise humanly debasing death ritual. A young, blond-haired man, in his thirties, adjusted the wet sponge and electrode to the prisoner’s newly shaven head and placed a dark brown leather mask over his head and face, forever fading from his view the six official witnesses and five newspaper men, all seated on cement benches with brass spittoon vomit pots in front of them. Except for the bodies in it, the room was sterile, barren, hospital-deadly clean.

The young blond-haired executioner twisted a knob in the black box on the wall. Four times in a row the lights went up, then down, accompanied by a hum. The first turning was at 8;02 A.M.; the last was at 8:04 A.M. Dr. T. B. Miller, physician at the Mount Rock Prison, Rougher County, New York, examined the man in the chair.

I pronounce Jerry Spade dead.

These were the only words spoken in the chamber except for those of Reverend Last. As the dream of death drew to a close, he continued to chant:

"Though like the wanderer,

the sun gone down

Darkness be over me

My rest a stone; yet in

my dreams I’d be

Nearer, my God, to Thee."

Nathan closed his eyes again and prayed, Lord…

Hey, Nathan, whaddya’ doin’? Vito Savio’s Lower East Side savvy rang across the cell block from three doors down.

Readin’.

"Reading’ what?’ joked Vito in a half-mouthed, half whisper, mocking his neighbor’s fully hushed tones.

I’m readin’ that article you gave me when I firs’ got here—you know, the one ’bout Jerry’s execution. Boy, that article really did it for me, but I don’t have to worry no more. They’s goin’ to get me some real help. I heard the lawyers talkin’ in court during my second trial. Nathan spoke in tones barely audible. Little did he know that the guard standing watch on the row that very evening was the same guard who smuggled that New York News article of March 4th, 1962, in to Vito. Only the Bible and a few institutionally selected articles were allowed on Death Row in those days, and Nathan wasn’t taking any chances.

Whadda they gonna do for ya? With pointed finger slid between the bars, Vito leaned his 5'8" slim, muscular frame forward, remembering all of the broken promises the D.A.’s had made to him in the past.

Oh, listen to this. In the courtroom, during my trial, at the big, wooden table, Spears, the D.A., came over and shook Cain, my lawyer’s hand. Then Cain said to him, We’ll run this along the lines of the Hatfield case." Cain finally did it that time; he finally stood up to that ol’ Spears and tol’ him how things were gonna’ be for a change. Don’t you know— I got all excited inside, knowing that Cain was finally doin’ somethin’ for me."

Frantically, Vito began pacing there in his 8'x10' white-washed cell, his steel blue eyes flaring, as he ran his fingers through his wavy, dark,strictly-Italian hair. No, no—they got you set up, those slimes. Don’tcha see, man? You’re a sheep bein’ led to the slaughter.

What?!

Hatfield!

Who’s Hatfield?

They executed him. Last year, they took him to the Pardons Board, the Pardons Board turned him down, and seven days later they fried him. Case closed.

What?! I gotta get rid of that lawyer. Ol’ dumb Nathan. They’s probably sittin’ somewheres laughin’ ’bout me right now.

Naaa, you ain’t dumb. Those slimes played the same game with me. Tol’ me if I pleaded guilty, they won’t send me to the chair. And you see where we’s both goin’.

Yeah, Spears, that D.A., he tol’ me that same story, too. Boy, oh boy, oh boy! Vito, how do I get rid of that lawyer and get me a new one?

Yo,don’t worry, I got a plan. I’ll write it down on paper and slide it on the floor to you. Nine years Nathan’s senior, Vito was a seasoned veteran, who had learned how to play the game rather well. In fact, once, in the courtroom when he had played the game too well, even better than the D.A., the judge had accused him of making a mockery of the justice system.

Nathan, on the other hand, had always had a childlike trust in people of authority, even though he was at times disobedient. Paradoxically, Vito Savio believed, it was this same trust that was leading prisoner number S0023 to the Electrocution Room, faster than you could call the state police to take him there.

As Nathan splashed water on his face from his ash green, toilet-face bowl combination, he glanced up into the piece-of-tin mirror on his grey-green walls. True, he looked the same—that same young, well-built, admittedly handsome black male, who had entered the system without bail two years earlier at the age of 20. Then again, on second glance, he felt that maybe his head was just a little too big, which is why the kids on Uber Street had called him muscle-head, along with the fact that they feared his toughness and his willingness to do anything to protect those whom he loved. Still he was happy with his outward appearance, and the number of young females who had been attracted to him told him that it was justifiably so.

It was his internal nature he loathed—the person he was inside. After he was discharged from the Marines, he even believed that he had become a real animal.

But now all of that had changed, too. It happened on December 26, 1963. Before Nathan went to sleep that dark December night, on his thinly-mattressed frame of steel, he prayed, as always. He asked God to give him strength, to let him see the next day. When he woke up on December 27th, he felt he was a different man, a man whose prayers God had answered, a man whom God had strenghthened.

Now, on March 7th, 1964, as he lay waiting, waiting for what seemed the inevitable, he couldn’t help but reflect upon the events leading up to his dramatic conversion. It certainly was far better, a necessary escape route, than thinking about his fate in New York’s leather-strapped death chamber.

On March 7th, 1963, Nathan remembered being transferred from the Bluetone County Prison to the Restricted Housing Unit, to the section known to the layman as Death Row, to the inmates as the hole at Western State Penitentiary. He had been waiting at Bluetone since December 7th, 1961, for his second trial, won on appeal, to commence. Oh, there had been the visits every fifteen days and the fifteen minute showers every third day. His mother and brother Truman had visited him and warned him, even at Bluetone, that the only way out was to get himself right with God. Nathan had heard and even agreed, but there was just too much happening at that time for a total miracle to occur. The gravity of his situation simply hadn’t taken root yet.

But Western was different. He was in the big leagues now. He was placed on Death Row. These people meant business.

During his first week in cell 7 on block 8, convict S0023 was visited by Chaplain Alfred Fallon, a tall, slender, refined Protestant pastor, who gave him a Scofield Reference Bible, then hurried on, trying to meet the needs of the ever-growing prison population at the ten-acre institution.

Western State Penitentiary, John Ayre’s ’s gloomy, medieval fortress, had first opened its doors on October 30th, 1800, and was renowned the world over, consequently becoming a prototype for Gothic prisons from New York to Rome. Thus, it was over a century ago that Benedict Samson had written concerning Western, May the iron prison doors bang and clang and create a sound that will pierce the unrepentant soul. However, contrary to Samson’s proclamation, it was not the banging of the prison doors, but the word of God, sharper than a two-edged sword, that opened the doors of convict S0023’s heart and pierced his soul so deeply that he could never be the same again.

Sitting in his prison cell was not the first occasion on which Nathan had heard the Bible though. When he was child, his mother had taken him to Sunday School. He enjoyed seeing the little girls his age, keeping half of his offering to buy candy for himself, and he even remembered some parts of the Bible he had heard.

But this was different. As Nathan sat in his cell one spring day when March was going out like a lamb, he found himself reading the Bible. No great feat for one who can read, but for prisoner S0023, whose New York School District records to this day show a 6%, a 2-score for reading skills, with a dropout status in the tenth grade after refusing to take a remedial reading course, it was a miracle, a miracle as great, perhaps to him even greater, than the parting of the Red Sea!

Nathan rose, remembering his prayer that had led to such a miracle. Father, if you want me to change, which I want to change, you have to teach me to read this Book. I want to study your Word lest I go crazy here. I want to really find out what it is all about, this thing in me that caused me to do those things. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Eventually, God Almighty did indeed teach him to read, right there in his cell. One day, as Nathan sat staring at the pages of the Bible, he wasn’t even conscious that he was reading until it dawned on him; something clicked, and suddenly he exclaimed, I’m reading, I’m reading! Immediately, Nathan jumped up, Turnkey, cell 7 needs a pen. To Mrs. Nadine Nelson, he wrote, Mother, please come up on the next visit. I have something I want to show you, something I want to prove to you.

Mrs. Nadine Nelson, dressed in her son’s favorite grey and pastel yellow-flowered suit, arrived right on time for her next visit, anxious to see what her son Nate had to show her. Through impenetrable wire mesh, topped by squared safety glass, Nathan could see the tears flowing freely from the wells of his mother’s soul to the flowers on her lapel, as he read to her how Samson slew whole armies with the jawbone of an ass. If it were at all possible, Mrs. Nadine Nelson was happier about her son’s miracle that he was himself!

Still, Nathan remembered, something had bothered him. Even though he continued to read his Bible for the next nine months, something was missing. He recalled his mother pounding into his head since he was a little boy, Son, if you ever die without being saved, you will go straight to hell.

The problem as he saw it, that wintery day after Christ’s birthday in 1963, was that he was pounding God’s word into his head, but ignoring his heart. True, his mother had said, I’m proud of you, as he read aloud, through the mesh screen in the visiting room. Still something wasn’t clear yet. What was this saving she had hoped he had accomplished in his childhood?

Then, on the night of December 26th, with the silver-coned ceiling spotlight beaming in on him as always, Nathan came to John, Chapter 3 in his leather-bound Bible. Just as Nicodemus had wanted to know, he, too, wanted to know how could he be born again? Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ (John 3:3) Yet, not