As end to death row nears in California, we meet condemned inmates held in extreme conditions

Published

2 months ago

April 4, 2024

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On death row, there’s the man you meet and the man you Google.

When I walked into East Block, San Quentin, there was a genial wave from inside the condemned cell of David Carpenter. His internet history has him as the serial rapist and murderer known as “The Trailside Killer”.

Raynard Cummings was on good form, mimicking my Scottish accent as he stood the height of the cell door that separated us.

“I don’t think lions and tigers should be locked up like this,” he told me, reverting to Californian drawl. Search his name and you find it’s a view formed in the 40 years since he was convicted for fatally shooting an LA police officer.

The common courtesy of death row prisoners conceals the depravity and danger that brought them here.

They all have a story, everyone as dark as the next.

Robert Galvan – robber, kidnapper and murderer – leaned into the grated metal of a holding cage to tell me his.

“I killed my cellie [cellmate],” he said. “Actually, I wanted to come here [death row]. They gave me life for kidnap and robbery… and that made me feel bad.”

“The only way for me to get back into the court system was to do something like that, to get here you know?” Galvan said. “Now I’ve got a good lawyer, now I’ve got an appeal.”

The 48-year-old has tattoos covering his head and inked around busy eyes that dare you to question the logic. He’d committed cold-blooded murder with the aim of a death row conviction, for the want of a good lawyer. Savagery as a strategy.

His story isn’t the only one to shock on America’s largest condemned wing – in East Block, San Quentin, there’s a disturbing personal history in every cell.

Michael Lamb, 55, a former white supremacist convicted of murder in 2008, told me: “I killed a gang member that went on Fox Undercover. I shot him in the back of the head, I executed him in an alley.”

Daniel Landry, 55, said: “I killed another inmate. It was either me or him and he didn’t make it.”

They are shocking tales, told in matter-of-fact terms, that feed into a sense of caged menace. The feeling is reinforced by a security infrastructure designed to keep inmates at a safe distance, which has an intensity that feels life or death.

Armed guards patrol raised walkways opposite the cells and have eyes on five floors of condemned prisoners. In their sight lines, a dress code distinguishes who’s who. Visitors, like us, are asked not to wear blue, denim or orange because these are the colours worn by inmates.

Prisoners can leave their cells for 20 hours a week, but only with a strip search beforehand, always in handcuffs and with a hands-on escort. When they are moved, it’s at a smart pace and with a staff shout to clear a path.

The security specifications of a death row cell mean that it’s difficult to see inside. Bars are reinforced by a tight mesh reinforcement that darkens the 10ft x 4ft box so the prisoner appears in near silhouette. A twilight existence, indeed.

Death row’s a noisy place. Conversations are held between cells and inmates compete to be heard against an incarceration soundtrack of slamming metal, keys, buzzers, barking tannoys and the faint persistence of cell TVs and electronics.

On being imprisoned here, Lamb told me: “It’s inhumane the way they treat us. We’re in our cells all day long. We have to strip down naked, show ourselves and then get handcuffed to go anywhere around here.”

Galvan said: “The downside is the not knowing part. You’re just here waiting to die, you’re just here waiting on a date. We’re all just stuck, it’s like a warehouse.”

Landry told me: “Death row is a lot of cell time, dark, kind of parasitic. They make up their own rules and it changes day to day and you never know, really, what’s coming and it’s just oppressive.”

There hasn’t been an execution in San Quentin since 2006 and, as things stand, there’ll be no more.

California Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, calling it government-sponsored premeditated murder and stating that ending up on death row had more to do with wealth and race than it did with guilt or innocence.

By the end of this summer, all condemned prisoners will be elsewhere. That’s the scheduled date to shut down death row as San Quentin has known it.

All condemned inmates – currently about 400 – are being moved to different institutions in California where they’ll be integrated into the general prison population.

Death row will be repurposed in a facility renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Centre.

The condemned wing will also be dismantled at the Central California Women’s Facility, where female death row inmates are held.

Transferred prisoners will still have a death sentence but, in practical terms, they will serve life without parole.

Lieutenant Guim’Mara Berry, of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told me: “They are being moved so that they can start to pay back court-ordered restitution and be out of handcuffs. The value is in giving a person a sense of purpose.”

“I truly believe that knowing someone is attempting to change their lives is important, even if they don’t have an actual release date.

“It will foster better mental health. These are the type of things that make people want to change. We want to bring down stress for our staff and create a safer environment.

“That will allow (the inmates) to start paying back restitution to their victims and that will give them the ability to start taking responsibility for their actions.”

On the prospect of being moved, Michael Cook, 51, who was convicted of murdering two elderly women, told me: “I don’t want nobody looking at me like I’m some kind of monster. I wanted to be treated equally like everyone else.

“I think laws being changed here might give me another chance in life.”

In San Quentin it’s life, after death row.

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Tornadoes leave trail of death and destruction across parts of US

Published

13 hours ago

May 27, 2024

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Tornadoes leave trail of death and destruction across parts of US

Powerful storms have killed at least 15 people and left a trail of destruction in their wake as they swept across parts of the central United States.

A tornado tore through a rural area in northern Texas, near the Oklahoma border, on Saturday night, killing at least seven people.

Cooke County sheriff Ray Sappington said two children, aged two and five, were among the victims, with numerous injuries also reported.

He said some of the many trailer homes in the area were “completely gone”, while others suffered massive damage from the storm which left a quarter of a mile-wide path of destruction for three to four miles.

“It’s just a trail of debris left,” he said. “The devastation is pretty severe.”

Storms also killed two people and destroyed houses in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured, while at least five people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman.

Elsewhere, a man was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, when a tree fell on him on Sunday.

The small community of Valley View, a town in Cooke County, where barely 800 people live, was among the hardest hit.

Kevin Dorantes, 20, said he came across a father and son trapped under the debris and friends and neighbours worked to get them out.

“They were conscious but severely injured,” he said. “The father’s leg was snapped.”

He said they managed to carry the father on a mattress to a truck and he and his son were driven to a nearby ambulance.

Hugo Parra said he sheltered with around 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of a truck stop near Valley View as the storm sheared the roof and walls off the building, mangling metal beams and leaving battered cars in the car park.

“The best way to describe this is the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms,” he said.

The full scale of the devastation began to come clear on Sunday morning as aerial footage showed dozens of damaged homes, many without roofs and others reduced to rubble, as residents woke up to overturned cars and collapsed garages.

Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power across a large part of the country, including in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas on Sunday, according to poweroutages.us.

In Indiana, bad weather delayed the start of the famous Indy 500 car race.

More severe weather is expected across parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, with the National Weather Service warning of damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes in the affected areas.

April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest, with Iowa hit hard last week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield.

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Grayson Murray: PGA Tour golfer who died aged 30 took his own life, parents say

Published

19 hours ago

May 26, 2024

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Grayson Murray: PGA Tour golfer who died aged 30 took his own life, parents say

PGA Tour golfer Grayson Murray who died aged 30 took his own life, his parents have said, as they urged people to be “kind to one another”.

The American player, a two-time tour winner, withdrew from a competition in Texas with two holes remaining of his second round on Friday citing an illness, a day before he died.

In their statement, Eric and Terry Murray said “life wasn’t always easy” for their son and “although he took his own life, we know he rests peacefully now”.

The couple said that losing him was a “nightmare” and they have “so many questions that have no answers… but one”.

“Was Grayson loved? The answer is yes. By us, his brother Cameron, his sister Erica, all of his extended family, by his friends, by his fellow players and – it seems – by many of you who are reading this. He was loved and he will be missed.”

The pair thanked the PGA Tour and “the entire world of golf for the outpouring of support”.

They ended their statement by saying: “Please honour Grayson by being kind to one another. If that becomes his legacy, we could ask for nothing else.”

Murray pulled out of the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday and his death on Saturday was announced by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who said Murray’s parents had asked for the event to continue.

‘I wanted to give up on life at times’

Murray spoke in January about his battles with anxiety and depression and revealed he had sought treatment in the past few years for alcohol abuse but had been sober for several months.

Following his tour victory at the start of this year in Hawaii, he explained how much the win meant to him after what he had been through, saying: “It’s not easy… I wanted to give up a lot of times, give up on myself, give up on the game of golf, give up on life at times, and you just persevere.

“When you get tired of fighting, let someone else fight for you and that’s what happened.”

Golfers pay tribute to Murray

World number one Scottie Scheffler led the tributes to him. The American golfer said: “Obviously, the news hasn’t really sunk in quite yet, but I’m thinking about his family and praying hard for all of them.

“I can’t imagine how difficult of a time this is. I got to know Grayson a bit better over the last six months or so. There’s not really a way to put into words how sad and tragic it is, but I’m thinking about his family.”

Murray’s long-time caddie Jay Green hailed him as “the absolute best”.

“Not only was he an incredible, thoughtful and generous boss, he was an even better friend,” he said in a statement.

“He truly would do anything for anyone. He has the best family and my heart goes out to them. We will all miss him deeply.”

English golfer Luke Donald wrote on X: “Truly devastating news that Grayson Murray has passed away. He asked me for some advice on how to play Augusta a few months ago, last week I saw him at the PGA Championship, life truly is precious. My condolences and prayers to his whole family that they may find some peace.”

Donald’s fellow countryman Justin Rose wrote: “I had the opportunity to spend a few rounds of golf alongside Grayson in recent weeks at Hilton Head, Quail Hollow and Valhalla.

“I will always remember that and use it to remind myself that you never know what challenges people have going on in their lives and how they may be internalising things. RIP Grayson and love and strength to your family and friends.”

PGA Tour boss Jay Monahan said: “Over the last several years I spent a lot of time with him because I wanted to understand what we could do, in his opinion, to help everybody else out here.

“I’m devastated by Grayson’s loss. The conversations I had with him, particularly the last year, I learned an awful lot from him. He was very open and transparent with me.”

Murray won the Sony Open in Hawaii in January after sinking a 40ft birdie putt to beat Byeong Hun An and Keegan Bradley in a playoff.

It marked his first tour victory since clinching his maiden PGA Tour title during his 2017 rookie campaign, when he won the Barbasol Championship in Alabama aged 24.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK

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Donald Trump booed at Libertarian Party convention

Published

1 day ago

May 26, 2024

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Donald Trump booed at Libertarian Party convention

Donald Trump was booed during an address at the Libertarian Party National Convention on Saturday.

Libertarians have been largely critical of Mr Trump, whose invitation to speak at the party event in Washington caused mass division.

There was some show of support, as he asked for the party’s endorsement, with chants of “USA! USA”, but the former president was booed at several points during his speech.

It was a highly unusual spectacle, as Trump events are heavily staged – which usually guarantees support from his loyal fans.

Mr Trump tried to get the Libertarians on side by describing President Joe Biden as a “tyrant” and the “worst president in the history of the United States”, but he was instead met with cries of: “That’s you.”

Someone in the audience shouted: “Lock him up!” while another said: “Donald Trump is a threat to democracy!”

Cries were also heard of “You had your shot!”, “F*** you” and “You already had four years, you a******”.

Someone carrying a banner that said “No wannabe dictators!” was also dragged away by security.

The former president tried to endear party members to him by joking about his four criminal indictments, saying: “If I wasn’t a Libertarian before, I sure as hell am a Libertarian now.”

But with more boos from the audience, he hit back: “You don’t want to win” and claimed that the party wants to “keep getting your 3% every four years”.

In the 2016 election, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won 3% of the vote, but in 2020, nominee Jo Jorgensen only secured around 1%.

Mr Trump managed to secure a cheer when he promised to reduce the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the illegal drug sales website Silk Road, who is widely championed by Libertarians, and who themselves prioritise individual freedoms and reduced government.

‘I would rather eat my own foot’

The event was a chance for Mr Trump to recruit supporters of independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who made his own speech at the convention.

But speaking to NBC News, Libertarian Caryn Ann Harlos said of a possible Trump endorsement: “I would rather eat my own foot out of a bear trap.”

Libertarians, who broke out into their signature “End the Fed” chant, to abolish the Federal Reserve, will pick their nomination for the White House on Sunday.

Mr Biden and Mr Trump will face off again in November in a repeat of the 2020 presidential election – with polling showing most Americans are not in favour of a repeat of that contest.

This could lead to an increase in support for independent or fringe candidates outside the Democrats or Republicans, according to some forecasters.