Don't Know Why I Am Here

I am sitting here in my cell. I was unable to sleep but I guess I am soon going to take the big sleep. I am to hang at 9 a.m. as is tradition in this country. I was convicted just 12 days ago and all hanging take place on the second Friday following conviction. Any appeals to the courts or the Home Secretary need to be completed within that short period but on rare occasions, the Home Secretary will grant an extra week for further evidence to be processed.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Grant Owen Pursky and I hail from Alabama. I am a student abroad for a year or I should say I was a student. I am 20, blond, blue-eyed, 6 foot exactly (183 cm in this country) and 160 pounds (11.4 stone) in weight. I am near sighted and wear glasses — sometimes I wear contacts but prefer the standard glasses. Many people call me a nerd but they also call me smiley since I rarely go without a smile.

Let me tell you how I came to be arrested. I was walking up Holburn from the school to residence near Russell Square. Two police cars pulled over and told me to get in and don't give them any trouble. I was puzzled but I cooperated. They took me to the police station and put me in a tiny room and spent the next 14 hours grilling me about the night before.

There had been a reception at the residence to which a couple of politicians and the Royal Patron of the University had been invited. An Aide de Camp announced each person as they entered the room at which time one walked across the huge ballroom to where the Director of the Residence and the Royal Patron shook our hands. It had scared me to cross that floor alone as I had noted people walking slowly, almost in a waltz towards the hand shaking. That walk was scary but the one tomorrow will be 100 times worse.

I had mixed with other residents, had a rum and coke and a diet coke and then because I felt so uncomfortable had left early. I am not a social person usually and yet felt I had to make an appearance. I had gone to my room and worked on assignments for a couple of hours before my roommate returned to the room. We talked briefly and then both turned in.

At the end of the 14 hours they told me they were charging me with murder in the first degree. They had found a date book of mine which I had lost a week prior at the crime scene. The Royal Patron had been killed by strangulation in the men's washroom and the only evidence they had was my datebook which only listed assignments and test dates. With pants down, it was obvious he had gone there to be sucked off and the police assumed since I did not have a girlfriend that I was into that sort of thing.

The cry for action though was so strong that the police felt pressured to lay a charge. Moreover, I was not native but on a student visa and it looked better for them to charge an ex-pat with a crime against royalty.

In the UK, the pressures brought about by terrorists had caused the government to reinstate hanging for treason and activity against the state and since Royalty was considered the state, I was subject to the death penalty. The Brits are really quick with the justice system too. The trial was held two months after the murder and despite the fact the embassy staff had helped provide legal care and requested time, the judge insisted the trial go forward as scheduled.

The public was still demanding a conviction and so the short trial ended up with a guilty verdict. I had anticipated it would be like at home where appeals take years but there is one appeal permitted and then a clemency option with the Home Secretary and that has all happened in the last three weeks. Executions are scheduled on the Tuesday morning following the second Friday after conviction and since I was convicted on a Wednesday morning the week before last, the second Friday after conviction was three days ago. The execution is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9.

The US government has made a huge deal out of the UK government hanging an American citizen and asked the King and the Home Office to release me to US prisons but as allies against terrorism the UK government announced they would not want one of their citizens caught on such a terrible crime to avoid penalty because of diplomacy so my hope of living diminished even more.

My family flew in to visit me today as it was their last opportunity to visit My father was beside himself as he had been used to buying anything he wanted and for the first time in his life felt powerless. My mother and younger brother just sat there and cried. I tried to comfort them and calm my father but it was useless. I was visiting through glass and so could not touch them which made it worse for me.

Late this afternoon I was asked to go to the exercise area and walk around. I have read enough to know the hangman would be watching me as I walked trying to judge my body type and neck strength. The chaplain came by this evening briefly and I told him I would like to have him pray with me in the morning and take communion. I am writing this as I can't sleep.

There are three questions that keep running through my mind — oh, there are more like who actually murdered the Royal but these three seem to be the ones which keep coming back to bother me.

First, I keep wondering if what I was taught about heaven and hell is actually true and will I go to heaven. I have always been a Christian and even contemplated becoming a pastor at one point but I also knew we are all sinners and it seems as if I have cursed God a lot for my wrongful conviction. It has not led me to lose all faith but I keep asking God how He could permit this to happen. I certainly do not want to go to hell.

The second question has to do with what does it feel like to have the hood, the rope, and the leg and wrist restraints placed and then fall through the trap. Does one feel anything when the neck snaps? Does it hurt? Will I get excited? The one time I was tied up during a sexual experience with a man who was into B&D, I got so hard I could have burst. Will it be the same this time?

The third thing I keep wondering is what will happen to my body? I know they bury the executed in the prison courtyard and I actually heard them digging out there today although I could not see them doing so. Do they do an autopsy? How long will they leave me on the rope? Will I wet myself or cum or shit me clothes and who will clean my body up? For some reason I don't want anyone removing my clothes or cleaning me up. It is still my body and I have always been the one to look after it.

MORNING:

I feel asleep about 3 and they came and woke me at 5. They gave me breakfast right away and then took me to the showers. They then took me back to my cell naked and handed me a pair of thin cotton pants and shirt to put on. These are a light blue and the top of a button front _ am sure it is so the doctor can open to listen for my heart beat or rather absence of my heart beating. The waist on the pants is drawstring and I was warned to be sure to tie them tightly and securely. They did not give me underwear or socks but did give me a pair of slipper-like sandals to wear on my feet. They are going to move me at 7:30 to a room set up with a chapel so the minister and I can have my last 90 minutes together there in prayer, confession, and communion. I asked the chaplain last night if I gave him some writing for my parents if he could give it to them and so he will take this to my parents.

I have about an hour to wait before I am moved so I have less than three hours until I will be dead. My hand is shaking as I write this. I have to be honest and say I am scared. I know that this method of execution is supposed to be the quickest and most efficient.

I have thought about all the people who have been hanged before me. I remember that Vietnamese guy from Australia who was hanged at age 25 in Singapore a few years back or the young Derek Bentley who was hanged here in the UK. What about those two from Australia in Malaysia who were hanged when they tried to transport some drugs? The images of their faces from books and movies stay with me.

I have thought about the other methods of execution and wonder if any of those would be easier. I think the gas chamber would give me time to know I am dying. The preparation for the electric chair must be horrendous — having to be shaved on the head and leg takes away a part of you. Being driven out to a public square, stood on a stool with the public watching and having a crane start winching you up onto your toes and then off anything solid until you pass out is dramatic. Being led out to the public square, being made to kneel and having someone shoot you in the back of the head or cut your neck with a sword must be awful to contemplate. At least, they are just going to break my neck. My body will be mostly intact and so I will have a bruise on my neck and up the side of my face — none of the ways are pretty but alas to die is never easy.

My nerves are making me so nervous my bowels are loose and my visits to the loo have been frequent. I also feel the urge to pee all the time but there does not seem to be anything in my bladder to come out.

Well, I guess my wait is over. This is it. I just heard the keys and the lock down the corridor — they are coming to take me to the chapel.

As you recall, Grant Purskey wrote about his arrest and how he found himself dressed in his execution clothes waiting to be brought to the chapel. I am the chaplain, Rev. Herndon. I have helped many prisoners face their sentences but the re-introduction of hanging is only recent and I am too young to have been a chaplain when they abolished hanging. They re-introduced it last spring and this is only the second terrorist I have dealt with. Grant requested I write more for his parents when he gave me his letter about his experience and he asked me to continue to work to prove his innocence. He told me he knew he could not avoid death but he did not want his parents to be burdened with the thought that he was a criminal —it was bad enough he said that they had had to fly to England to see him a last time yesterday.

Grant when he arrived in the chapel asked me some questions. The first question he asked was had I been present at any hangings so I told him about Abdul Khan (who had been born Terrence Smith but had converted). I told him that although I was not there in an official capacity but the Imam had asked me to be there as his experience with Abdul had been that he was incorrigible. That turned out to be true. It took five men to tie his wrists when the hangman entered the room and they literally had to carry him screaming to the noose.

He asked me if I had been able to observe whether the prisoner had died immediately. I told him it was impossible to tell. The hood over his face did not allow me to see whether his eyes were still focusing or not. He said when the doctor had come to his cell yesterday and had strip searched him, measured him, and taken his blood pressure and asked questions, he had asked the doctor. The doctor had told him the vertebrae were almost always separated which meant there was instant paralysis but it was possible for the brain to go on for up to a minute until the oxygen getting to the brain and heart were exhausted and so he might know he was hanging by the neck for some seconds and during those seconds he might experience visions and pressure and even desperation to get out of the noose but because of the paralysis be unable to do anything. Grant was scared. He understood the heart will continue to beat for up to 30 minutes but brain death happens much sooner and once he passed out which should be within a minute he would not know what was happening. He obviously had been reading and asking everyone these questions.

He also wanted to know what would happen in the next 80 minutes as about 10 minutes had passed already. I told him he could talk, he could confess anything he wanted to God alone or together and I suggested we read from Proverbs and Psalms. I told him that we might want to pray several times. I did that because I wanted him on his knees praying when the hangman burst into the room since the hangman had suggested he had more control that way. The time from the hangman entering the room, moving the prisoner to the noose and through the trap would be about 90 seconds but I did not tell Grant it would move that quickly. There is a movable wall between the chapel and the noose and trap so the prisoner only has to be moved about 10 feet.

Grant told me he had prayed a lot in the last 11 days and that this was day 13 and so it was his unlucky day. He told me had a clear conscience and he had not killed anyone and his white lies to his parents about drinking underage he had confessed. He wanted us to first pray for his parents and then that the truth about who the murderer was would eventually come out. I asked him about other family members and it turned out he was an only child but one of his grandmothers was still alive and he had two aunts and uncles and five cousins, some of whom had children. When he brought up the young children his voice went weak as it was clear he wanted to be a father himself.

Thus we got on our knees and I prayed and then asked him to pray aloud as well. When we seemed to have exhausted that, we talked about his schooling and how he had won the scholarship which brought him to the UK for the year. He worried about the warlike Christians in the US and indicated he did not feel war was part of God's plan so we prayed about that.

I could see the clock and there were about 15 minutes left and so I read to him some selections from Proverbs that I had chosen and then we shared communion before praying. It was now about three minutes to 9 and so we gave thanks for Christ's blood and body on the cross and at about 30 seconds prior to 9 we started the Lord's Prayer but before it was finished the hangman burst into the room with his assistants, ordered Grant to stand and put his hands behind his back. One of the assistants had the wall open and Grant was pushed to the noose the hood was dropped, his ankles were belted and the noose slipped over his head.

The cotton pants did not leave much to the imagination. When the hangman was strapping Grant's wrists, his cock started to expand and by the time he was on the trap a wet spot could be seen where the tip of his long penis was lubricating the material with pre-cum and eventually just before the trap opened, a huge spot appeared — he obviously experienced a huge orgasm at that point.

So that the witnesses would be able to see everything there were cameras both in the gallows room and in the chamber below where Grant fell so we were all able to watch the full execution. We could hear the crack when the vertebrae snapped and we noted his body went completely still. We will never know for how long he knew he was hanging by his broken neck but his heart did not stop for a full 28 minutes which is longer than most. The doctor went up on the step stool at 10 minutes, undid Grant's shirt and placed the stethoscope to his left breast and shook his head. After a few minutes he did it again. The doctor was obviously having difficulty controlling his emotions and like most of us we had larger than normal bulges as we watched the body swing back and forth while it died.

As Chaplain, I am assigned to stay with the prisoner/body until it is buried in the jail graveyard. I made my way down to the dungeon beneath the gallows room and waited with everyone else. Once the doctor declared Grant dead, the hangman removed the wrist and ankle restraints and then his shirt which had been unbuttoned by the doctor fell to the ground. The guards removed Grant's cotton prison pants and they turned the hose on and washed Grant down. Yes, his anal and urinal sphincters had let go so he needed to be cleaned up.

Once he had been cleaned, I wanted to find out how huge Grant's cock had been. I measured it at 11 inches and like most younger American men, he was uncircumcised. Grant had an exceltionally long foreskin and so his cock appeared even longer as the skin puckered at the end making it look like a pointed arrow. The two guards lifted him enough to cut the rope about a foot above his head. The hood and nooses stayed on the body and he was laid in a pine box, face down and slowly, they screwed the lid on the box. You should have seen Grant's round hairless globes when he was finally in his coffin.

The forklift came in, lifted the pine box and moved out to the courtyard where the hole had already been dug and yes Grant had heard correctly last night when they were digging. The casket was lowered and a tractor was used to push the dirt into the hole. My duties were over.

ADDENDUM:

I am not giving the Purskey's this second part of the story as I am now looking for my next victim. You see this was my first and I got wonderful wet dreams for many nights after. You see, I knew I would be the Chaplain at the execution so I pushed to get Grant's day timer. My next victim will have black curly hair, blue eyes, and be about 5'6" and be 130 pounds or less. I have my eye on one guy and have been collecting items which will point to him as the killer and hope the jury sees that too. The guy I am following right now trying to find the right crime to have him accused of is from Italy and has the most wonderful accent but he is a graduate student, aged 21 so he has a perfect English vocabulary. To get some nice young, hung guys to whom I can get close to and watch the judicial process unfold in the most intimate manner is a dream come true. However, I have to keep suspicion from myself so I am really really careful with both planning and carrying out the duties invested in me. When the next crime had been committed and Roberto is arrested I will inform you of the trial and his execution.