Execution Life and Death Row

Lieutenant Stuart Alexander died an immediate death. He was struck

and killed by a suspect fleeing in an SUV.

When they finally let me see him in the hospital he asked me,

"Mom, he said that I killed a police officer."

I said, "Yes, baby, he died."

And tears just started running down his eyes.

He said, "Mom, I couldn't see."

How could he have done it on purpose? He was trying to get to me.

He wasn't trying to...kill anybody.

He was trying to get to me so that they could arrest him there with me.

It all began when an officer spotted Daniel Lee Lopez driving

dangerously and tried to pull him over.

Lopez appeared very agitated and when the officer attempted to detain

him, the suspect attacked the officer, punching him several times.

After a brief struggle, the suspect re-entered his vehicle and sped away.

It was my husband's birthday and so when the phone rang, I thought

that's what they were calling about.

He told me, "Mom, I'm being chased by the police."

I said, "Daniel, be quiet, it's not true."

All of a sudden I just heard all these sirens and I said, "No,

"Daniel, no, you need to pull over, you need to pull over."

He said, "Mom, if I pull over now they're going to kill me,

"they're going to kill me."

I finally convinced him to come to my house

so that they could arrest him there.

And he wouldn't be hurt.

We got up on to State Highway 358...

..and his speed started to increase.

Once we started approaching Agnes, Daniel Lopez made a directional change to the right.

I was directly behind Daniel Lopez's vehicle at the time.

I could see Lieutenant Alexander out in front of me.

We were approaching him. We were probably doing right around 80mph.

The distance was closed fairly quickly.

Police say Alexander was in the grass along the shoulder laying

out a spike strip which deflates the tyres of cars being pursued.

And I remember thinking to myself, you know, "Holy crap, he's going to hit the Lieutenant."

And then all the sudden it was like, boom.

Daniel Lopez swerved to the right and struck Lieutenant Alexander.

It was a direct, purposeful movement to the right.

I see Lieutenant Alexander flying through the air,

his legs flailing and his body flailing.

And then I remember him laying in that grassy areas right there.

I knew that we were going to chase him, then,

till the end of the earth.

Moments later, the SUV was boxed in and after ramming several police

cars, officers opened fire, hitting him twice in the shoulder and arm.

Bleeding from his wounds, Lopez was then finally handcuffed

and put in the back of a patrol car while other officers stood by.

I want everybody to understand we will do everything possible

to make sure that somebody like this is sent away for ever.

I have received numerous letters from Daniel.

The majority of them have been, "Why is it taking so long?"

I see things way different than people back here.

If I would have never tried fleeing, the officer would have never died.

So it's partly my fault, too, you know,

even though it was never intentional, it was partly my fault

and, you know, I'm just being a man

and I'm going to accept my punishment and I'm ready.

It is the first time in my career as a judge that

I have set the execution date

so, yes, it's a big moment -

one that is not taken lightly.

The reason there has been no post-conviction appeals is

because Daniel Lopez waived them.

Sometimes some of these appeals, the post-conviction appeals, will take

15 to 25 years and people are on death row for that length of time.

Daniel has consistently maintained that he does not want to

prolong the appellate process.

He wanted to waive all of the appeals,

"Just get me up there to the Polunsky Unit and execute me."

If there was an indication that he had a change of mind,

I would immediately appoint an attorney to file whatever

that would be necessary to at least start that process.

So, would the execution go ahead?

At that point, I would imagine there would be a motion to stay

the execution to pursue this matter.

As the days get closer, it gets harder and harder.

He just expects me to go there and be happy, you know,

and be there and be happy because he's finally going to be with God

but I am, you know, glad that he is, you know, not going to be

suffering any more but I'm not glad that he's going to be gone.

He doesn't know that I'm depressed.

He doesn't know that I don't go nowhere.

He doesn't know that I don't do anything.

He thinks I'm the same...

as when he went in.

You know, I've told him, "We can still fight this,

"We can still fight this," but he says no.

He says, "Mom, you have a chance, I don't.

"I don't have a chance."

He just has that in his head that there's no way out.

Some moms might judge me for saying this

but sometimes I think maybe Daniel should have died that night.

It would have been easier, you know,

for him to die that night... because...

You know, having to go through this, it's like you're having

a funeral over and over and over and over again, you know. It's...

It's just taking the life out of me, you know.

And I don't know how much more of this I can take.

'I just see the appeal process as a waste of time.'

I see people back here with way more greater issues than me

and they are still back or they've been executed already.

I don't want to give myself false hope, give my family false hope...

And also prolong this, prolong this...my time here, right?

The victim's family wants me dead, you know what I'm saying?

They want me dead. Their closure is going to be when I'm dead.

That's what they want, so my side, my family, it hurts them

to see me here. Day in and day out, you know what I'm saying? When am I going to get executed?

Am I going to get executed this month, this year, next year?

I want them to move on. I want them to carry on their lives instead of being stuck back

six, six and a half years ago at this incident and keep thinking,

"Oh, my son's on death row." "Oh, my brother's on death row."

"My baby daddy is on death row," you know what I'm saying?

I'm seeing the bigger picture, they're not,

they're just seeing me getting killed, that's it.

We're going out to the site where he was killed.

And, er...to me, that's where his soul left the Earth.

Any child that's raised in Texas knows that if you kill a cop

they're are going to go after you with the death penalty.

I mean, that's just hand-in-hand.

As a society, a society needs rules, they need laws

to exist as a safe society,

I mean, this is someone who took someone else's life so they,

you know, have a total disregard for another human being's life.

You can't have people like that walking the streets, I mean,

you just can't.

On the night Stuart was killed we go to Spohn Memorial Hospital.

I hear my son, "Mom, Mom, Mom!" and I look up and my son's

running towards me and he has the hospital chaplain right behind him

and he's screaming, "He's gone, he's gone," and I go, "Who's gone?"

And he goes, "Dad. He's dead."

I said, "No, he's not, I didn't get here, he's not."

And he goes, "Mom, he's gone."

When I walked in the room, he was in there

and so I laid my head on his chest.

I was talking to him.

And I asked him not to leave me.

It's been over six years

but that's rather quick actually for an execution.

I have nightmares now that we're going to get there

and he still has the right up to the last second to say,

"No, I change my mind, I want my appeals." He can do that.

And maybe that's what he has planned, I don't know.

I'm struggling, you know, this is not easy by any means.

At least I will know that he's... he can't hurt anybody any more

and that's what my husband would want, too.

So...

I like to, any time we follow a major pleading for anybody,

take it up there as soon as possible and go through it with them

if that's something that they want, you know, and answer any questions.

I think he'll probably say, "Thanks,

"I appreciate you running this up here.

"You know, I hope that you're not successful with it."

And I'll say, "Yeah, I know."

Since the trial he's just been trying to drop or give up

all of his appeals so the State can just immediately execute him.

I think he's concerned about...

what, you know, his mom feels going through this

and doesn't want to prolong any of this for her

and I think he's concerned about what it's like for his children to

grow up with a dad on death row.

I think he'd express to you that he's frustrated it's taken so long.

You know, if he's competent to make that decision then that's,

you know, as much as someone like me might disagree with it,

that's a decision that he's entitled to make.

If your decision to waive your appeals is a product of mental

illness, then a court should find that you're not competent to

make that decision to waive your appeals and so that's what

all the pleadings that we filed for Daniel are about, really.

Most guys want to fight.

They want to raise any good claims that they have

and I think Daniel has some great claims, especially related to the

fact that he didn't intentionally or knowingly kill Officer Alexander.

I wish that Daniel Lopez was... was on board with that.

That he felt that his life was something that would deserve that.

That his life was something that's worth fighting for.

We've got the execution date in place.

And I think it's probably very likely that that'll be the day that

we learn whether or not the Supreme Court grants our petition, you know.

And if that's...if they do grant the petition, then Mr Lopez won't be

executed that day, but if they deny it, then I think he'll

probably be executed after six o'clock on August 12th.

You know, my daughter, right now, is back in my life

and, you know, the more she grows up the more attached she gets with me, right,

and the more we see each other, the more we bond and so to

prolong it would just strengthen our bond and when it's finally time

for me to go, it's going to hurt way worse than it is now, right?

It's just...it's just going to be so much painful for both of us

and maybe other kids out there start coming to see me

it's going to be so much painful

and I'm going to be taken away from them than I would be now.

Like one of my kids, she is only, like, five and a half years old

and she don't even know me, you know what I'm saying?

Maybe within three years she will start to get to know me,

you don't think that's going to hurt her?

I think the best time for me to go is now instead of delaying the pain for all of us.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Do you know why he went to prison?

-Yeah.

-Why did he go?

I feel like he thinks that nobody cares for him.

He feels lonely.

You know, he told me that he loves for us

to go visit him more often and...

..I'm trying so hard to...

to get him to appeal...appeal it.

I mean, at least for her sake...

you know,

so he could see her grow.

I regret not coming before.

I feel like the reason why he wants to go along with this execution -

I wasn't there for him.

When I was about 18, we got together.

And...

Mariah came along.

And then we ended up splitting apart for, you know, little issues we had.

Daniel loved me a lot, I know that.

I want to get that appeal.

When you want something, when you put that energy out there,

you're going to get it. I'm putting that energy out there.

So...

I'm going to get it.

Lord, we come to you today. Pray for Daniel Lee Lopez.

He knows where he's going, Lord, he knows he's a child of God,

that's why he asked all appeals to be stopped.

But, Lord, I pray for his mother.

Oh, Lord, I'm praying for his mother and for his sister.

This is so difficult for them, Lord.

I pray that the people in this church will be praying for the next

month, the last month of his life. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

He asked me to please support his position of wanting to die.

I was shocked. I didn't know that he would ask me.

So I said, "Well, Daniel, I have to go home and pray about it

"and I'll let you know.

"I can't say right now one way or the other."

So I did, I came home and I prayed about it and prayed about it

and God was saying, "It's OK. You can support him."

And I think I'm the only one.

Joyce wants Daniel to live no matter what, she really does.

But after talking to Daniel and listening to Daniel

and, because I feel like I know Corpus Christi

and I know the police force, there is a respect

for the police force here.

And because this was a well-respected policeman,

I don't believe he would ever get acquitted.

I don't believe they would ever find him innocent.

If I thought involuntary manslaughter, then

I would just be up there getting him to fight, fight, fight but I don't

believe that our police force is ever going to allow that to happen.

Maybe the only thing they would change it to is life without

chance of parole and he does not want that.

The death penalty, people say that Texas uses it too much sometimes

and I tell them,

"Man, we kind of narrow the cases.

"Very few cases can even get the death penalty.

And they're the worst of the worst

and Daniel Lopez was the one the death penalty was designed for.

We can't have people like that in our community.

From the very start when I first saw him in jail...

he said, "Mom, I'm not going to fight this."

He said, "Once you kill a police officer,

"you're not never coming out.

"They're never letting you out of jail."

Two police officers say I intentionally swerved towards him.

When there are police officers testifying against somebody

like me, you know, I'm just a lowlife drug dealer

and a lowlife criminal, right? So when the jury's seen this,

they're seeing this lowlife criminal compared to these dedicated

police officers testifying, who are you going to believe?

You're going to believe the police officers.

I'm responsible for giving a wrong reaction.

I'm responsible for fleeing.

I'm responsible for being part of his death.

I'm responsible for his death, that's what I'm responsible for

but I'm not responsible for intentionally killing him.

It was pretty easy to show the motive to the jury.

After getting all these officers, chasing him,

fighting with the officers, running him off the road,

here's one laying right in front of him

and he's got the capacity to stop

Daniel Lopez with these spike strips.

To me, he was just an officer that was in his way to escape.

If you make that decision, you make that decision.

It doesn't matter how long it takes.

Did I think when he started the fight with the police officer

out on the street that he planned to

run over Lieutenant Stuart Alexander?

Probably not.

But when you're talking about something that

happened like that, intent can rise in just a second.

I think it was the...

..the testimony from eyewitnesses from

the Corpus Christi policemen.

He had three lanes of highway to go round this cop, to miss the cop

but he just kept going to the right, the right, the right.

Poor man.

Tried to do his duty, got run over.

That ain't right.

You know, looking at the kid in the courtroom,

he didn't look like a monster but they made him...

You know, when they tell you the history, yeah, he was.

This isn't a one-time person doing a one-time thing.

He's got a track record of other crimes.

He had abused women before, he had sold drugs, he had drugs in his car.

It was a monumental task for the defence to overcome.

We, the jury, find you, Daniel Lopez,

guilty of capital murder of Lieutenant Alexander.

And it took us about 30 minutes.

I think he firmly believed that he would be found guilty

of capital murder in light of the fact that it was a police officer.

He analysed what his life would be like, he did not want to

live in a penitentiary for the rest of his life

and the only alternative was death and, from the beginning,

consistently, this young man wanted the death penalty.

I mean, I tried to point out to him that there is life

in a penitentiary.

And it may not be the life he wanted but there's life there.

And good things come out of some people who are in the penitentiary.

He didn't buy that.

They subpoenaed me to testify.

He says, "Mom, I have to get the death penalty,

"I have to make sure I get the death penalty.

"If you go up there and you try to defend me

"and they give me life, it's going to be on your conscience

"that I'm going to be suffering, living life behind bars."

So I...

The words wouldn't come out.

When I went up there to testify...

..I couldn't defend him.

I'm a lawyer and I have a job to do

and my job was to save his life if I could,

despite whether or not he wanted me to do it.

And I made it real clear to him that that's what I was going to do

and he was not happy with that at all.

You know, Daniel was almost as much my opponent in the courtroom

as Mark Skurka was.

They were both trying to get Daniel Lopez the death penalty.

And they both did a good job.

I watched him for two weeks turn around and smile at me

like it was nothing.

You know, mock me.

As soon as they put my husband's picture up, he laughed out loud.

I mean, he laughed...out loud.

I think that having Mr Lopez right there in front of us

in the courtroom where we could see him really hurt the defence's case.

When we saw him smirking through most of the trial, smiling,

thinking some of these things were funny.

He didn't seem to be remorseful about anything he had done.

He was a jackass in the courtroom.

I saw this thing like, "OK, big deal, ran over a cop, big deal."

All this terror and destruction he had left in his wake,

he didn't seem to be too perturbed by it

and I think that was his mind-set his whole life.

Another thing to bear in mind, too, is they did,

before we went to trial, offer to let him plea to a life sentence.

He had the chance to avoid being executed

and had no interest in it at all.

I think he laughed when I told him they were offering him

the life sentence and that he ought to take it and he had...

It wasn't like he thought about it, I mean,

it was not something he was considering at all.

I feel like I'm paying for...for...for...

the crime that they convicted me of. I feel like I'm paying for that.

And I feel like I'm overpaying for what really happened.

I don't blame nobody. This situation is not a blame game.

I got myself here, the only person I can blame is me.

So...

To me, the whole case turned on this fact

and if it had been hammered with an expert saying the same thing -

here's a 21-year-old, he has got a ton of police cars chasing him,

I mean, the sirens, you know,

huge chaos, you can imagine the tension, OK?

They lay out the strips, Daniel avoids the strips, OK?

He is caught up in the scene and he avoids the strips.

The police officer then decides to do a second strip.

That all came out in the courtroom, OK? They throw the second strip.

Daniel avoided again but, this time, he went up on the median

and there was a police officer there.

Now, did he intentionally - "I see a police officer,

"I'm going to kill that police officer,"

or did he do what he did before being chased by all

these police officers, boom, he avoided it?

To me, that's the whole case right there.

It's the whole case.

But Daniel got the punishment he wanted.

I think he would have...

I don't know what Daniel would have done

if the jury had said life without parole.

Because he was so emphatic so early on...

..that he wanted to be executed.

Because he didn't want to live like that.

He was aggravated this time, more so than normal,

about the documents being filed.

It was a very short meeting.

He was definitely a lot more nervous,

a lot more on edge than I'm used to seeing him.

I think it's probably just because, you know, it's getting closer

and closer to August 12th.

I just really think that he's wanted to die since he was a little kid.

You know, we've got medical records that have become a part of,

you know, the pleadings related to him

trying to waive proceedings that demonstrate that he's been

trying to kill himself since he was ten years old.

And I think that his trying to waive this appeal right now is just him

still trying to kill himself, you know.

20 years later, 18 years later from the first time he tried to.

When he was nine years old, he just went to his mom's bathroom

and took 20 pills.

I don't think they ever figured out what the 20 pills were

but he was trying to kill himself then.

Months after that, she found him in a bathtub holding a knife

up to his wrists.

You know, there's been at least two different occasions when

he was a teenager when he tried to kill himself with poisonous snakes.

I mean, that's what his childhood was like.

You know, just a deeply, deeply troubled boy.

My biggest regret is giving them to their dad.

That is my biggest regret.

I was pregnant with Daniel when I left Rick.

And we didn't see him again for four years.

And then, for some reason, Rick came back into our life

and he kept nagging and nagging, "Give me the kids, give me the kids,

"they'll be better off, you can go to school,

"you can get a better job."

I've been disabled since I was 20 and I was having to walk them

to school in the cold and the rain and, well,

dummy me, I trusted him and...

I signed the papers but I didn't know I was signing them over,

I thought it was joint custody.

But it wasn't joint custody.

It was just, you know, him having custody and I had visitation rights.

I didn't find out till years later that he had been, you know,

abusing them and abusing them and abusing them.

And every time they would tell me something, I would take them to CPS,

but the kids wouldn't talk,

cos they didn't want to hurt their father.

They didn't want to see him behind bars.

They didn't want to...you know...

hurt him in any way, cos they loved...

You know...they loved him.

As far as rough life, I had the worst one.

I've been through hell.

Maybe I'm carrying that...

that anger, you know, the anger.

The anger.

When I get mad, I go to the back and...

start hitting the tree, or whatever.

I cut myself.

Just...

Not hurt nobody, you know.

Not to hurt nobody, you know.

I was strict, yeah, I was strict.

But I was strict for them not to be messing up in life.

But every time they were straightened out,

they'd go to Mom, they come back backwards.

They hated me, they wish I was dead.

I mean, whoa, you know.

That's pretty bad.

A couple of years ago when Daniel was trying to drop all his appeals

and his father was trying to make him, you know,

the lawyers pick the appeals up,

and Daniel said that that was just making him get more time in jail.

And he sent me a letter

and told me to find his father and give him the letter.

And that's when I found out all the stuff he had done to him

when he was little.

I... I got the letter somewhere.

I said, you know what, "What are you talking about?"

I mean, yeah, you're down.

Yeah, I used to spank you.

When I... Before I got locked up.

The time-outs?

I mean, that's a new one for me.

Tie them down? No.

INTERVIEWER: I think it was tied...

He said there was some cables when they used to wet the bed...

with electricity?

No. No, no, no, no.

My gosh, that's insane!

That's... I was a POW.

If I was in war, yes, I would do it. If I had a prisoner.

But my kids were not prisoners.

They were on my side.

Even though Teri tried to separate that, I never gave up on that side.

I've read the psychological reports, he... He gave me copies.

There are a lot of things that went on,

that we hoped the children would never, ever,

ever have to go through.

And the trial, you know, they wanted to put his parents up on the stand

and make this psychological report known.

And he just refused.

He didn't want...all that.

Just anything brought out about his family life.

He said, "I was an adult when I did this.

"I was an adult.

"And I was responsible for myself."

We used to be best friends out there, me and my mom.

Every now and then she would just call me, pick me up,

and we would go to the pier and just walk down the pier together.

We had fun.

INTERVIEWER: And your dad?

Um...

I really don't know.

I mean, I love him, and you know...

All his kids really forsaken him and I was the only one.

I still had love for him,

no matter how he treated us when we were young.

I've always tried to be there for him,

but I guess I didn't do it enough, that's why...

That's why he don't want to come see me, I guess. I don't know.

So...

# I opened the gates up

# Hey, screw, did you miss me?

# Jimmy, I see that you've found a new friend

# Warden, come down here and kiss me hello

# Cos I'm back home in Huntsville again. #

-RADIO:

-Thank you for tuning in tonight.

You are listening to The Prison Show on 90.1 QPFT,

let's go to Ashley from Corpus Christi,

calling for the Polunsky Unit. Ashley?

Hi, this is for Daniel Lopez.

I love you and Mariah wants to say something to you.

Hi, Dad. I miss you.

I love you.

I love you, and...love you forever.

-OK, is that it?

-Yes, ma'am.

All right, thank you for calling.

Let's go to Michelle from Austin, calling for...

The last time we saw him, "So, Dad, when are you getting out?"

And he just looked at me, and his eyes kind of got a little watery.

He said, "Why don't you ask Mommy when I get out?"

I could read him, and he don't want the execution.

He don't.

On one of the letters he wrote me,

he said that he regrets it.

He regrets asking, er...

..for the death penalty, you know.

And I feel like he really don't... He really doesn't want it.

I feel... I really feel deep down inside that he don't want it.

He said he loves me so much.

Prove it to me. Appeal it.

Your kids love you and I think he owes it to them.

It's up to him, he says.

He says all he needs to do is write one letter to a judge.

I'm going to call you tomorrow

and I'm going to tell you he's going to appeal it.

And...then everything will fall in place.

These past three weeks has been very, very difficult for me.

You know, I'm sometimes confused with myself.

Should I or should I not? Should I, should I not?

What's best with these decisions?

If I do this, would it be best for everybody? Or if I do this...

You know, so I'm like kind of confused, man.

INTERVIEWER: Who's been coming to visit you these last few days?

Ashley. Yeah.

Things are making it difficult for me.

The decision I made.

Now that she's started to come visit me,

she's telling me to appeal it.

So, it makes me very confused and undecided.

And it makes it a lot harder.

It's...

She just wants me to be here a little bit longer for some reason.

I know it's for my daughter.

So, what do I need to do for the next two weeks to stay sane?

Try to stay busy.

Cos there's nothing more you can do to prepare.

We didn't do this to this person, he did it himself.

OK?

We're not killing him.

The State is killing him.

Is it fair, what we go through, what they put us through?

Probably for ten years, I was not going to go.

And, then, for some reason,

the last couple of years before that I just started feeling like,

"Yeah, I've got to be there.

"I just have to be there."

My husband was killed during a domestic violence call,

along with the girl.

And he went to go help.

It took ten years for him to be executed.

-Yours was a little bit more, right?

-It was like... Oh, let me think.

-It was like 12?

-Yeah, 12.

That's fairly good.

Yeah, and then yours...

To tell you the truth,

when I first found out this one was going to be so fast, I felt bad.

I felt guilty.

Even though he's given up that appeal process

and they went ahead and set the execution,

if they lay him down and he says "Oh, no, I want my appeals,"

it stops.

Is this his way of playing a game?

I've had nightmares of him

laying down and looking to start laughing, "Ha-ha-ha, never mind."

You know, I've had horrible nightmares about that.

We go up there and...

We're all prepared and sitting in this room.

And two hours before, he gets to stay.

That was three years ago.

He's still sitting there.

He's still sitting there.

-So, is he already in there when they bring you guys in?

-Yes.

So, like everybody's ready and then the last minute they bring you in.

They bring you in and then their family in.

The wall dividing our room and their room is, like, paper thin.

-Can he see us?

-Yeah.

-Oh, he can?

-If he wants to.

Mine looked back and talked to me.

He did what?

He turned around and he said "Jennifer, where you at?"

Like that.

What did you say to you?

He just told me he was sorry

and he didn't know what a great guy Fabian was.

I mean, obviously, being there on death row is going to make anybody

more depressed than they were before they got there.

Obviously, we'd be devastated.

Obviously... You know, we'd be depressed about the future.

Obviously, we'd probably have some of these thoughts.

But, it's...

I don't see how you can possibly say, though,

that he is in the same position as any one of us

cos he has this long, well-documented history

of being depressed, of thinking he doesn't have any hope.

And I think it's impossible to say that, for him,

getting to this point, didn't involve all of that history.

I don't think it's right, you know.

I think that if it happens next week, it's going to just be

a guy who's wanted to kill himself

since he was at least ten years old...

..who was able to...

..shut down any chance of appealing, you know,

to get the State to do help him do that.

I'm never going to see this as anything differently.

He didn't really want to talk about the appeal.

He said that his lawyer tried to...

get him to appeal it, too.

And...

He said no. He didn't want to.

He thinks that once he's gone, then the pain stops.

Which it doesn't. And it's not.

And it won't. And never will.

It's too soon, it's too fast.

I really don't know if it's for him, or for the family.

But it ain't for me.

And it ain't for me, and it ain't for Mariah.

So...

He's like, "Now you're finally coming to see me."

And...when he told me goodbye, that was it.

I don't know how to explain it.

I love him, cos he was always there for me.

I love him because he was always there for my son.

But...

I don't know.

It's...

I hate him, cos he's leaving us.

He's always talking about, you know, Isaac and Mariah.

Ashley's Mariah.

How he loves them.

But he doesn't want them to get attached.

He goes, he could appeal it, go another three years, four years.

I was like, yeah, those three, four years, they could get to know you.

I don't want him to get the wrong image of his dad.

Cos he thinks when people are locked up, they're bad.

My son still doesn't know.

You know, he wants to come back again and see him.

The next time you see him, it's going to be at his funeral.

It'll be his mother and his sister.

And Ashley, and Joyce, and me there.

It's not going to be easy

and I wouldn't have wanted to be there, except that he asked for us to be there.

He said, "Ya'll my godmothers."

You're there every month, you've done that for three years

and, you know, I just want you to be there to know that I love y'all.

It's just so much to think about.

We know what's going to happen...

whether we like it or not.

We know this is what he wants.

We know we're going to see him in heaven,

but it's always the hardest on the ones that are left here.

Amen.

You know, he's going to a better place...

-but we're left here...

-Yes.

-..to miss him.

-And to deal with the pain.

To deal with the pain of knowing we won't be coming to see him

every month any more.

I told him that I have cried.

I told him that I had cried when we first started practising

a song that our choir was singing and I knew it was for him.

And he said, "I don't want you to cry."

I said, "I know. I know.

"It doesn't mean it's not going to happen, though."

He feels...he truly feels that the best decision

he can make for the people he loves the most

is for him to die,

so that they can move forward and have a happier life.

And he feels like he is able to do something good by,

in my words, sacrificing his life.

His words, for the sake of the people that he loves,

to be able to move on with their lives.

Oh! Yah, yah, yah.

Was a nurse for 25 years, critical care nurse,

and I spent my career trying to save lives

and now I'm here witnessing a young life being taken,

but that's the penalty he has to pay for what he did.

Erm...

..yesterday...

..Stuart and I were supposed to be

celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary

and instead, today, I sit here and I have to go witness

an execution for someone who murdered him.

Stuart will be on my mind.

He's been on my mind a lot.

I just want him to be proud of how I've connected myself.

I just want him to be proud that I followed this through,

because I know if the shoe were on the other foot,

if someone had murdered me, he would be there to represent me.

I've been through six and a half years of hell

and nothing will ever change that.

He could say he's sorry now.

How do you say you're sorry for killing someone?

Those words don't even go together.

I...couldn't...

I don't know if I could ever believe that.

No matter how angry you are,

no matter what kind of childhood you have,

what gives you the right to take someone else's life?

My husband's life had nothing to do with his childhood.

My husband's life had nothing to do with his anger.

He did nothing to him.

I did nothing to him, my son did nothing to him,

my sister-in-law did nothing to him.

Look how many people's lives...

he has shattered by that one decision that night.

He had no right.

Three minutes?

OK, let's make the best of it, because, you know,

I know your time's getting close.

God knows that you're innocent.

No, but eventually it comes out, mijo.

Even though it's going to be too late, como quiera,

we're all going there.

Because I know your mom's going to be there

and there's going to be a conflict.

We'll be praying for you.

Love you. God bless you.

I hope they understand, you know, it wasn't no...

No, no... Nothing for me, you know what I'm saying?

It was to help move everybody along,

to stop all this pain going around

from me being in this situation.

That's what I hope they understand, right?

And...I also hope they understand that I truly love all my kids,

I truly love them all and...

they can just move on and live a good life, you know what I'm saying?

I wish they can have another father in their lives that'll be a real

good father to them so I can just, you know,

they can get me out the picture

and they can just forget about me, you know, move on with their lives.

That's what I want for them to understand, that I want them

to move on with their lives and that they know that I love them

and it's simple as that.

INTERVIEWER: This isn't easy for you, is it?

No.

Anything else?

I just...

It's not easy because I don't want to leave, I don't want to die.

I don't want to leave my family, but, you know,

I think it's just best, so that's why I'm going through this,

going through with this, right?

It's OK to cry.

I... I just...

That's not me.

I just... I want to stay strong for my family, right? It's...

That's how I want, I want them to be too, right? To be strong

and I just don't...

There's really...really no point in crying even though people

want to feel like crying, I feel like crying,

but there's no point in it, right?

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything.

Stop all the killing in Texas!

Tonight will be the 528th execution.

If execution could curb crime, Texas would be crime free.

There was an appeal pending in this case.

Lopez's attorney had argued that he was mentally ill

and was using the criminal justice system as a means to commit suicide,

but that argument was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Lieutenant Alexander's widow just walked into the building behind me.

Again, the execution is scheduled to take place shortly after 6pm.

We will be here live at six.

I saw them open the door and I saw the sunlight.

For a split second, I didn't know if I could do it.

I...was telling my legs, "Move. You've got to do this, go."

I saw them open the other door

and when they opened the other door,

they take you right into the witness room and there he was.

Already strapped on the table.

Once I entered there, my eyes were on him.

After he heard the door slam, I could see he was trembling.

He was scared.

And then he turned his head and looked at me.

He was mouthing that he was sorry

and then he mouthed to me, "It's OK."

And then I nodded my head.

And when I nodded my head, he relaxed.

I felt this weird feeling, like, all of a sudden...

any hatred or any anger I had towards him was...

like, lifted at that point.

He kind of did a little bit of a smile at me

and then he looked straight up at the ceiling again.

Once the injection started,

a lady in the next room and I don't know who it was,

she had the most beautiful voice

and she sang Amazing Grace.

In my head, I was talking to Stuart

and telling him...

that I loved him...and...

and I hoped he can rest in peace now.

# I once was lost

# But now I'm found

# Was blind but now I see. #

LONE PROTESTER SPEAKS ON MEGAPHONE

What was so remarkable is,

at such a young age,

that he has made a life-death decision and stuck with it.

Even as death was approaching.

So young.

So young.

So naive.

Stupid choices. Wrong decisions.

Killed a police officer.

And life's valuable.

Officer Alexander's life was valuable

and Daniel Lopez's life was valuable

and both of them are gone.