The Man Who Saw 138 Executions

As Leopoldo Narvaiz Jr. grunted and gasped, a somber man in a gray suit and shiny black shoes stood behind the witnesses and checked his watch.

Narvaiz was dying. But David Nunnelee, PR man for death row, had seen it all before; this was his 138th execution.

Peering into the death chamber on tiptoe, it struck him that the 30-year-old murderer under the leather straps resembled his own brother, Richard. He allowed himself to think, “What would it be like. . . . ?”

When it was over, Nunnelee left the death house and strode across a narrow street to a few reporters and TV crews.

“Pronounced dead seven minutes after the lethal chemicals were administered,” Nunnelee said coolly. “He had no last statement and, when asked, simply said, ‘No.’ . . . It went by quickly, very quietly.”

For 12 years, David Nunnelee stood between the media and the Texas death machine. He answered inquiries, arranged death row interviews and shepherded reporters from just about everywhere so they could see and tell how killers die.

Nunnelee did not know it, but the Narvaiz execution on June 26 would be his last.

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David Nunnelee was transferred--reassigned, said Glen Castlebury, chief spokesman for the prison agency, because a writer was needed for “a host of other duties.”

At the same time, Castlebury wants things reorganized. He says Texas’ death penalty has drawn overwhelming interest, and Castlebury wants more attention paid to in-state news outlets and current cases, not outside media and non-pressing topics.

“I’ve had it up to my kazoot with ‘Inside Edition,’ French television, ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ Christian broadcasting, California television,” he said.

For Nunnelee, it was a unique assignment. Among 38 death penalty states, Texas is busiest, and Narvaiz’s execution was the 11th this year.

For a dozen years, Nunnelee walked a tightrope: Get to know killers but never grieve for them. Help reporters but protect the wardens from intrusions. Tell the truth. Be available--always. For this he was paid $36,132 a year.

Nunnelee had watched his first execution in 1984 as a reporter for a small-town newspaper. He took the spokesman job in 1986, eager to see the inside of an agency he had covered and often battled as a reporter.

Nunnelee is a formal, coiled man, not one to betray his emotions. His face pinches with concentration as he answers questions on camera. No speeches, just facts.

And the death penalty is fact. “It exists. We’re not ashamed of it,” he said. “It’s what the people of Texas want.”

As for his personal view, Nunnelee says only that witnessing so much death hasn’t changed his opinion.

Other than that, he stays silent.

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The Texas death house occupies a corner of the state’s oldest penitentiary: a 149-year-old complex called “The Walls,” a landmark in this dusty college town 80 miles north of Houston.

Here Nunnelee would lead flocks of reporters and photographers seeking last interviews or murder-anniversary stories. He would take them onto death row itself to see stacked cells filled with frightened, lonely men.

Such access was unheard of before Nunnelee’s era. In those days, “We didn’t tell anybody anything and nobody came in,” said Bruce Thaler, senior warden at the prison that houses death row.

Nunnelee could be tough. Journalists risked ejection for photographing or talking to inmates and guards without permission. This spring, Nunnelee scolded a British reporter for weeping after an execution. He considered it unprofessional.

His detachment was tested last year when 37 executions drew an unprecedented media turnout. But he said his worst day was when he said goodbye to Karla Faye Tucker.

Over the years, Nunnelee knew Tucker as a born-again Christian, not the teenage prostitute who got a sexual thrill from killing with a pickax.

The last time they met, she asked Nunnelee about her chances. “I had to tell her I thought she was going to be executed.” She liked to hug; he hugged her. The night after he witnessed her death, Nunnelee dreamed she was a reporter covering her own execution. He visited her grave. He believes her conversion was real.

“I miss her. I miss the Karla I knew. . . . She was a hoot. She was easy to talk to. Caring.”

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The day Narvaiz was put to death, Nunnelee was in by 8:30 a.m.

Soon a television reporter was asking if Nunnelee knew the whereabouts of the condemned man’s family (he didn’t), if he could recommend a psychologist to comment (he couldn’t) and where to park the satellite truck (in the parking lot).

Between calls, Nunnelee read e-mail, including the prison log, looking for anything that might generate a news story. The photocopier churned out execution press kits.

Word came that Narvaiz refused breakfast. Nunnelee called the Ellis Unit. What did Narvaiz plan to wear?

Among the five reporter witnesses were two first-timers from San Antonio, where 10 years earlier Narvaiz butchered an ex-girlfriend, her two sisters and brother with kitchen knives and left broken blades in them.

Nunnelee briefed the newcomers: pads and pens only. Empty pockets. They would be searched. Narvaiz could invite five people; he chose only his lawyer and spiritual advisor.

In the air-conditioned death chamber, a 10-by-15-foot room, yellow curtains and a bottle of air freshener lent an incongruous homeyness.

The warden would ask Narvaiz for last words, Nunnelee told the reporters. “The warden will give a signal. In 20 seconds you’ll see a reaction of some kind, a heaving of his chest, an expiration of air. . . . It’s over pretty quickly.”

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Nunnelee’s new assignment is to write in-house publications like the annual report.

On his last day as spokesman, he visited death row. He said goodbye to the inmates.

And he wished them luck.

AP Houston correspondent Michael Graczyk, who has witnessed about 130 executions including Narvaiz’s, contributed to this story.