The Press: The Death House Beat

The condemned man was expecting the visitor. Slumped on a bunk in his cell. Milton Williams, 28,. looked up last week at the friendly, shirtsleeved man with a cigar fixed in one corner of his mouth, and talked of the coming execution. As always, Editor Don Reid. 52, of Texas’ weekly Huntsville Item (circ. 2,050), listened sympathetically, but nonetheless prodded gently until he got a last-hours quote: “I believe in the Lord. I’m going through that door believing in him.” Then Editor Reid advised the convicted rapist: “Don’t worry too much. Milton. It won’t be long now. I’ll see you tonight.”

An accident of geography has made Don Reid the nation’s busiest death-house-beat man. Huntsville has Texas’ only execution chamber (electric chair) and, as a wire-service stringer, Reid has been watching men die since 1937. Milton Williams was the 158th—a total Reid believes to be a record for U.S. newsmen. For many of the men, Reid is the only visitor. He has written letters to their wives and mothers, once shipped a body back home to Indiana. He has twice saved men by persuading officials to reopen their cases, has been begged by longtime dwellers on death-house row to get their executions set ahead.

An easygoing man. Reid claims that his bizarre beat does not affect him: “I don’t have any trouble sleeping.” But watching men die has made him a firm opponent of capital punishment. Says he: “I’m sure there have been at least six or seven executed for crimes they did not commit, and Lord only knows how many people died for crimes they did commit but whose punishment was too severe.”

Reid was convinced that Milton Williams (a Negro) was guilty of the crime for which he was executed last week—the rape of a 16-year-old Negro girl—but that did not make his 158th execution easy. With prison officials, Reid sat down to the traditional Texas execution eve “breakfast” (scrambled eggs, pork chops, coffee), later leaned casually on a rail, notebook in hand, as Williams entered the execution chamber. But another reporter noted that Reid pursed his lips as Williams took the first 15-second 1,800-volt jolt. The reporter later asked Methodist Reid, “Were you praying then?” Answered Reid: “I always pray.”