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I Watched You Kill Him: A Priest’s Plea to Executioners

I Watched You Kill Him: A Priest’s Plea to Executioners

Last updated on: December 26, 2025 at 2:19 am by Jeff Hood

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I Watched You Kill Him: A Priest’s Plea to Executioners 2025-12-26T02:19:11-06:00 Jeff Hood

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Executioner

Executioner / AI

December 25, 2025

Dear Executioner,

I have watched you work.

Eleven times now. Eleven men. Eleven deaths I stood close enough to touch.

I was the one holding his hand while you strapped the other one down. I was the one praying while you checked the lines. I was the one whispering scripture while you waited for the warden’s nod. We breathed the same air in that room. We heard the same last words. We watched the same body go still.

Then you walked out one door and I walked out another.

Where did you go? Home to your wife, your kids, your dog who don’t know what you do for a living? To a bar where nobody asks questions? To bed, where you stared at the ceiling until morning?

I went to a hotel room. I sat on the edge of the bed. I didn’t move for a long time.

This letter is for you.

Not the lawyers who argued the case. Not the judges who upheld the sentence. Not the governor who signed the warrant. You. The one who actually did it. The one whose hands touched his body. The one who made the killing real.

I’m not here to judge you. That’s not what this is. I’ve been in that room too many times to pretend I’m innocent.

Here’s what I can’t figure out: Am I a witness or an accomplice? When I hold his hand, does that comfort him or does it make the whole thing easier for the state? When I pray over his body, am I resisting the violence or blessing it?

I don’t know. I’ve asked God. I’ve asked myself. I haven’t gotten an answer that lets me sleep at night.

So, I’m not coming at you from some high place. I’m down here in the dirt with you. We’re both covered in the same blood.

But your hands did the work. My hands just held on. That’s a difference. I don’t know how big a difference, but it’s something.

Executioner : What is happening to your soul?

You can call it conscience if you want. Call it your psyche. Call it whatever you need to call it. But you know there’s something inside you that watches what you do and remembers. Something that doesn’t forget. Something that wakes you up at 3 a.m. with questions you can’t answer.

The state doesn’t care about that something. The state just needs a body to do the job. When you’re used up…when the nightmares get too bad or the drinking gets out of control or your wife finally leaves…they’ll find another body. You’re replaceable. Your soul isn’t their problem.

But it’s your problem. It’s going to be your problem for the rest of your life…and then some.

I’ve talked to men and women who did what you do. Twenty, thirty executions. They seemed fine for years. Professionals. Did the job, went home, lived their lives. Then something cracked. A nightmare that wouldn’t stop. A trigger they couldn’t explain…the hiss of compressed air, the beep of a heart monitor, the smell of antiseptic. Suddenly, they couldn’t function. Couldn’t be in the same room with their kids. Couldn’t feel anything except numb or terrified, nothing in between.

One man told me he started dreaming about the chamber. Not the executions…just the room. Empty. Silent. Waiting. He’d wake up shaking and couldn’t explain why an empty room scared him more than anything he’d ever seen.

But his body knew. His soul knew. The room was never empty. The ghosts were in there, waiting for him.

I carry ghosts too. Eleven of them. They’re with me right now, while I write this.

How many are you carrying?

Executioner : Every detail of the room sticks with you, doesn’t it?

You know it better than I do.

You know which door sticks. Which light buzzes. How many steps from the hall to the gurney. Where to stand so you’re not in the way. You’ve walked that room so many times your body could do it blind.

I’ve been in eleven times. That’s nothing compared to you. But eleven times is enough.

The smell hits first. That hospital smell, but wrong somehow. Hospitals are for healing. This room is for killing. Your body knows the difference even before your mind catches up. Something tightens in your chest. Something old. Something familiar.

The light is too bright. Fluorescent. No shadows. Nothing soft. Every detail exposed, documented, witnessed. It’s the light they use on things that are already dead.

And there in the middle: the gurney. Medical equipment turned into a killing machine. The straps worn smooth from all the bodies that have been held down. The padding is so thin. Comfort isn’t the point.

The shape of it…arms out, chest up, head back…it looks like a cross. The state would never admit that, but I’ve stood next to enough of them to see it. We lay a man down like a sacrifice. Everyone in the room becomes part of the ritual.

Executioner : Why do you hesitate?

I’ve seen you hesitate.

Not much. A fraction of a second. A pause before tightening a strap. A breath before giving the nod. It’s small. Nobody else notices. But I’ve been watching.

That hesitation is your conscience trying to speak. That tiny pause is your soul screaming stop before your training shuts it down.

The state doesn’t train you to hesitate. The state trains you to perform. Execute…that’s the word, isn’t it? Same word for killing a man and for completing a task. That’s not an accident. They want you to think of it as a task. A procedure. Something you do, not something you become.

But you’re not a machine. Machines don’t hesitate.

Are you still human?

I’m asking seriously. Not as an insult. As a genuine question. After all the executions you’ve participated in, is there still a person inside the uniform? Is there still a soul under the protocol?

I believe there is. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the crack in the mask. I’ve seen the hesitation. That’s why I’m writing this.

Executioner : How do you carry the room?

The room doesn’t stay in the prison.

You walk out. You drive home. You take off the uniform. You shower. You eat dinner. You watch TV. You go through all the motions of normal life.

But the room comes with you.

It’s in the smell that won’t wash off. In the hands that remember what they did. In the eyes that saw things most people will never see.

It comes with me too. The smell of antiseptic triggers it. The buzz of fluorescent lights. Someone struggling to breathe. Ordinary things that aren’t ordinary anymore because they’ve been poisoned by association with death.

Eleven executions, and I’m the witness. You’re the participant. I don’t know which of us carries the heavier weight. But we’re both carrying something that’s going to take years off our lives.

The room follows us. The room waits for us in our sleep. The room never forgets what we did there, even when we try to.

Executioner : Do you realize what you’re doing to everyone else?

You probably think the damage is contained. You probably think it’s just you and the condemned. The man dies, you go home, the circle closes.

It doesn’t work that way.

There are other people in that witness room. They watch what you do. And what you do breaks them too.

Executioner : What about the victim’s family?

The victim’s family came for closure.

That’s what the state promised them. That’s what everybody told them. Watch him die and you’ll finally be able to heal. Watch him die and the nightmare will be over. Watch him die and you can move on.

They lied to them too.

I’ve talked to victim’s families after executions. Not all of them. But enough. The closure doesn’t come. The healing doesn’t happen. Instead, they’ve added a new trauma to the old one. Now they’ve watched a man die. Now they’ve got his face in their heads alongside the face of the person they lost.

The state uses the grief of victim’s families to justify what you do. And then the state leaves them to deal with their new grief on their own.

You helped do that to them. You didn’t mean to. You were just doing your job. But she’s wounded, and you’re the weapon that wounded her.

Executioner : What about the family of the condemned?

On the other side of the glass is another family.

The condemned man’s mother. His children. His wife. His sister. People who love him, even though they know what he did. People who are about to watch the state kill someone they love.

Nobody talks about them. Nobody cares about their grief. The state decided their person forfeited the right to be mourned when he committed his crime. But grief doesn’t follow the state’s rules. Love doesn’t check the legal record before it decides to break your heart.

I’ve sat with those families. I’ve prayed with them. I’ve held their hands in the hours before while they waited for the state to kill their son, their father, their brother.

Then I’ve watched them watch you do it.

The mother cries out. The children press their faces to the glass. The wife collapses. And you’re on the other side, doing your job, following procedure, making it happen.

You helped do that to them.

Executioner : What about my health?

Of course, I chose to be there. I chose this ministry. I chose to stand with the condemned because I believe no one should die alone. That’s on me.

But I’m wounded too. Eleven executions have marked me in ways I’m still trying to understand. I’ve watched men die badly…some struggling, gasping, convulsing…while the state insisted everything was going according to plan. I’ve held hands that went from gripping to limp. I’ve prayed while bodies shut down.

You were there. We were in that room together, and we’re both living with what happened.

I’m not blaming you for my pain. But I need you to know that your participation doesn’t just damage you. It damages everyone who watches. It radiates outward like poison in water. The families, the witnesses, the journalists, the spiritual advisors…we all carry pieces of what you did.

The harm is not contained. It never was.

Executioner : Do you know what you’re doing to your fellow citizens?

Here’s something you probably haven’t thought about: you’re corrupting the state you work for.

I don’t mean corruption like bribes and scandals. I mean something deeper. Every time you participate in an execution, you help stain the soul of the state itself.

The state’s whole claim to legitimacy rests on being different from the criminals it punishes. The murderer kills out of rage or greed or hatred. The state…supposedly…acts out of justice and reason. The murderer is lawless. The state is lawful. That’s the story anyway.

But when the state kills, the distinction collapses. The state does exactly what the murderer did…takes a human life…and dresses it up in procedure and paperwork. The state becomes what it claims to condemn.

And you’re the one who makes it real. You’re the point where the state’s violence stops being abstract and becomes concrete. Without your hands, the execution can’t happen. You are the mechanism through which the state corrupts itself.

Executioner : Did you know that you are teaching murder?

Think about what the state is teaching when it executes.

It’s teaching that some problems can only be solved by killing. It’s teaching that violence is an acceptable answer when you have enough authority behind it. It’s teaching that certain people are disposable…that there’s a category of human being who can be erased.

The state stands up and says: Killing is wrong. Don’t do it. Then the state straps a man to a gurney and kills him.

Studies show the death penalty doesn’t deter crime. Of course it doesn’t. The state is modeling exactly what it claims to prohibit. It’s teaching violence by example.

You’re the teacher. Every time you participate, you’re giving the lesson. You’re showing the world that killing can be organized, scheduled, bureaucratized, made acceptable. You’re demonstrating that with enough paperwork and protocol, ending a human life is just another day at work.

Executioner : How can you kill in our name?

The state does all of this in our name.

That’s how government works. The state acts on behalf of its citizens. When the state kills, it’s claiming to kill for us. Your hands are our hands. Your actions are our actions.

Which means we’re all implicated. Every citizen of a state that executes bears some responsibility for the killing. The blood is on all of our hands.

But it’s on some hands more than others. You’re not just a citizen. You’re the instrument. You’re the one who turns the state’s violence into reality. You bear a special weight…and you inflict a special stain on the people you serve.

That stain spreads. It corrupts the courts that sentence men to death. It corrupts the legislature that refuses to abolish the death penalty. It corrupts the governor who signs the warrants. It corrupts the whole system from top to bottom.

And at the center of all that corruption is you. The one who actually does the killing.

Executioner : Did you know that the state doesn’t care about you?

The state also betrays you.

It asks you to do something no employer should ask of anyone. It sends you into that room to kill, then sends you home to deal with the consequences. It offers you a pension instead of your soul. It treats you like a tool to be used and discarded.

When you break down…and you will break down, eventually…the state will not be there for you. It will find another body. It will move on. Your trauma is not the state’s problem.

The state does not love you. The state does not care about your soul. The state needs you to be a mechanism, and when the mechanism fails, the state will replace you.

You deserve better than that. You deserve a government that doesn’t ask you to kill. You deserve an employer that doesn’t trade your humanity for its convenience.

But you won’t get what you deserve by continuing to participate. You’ll only get it by refusing.

Executioner : Do you believe in God?

I’m a priest. You probably figured that out. So, I’m going to talk about God now. If that’s not your thing, you can skip ahead. But I think you should hear this.

I believe every human being is made in the image of God.

You don’t have to believe that. But the idea is older than Christianity. It goes back to the first pages of Genesis. Every person carries something sacred inside them. Not because of what they’ve done or haven’t done. Because of what they are. Human.

That image doesn’t get erased by crime. The man on the gurney, whatever he did…and some of them did terrible things…is still a bearer of the divine image. His humanity doesn’t disappear because a jury said so. His sacred worth doesn’t get cancelled by a death warrant.

When you kill him, you destroy an icon of God.

I don’t say that to hurt you. I say it because you need to understand what you’re being asked to do. The state calls it justice. I call it desecration. You’re breaking something sacred. You’re shattering an image of the divine.

And here’s the thing about breaking sacred images: you can’t do it without breaking something in yourself.

Executioner : Did you know that you bear the same image of God of the one you killed?

You bear the same image. The same God who made him made you. The same sacred worth that makes his life precious makes your life precious.

When you participate in his destruction, you participate in your own diminishment. When you shatter the image of God in him, you fracture it in yourself.

This isn’t about punishment. God isn’t keeping score to hit you with later. It’s about the nature of the act itself. Killing harms the killer. It has to. You can’t destroy another person’s humanity without destroying some of your own.

That’s what I mean when I talk about your soul. That’s what’s at stake. Not just your mental health, not just your relationships, not just your sleep. Your fundamental self. The part of you that makes you human. The image of God that you carry.

The state is taking it from you, execution by execution. And when it’s gone…when the image is too damaged to recognize…what will be left?

Executioner : Don’t you remember that Jesus was executed by the state?

People forget that. They put crosses on their walls and around their necks like it’s a nice decoration. But the cross was a method of execution. Rome’s death penalty. Jesus was a condemned man, killed by the government using legal procedures.

Which means Christianity was founded by someone who was strapped down and killed, just like the men on your gurneys. The God I serve was executed. The God I pray to knows what it feels like to have the state’s hands on his body.

When I stand next to a condemned man, I see Christ. When I hold his hand, I’m holding the hand of my savior. Matthew 25…’whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.’

What does that make you?

I’m not trying to damn you. Grace extends to everyone, even people whose hands are red with blood. But the act is what it is. When you kill the condemned, you’re doing something to Christ. You’re standing in the same place of the soldiers at Golgotha that crucified Jesus.

That should matter. Even if you’re not religious. Even if you think this is all mythology. The story shapes our culture, shapes our conscience, shapes what we think justice means. And in that story, God takes the side of the executed. Not the executioner.

Executioner : Did you know that you can stop?

You can stop.

I know it doesn’t feel that way. I know there are bills to pay and a pension to protect. I know there’s pressure from above and silence from the people around you. I know the system is designed to make you feel like you don’t have a choice.

But you do have a choice. You’ve always had a choice. The choice is hard…but it exists.

You can refuse.

I’m not going to pretend it won’t cost you. It might cost you your job. It might cost you friendships. It might cost you the career you’ve built. Those are real costs, and I don’t minimize them.

But what’s the alternative? Keep going until you break? Keep adding ghosts until they crowd out everything else? Keep becoming someone your children won’t recognize, your wife can’t reach, you can’t find in the mirror?

The job isn’t worth your soul. Nothing is.

Executioner : Did you know that there are practical things you can do to transition out?

In some states, you have the right to refuse assignments that violate your conscience. The right exists on paper even if nobody talks about it. Look into it. Talk to a lawyer. Find out what protections exist.

Document your beliefs. Write them down. Create a record. If you’re going to refuse, make it clear that you’re refusing on principle, not on whim. That matters legally and it matters morally.

Find allies. You’re not the only one who feels this way. There are others…I promise you there are others…who carry the same doubts, the same horror, the same weight. They’re afraid to speak too. But if you find each other, you might find the courage to speak together.

And if you can’t refuse yet…if the circumstances won’t allow it…then start with the small resistances. Look him in the eye. Acknowledge his humanity even if you can’t say it out loud. Refuse to participate in the jokes, the detachment, the pretending that what you’re doing is normal. Keep your soul awake even while your hands do the work.

But know that the small resistances aren’t enough. Eventually, you have to choose. You have to say no. You have to walk away.

Executioner : Don’t you realize that you need some healing?

If you’ve already participated…if you’ve already been in that room, already done the work, already carry the ghosts…then you need healing. Not just quitting. Healing.

That starts with confession. Not to a court…I’m not talking about legal confession. I’m talking about telling the truth about what you’ve done to someone who can hear it without judgment. A therapist. A priest. A friend. Someone.

The silence is killing you. The secret is rotting inside you. You need to speak it out loud. You need to name what you’ve done and feel the weight of it and let someone else help you carry it.

Then grief. You’ve lost something. You’ve lost the person you were before. You’ve lost your innocence, your wholeness, your clean conscience. Those losses are real and they deserve to be mourned.

And finally, amends. Not just apologizing to the dead. But living differently. Using what you’ve learned to help others. Speaking out. Joining the fight to end the thing that damaged you.

Some of the strongest voices against the death penalty are former executioners. They know what nobody else knows. Their testimony carries a weight no outsider can match. Your suffering can become a gift if you let it.

Executioner : Did you forget that we are all in this together?

You’re not alone.

It feels that way. The system is designed to make it feel that way. Keep the executioners isolated, silent, ashamed. Don’t let them talk to each other. Don’t let them talk to anyone. Silence protects the system.

But there are others. People who have done what you’ve done and lived to tell the truth about it. People who found their way out. People who are walking the same path you’re walking, looking for the same light.

Find them. Read their stories. Listen to their voices. Let them show you that transformation is possible, that the damage isn’t permanent, that a different life exists on the other side of refusal.

There are also people working to end the death penalty. Lawyers, activists, ministers, organizers. They want to help you. They see you not as the enemy but as another victim of the system. They have resources. They have experience. They have solidarity to offer.

And there are people like me. Spiritual advisors who have stood in that room. We know what you’ve seen. We know what it costs. We don’t condemn you for it because we carry our own guilt, our own questions, our own weight.

Reach out. Tell your story. Let someone else help you carry it. The isolation is the system’s tool for keeping you trapped. Connection is how you break free.

Executioner : Who am I to judge?

I’ve witnessed eleven executions. I’ve held the hands of eleven men as they died. I’ve watched you work eleven times.

I’m not your judge. I can’t be. I’ve been in that room too. I carry my own questions, my own guilt, my own ghosts.

But I’ve seen what the chamber does. To the condemned. To the witnesses. To you. And I’ve seen enough to know that it can’t go on. That someone has to say stop. That the people doing the killing can actually end it.

Without you, the execution cannot happen. The warrant is just paper. The sentence is just words. You are the one who makes it real.

Which means you’re the one who can make it stop.

Executioner : When will you set it down?

The warrant is not holy writ.

The warden’s order is not the voice of God.

The chain of command does not dissolve your responsibility.

You are not a machine.

You are a human being. You were made in the image of God. You have a conscience that speaks to you, even now, even after everything. You have the capacity to choose.

Choose differently.

Choose to listen to the voice that has been whispering no since the first time you walked into that room. Choose to honor the hesitation you’ve learned to suppress. Choose to be something other than what the state has made you.

I know what it will cost you. I know you’ll lose things. But you’ve already lost things. You’ve lost pieces of your soul. You’ve lost the ability to sleep through the night. You’ve lost the person you were before.

What do you have left to lose that matters more than what you’ll gain?

You’ll gain your humanity back. Your integrity. Your capacity to look in the mirror without flinching. You’ll gain the chance to become someone your children can be proud of, someone you can be proud of.

You’ll gain your soul.

Executioner : Don’t you remember me?

I’ve been in that room with you. I’ve breathed the same air. I’ve heard the same final breaths. I’ve watched the same bodies go still.

We’re bound together by what we’ve witnessed and what we’ve done. We can’t undo it. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We’ll carry it for the rest of our lives.

But we can choose what comes next. We can choose to stay in the darkness or walk toward the light. We can choose to keep participating or finally refuse.

I’ve made my choice. I’ll keep entering that room, keep holding hands, keep praying, keep witnessing. I’m not sure it’s the right choice. I’m not sure there is a right choice. But it’s my choice to love those that society has chosen to throw away, and I’ll live with it.

Now you have to make yours.

The warrant is in your hands. You can carry it into that room one more time. You can do what the state tells you to do. You can kill. You can add another ghost to the ones you’re already carrying.

Or you can set it down and walk away.

Your soul is worth more than the state will ever pay you for it.

Eternally yours,

Executioner

Catholic

Politics and Religion

About The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a theologian, writer and activist who has spent years ministering to people on death row. As a spiritual advisor and witness to executions, he speaks out against state violence and calls for a society rooted in justice, mercy and the sacredness of life. You can read more about the author here.

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