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Inmate executed after 26 years

The victim's relatives hope Amos King's death for the slaying in Tarpon Springs will help to ease their years of pain.

By KELLEY BENHAM, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 27, 2003

STARKE -- After a wait that tortured them for years, they faced each other through a sheet of glass.

Amos Lee King Jr. was strapped to a gurney with needles in both arms. He lifted his head from the pillow and looked for their faces.

The two women came to watch him die Wednesday at Florida State Prison. After decades of needing it and dreading it, they felt sorry for him. They clasped hands and remembered the way their aunt died, crawling across the floor of her burning home. They almost could smell the smoke.

King told them he was sorry, but he did not confess.

He has always said he did not rape and murder Natalie "Tillie" Brady of Tarpon Springs in March 1977.

But it is his face that Monica Watson and Peggy Scheerer see when they remember Aunt Tillie. In 26 years, they had seen him only on television and in the worst corners of their imagination.

On Wednesday, they watched as King, the longest-serving death row inmate from Pinellas County, was executed by lethal injection. In the death chamber, they said a prayer for him.

The Brady family has had decades to ponder hate and revenge, love and forgiveness.

Tillie was a sweet woman, always smiling. They used to play in her mulberry tree. They can't smell mulberries without thinking of her. She was 68 when she was raped, stabbed, choked, beaten and left to die.

Amos King was 22, doing time at a minimum-security prison a few hundred yards away. That night he was missing at bed check and later found outside. He fought with guard James D. McDonough, stabbing him 15 times.

He was sentenced to die just 94 days later, but through warrants by three governors, seven execution dates and six reprieves, he has remained alive.

The Brady family has spent that time thinking about Amos and Tillie, Amos and the law, Amos and God.

They have wondered if there is some good in him that they cannot see. They have tried to find a way to forgive him. But it's hard.

Two decades of motions and appeals have made his life seem to matter more than hers. So many disappointments have forced them to relive her death. And the need to see someone die has made them wonder what kind of people they want to be.

Tillie, the oldest of 10, has two surviving sisters. Eva and Marie do not like to talk about the execution.

They believe in God, and they believe in the courts. And they had to believe that both of them would do the right thing.

"What the courts decide, we'll abide by," Watson said. "And God rest his soul."

On Wednesday morning, Peggy Scheerer drove from Atlanta to her sister's house. A religious song came on the radio. It seemed fitting.

Monica Watson put on a pale yellow suit, because yellow seemed hopeful.

They packed the family photo album in the car and, for the second time, pointed the Chevy south toward Starke. They hoped that this time when they drove back, they could look at the pictures and, for the first time, see their aunt and not see him.

For three hours they tried not to cry. They stopped at a convenience store just outside the prison. People inside were talking about the execution.

"Did you hear what he did to that woman?" someone said.

They want everyone to know. And then they want to be able to forget.

By the time they left Georgia, King, 48, already was into a ritual he knew well.

On other occasions, King had come within four days of dying, within one day, within 15 minutes.

Some inmates kill themselves under those circumstances. Some go insane. Some hide under the covers all day and won't come out. King has always forced himself to make his bed every day, to remind himself he is still alive.

When he woke up Wednesday, he made his bed.

He is a Buddhist, and he has been told he might be reborn. But he isn't sure.

"Personally," he said, "I'll just wait and see."

On Wednesday afternoon, King traded his orange prison shirt for dark dress pants and a white shirt -- a burial suit bought by the state at a Jacksonville thrift store. He rolled up the sleeves, for the needles, and left the top button open, for the stethoscope.

He met with his spiritual adviser for most of the afternoon. They meditated, talked and chanted: "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma..."

He ate his last meal -- smoked turkey sausage, rice, collard greens, pinto beans, cornbread and cake with icing. It was the same meal the other prisoners had. King has twice eaten a special last meal. He asked for Thai food this time, but the state said no.

He awaited the results of his final appeals:

Florida Supreme Court: Denied.

11th Circuit Court of Appeals: Denied

U.S. Supreme Court: No word yet.

Gov. Jeb Bush: Silence.

"I think when this is all over, and Mama and Eva don't have to be reminded and reminded and reminded, he will probably be included in their prayers. Just because, you know, he's become like a part of the family." -- Monica Watson

In the Death Chamber, they stared at the brown curtain and imagined him behind it.

They held hands tightly and cried a little. They closed their eyes.

King's lawyer, Peter Cannon, sat behind them with his head in his hands. He looked like he hadn't shaved. He clenched his jaw.

But 6 p.m., execution time, came and went. The two sisters leaned on each other.

Cannon looked at his watch. King's spiritual adviser Kevin Malone put his hands together and rocked, slowly at first.

6:11. A phone rang somewhere, just once. Monica didn't notice the delay. Peggy thought, oh my God, here we go again.

6:32. The curtain opened.

King was covered in a sheet, lying under a fluorescent lights. A microphone hung above him. Monica started to cry.

"I'd like the governor and the family to know I'm an innocent man," King said.

He explained the delay was waiting on the U.S. Supreme Court appeal. It was denied.

He said the state has hidden evidence in his case. Monica shook her head.

"I'm sorry for the victim's family for all this that we've gone through."

He looked around for James McDonough, the prison guard he had nearly killed. But McDonough, who has always said he wanted to watch King die, had a death in the family to attend to instead.

"I'm sorry I can't offer relief to the family," he said. He asked them to look at the evidence. "Then if you want to hate me..." and his voice trailed off.

He spoke for about four minutes. When he was finished, the microphone shut off.

Behind a mirror the executioner, a private citizen paid $150, injected the first of eight syringes into the tube running to King's vein.

First he was numbed, then poisoned.

King said some more words, but the witnesses could not hear them. His chest rose and fell and then stopped. It only took a minute.

Two doctors checked his heartbeat. One looked into his eyes.

And then it was over. For everybody.

Monica believes that when Tillie Brady died, God shielded her from the pain.

She believes that happened for Amos King, too. She hopes it did.

Tillie would not have wanted him to suffer.