Chapter 12

DEATH ROW

When  entering  the   Southern  Ohio  Correctional Facility  at  Lucasville,  a  notice  can  be seen hanging on a bulletin board.

“For  Sale: Monuments,  J.R. Swann,  Sales Rep., I will try  to give you the  best deal possible. May you rest in peace."

Sarah Johnston  visited her husband  twice a month at  the  Southern  Ohio  Correctional  Facility at Lucasville, an  institution, says Joel  Berger, an NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney and advocate for prisoners  on death  row, which  is  one of  the worst prisons in the country.

Ohio  Public Defender  Randall Dana  also has been extremely critical of  Ohio’s death row, referring to it as a “Dickensian asylum” and “a bedlam.”

While  visiting  him  in  prison,  Sarah  and Dale avoided  talking about  the murders.  “Most of the time  we try  to keep  it light  and happy,” Sarah said. “Every once in a while, we get in one of our moods  and  talk  about  Annette  and  sit and cry together.”

In  prison,  Johnston  studied  various mail-order Bible  courses. “He  tells me  he’s got  a helping hand,”  is treated  well by  prisoners and  guards alike, and  some of the  other prisoners on  death row confide in him, Sarah said.

“Dale’s good  with words and he’s  a real peaceful person. He doesn’t get upset about things. Dale is an extremely gentle, kind, soft person. He doesn’t have  a temper.  He’s one  of the  sweetest people you’d ever want to meet,” Sarah said.

“How  one spends  his time  varies from  person to person,” Johnston  wrote in a  letter. “Some...sit for hours and look  off into space seeing nothing. One  has  to  ask,  were  the  men  sent  here for punishment or for torture?”

“Old Thunderbolt,” Ohio’s electric chair, is found in  a  wing  adjacent   to  the  maximum  security cellblock.  With its  metal retaining  straps and electrical wires, the Chair was last used in 1962.