I’ve done this a dozen times before. On Wednesday, I was a media witness to Troy Anthony Davis' execution.
Each one is easier than the one before but each one leaves a mark of some sort.
My first one was the 1996 electrocution of a triple murderer.
Unlike the 11 that followed, Larry Lonchar had confessed his crimes, said he wanted to take his punishment. I had interviewed him many times and found his personality incongruent with what one would expect to find in a man who had killed three people because he owed them money.
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Execution No. 2 was Oct. 25, 2001, and there were three more over the next eight weeks.
In subsequent years, there would be periods of a series of executions followed by stretches of nothing.
Over time, there was less and less interest from the public and the media.
It was as if no one cared. Davis' execution is the exception.
There was worldwide interest, unlike any other I've witnessed.
The number of media outlets and protesters at the prison for Wednesday’s lethal injection was astounding.
Chants came from death penalty opponents cordoned off in the staging area. And there were many more state troopers, Butts County deputies and prison guards armed and in riot gear.
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Other media members and I are taken into the prison to the same room where I have waited many times before -- sometimes until midnight and other times just over an hour. There are vending machines but we are allowed no money. We can't step into the hallway. We get no information about the reason for the delay in the execution
The scene is surreal -- not tense as some might expect.
The banter is almost unseemly. Wednesday, conversation topics skipped from spouses and children to vacations to work to is there a use for phone books. Three of the reporters persuaded a prison official to check on the score for the Braves game.
Every once in a while someone would wonder about the reason for the delay and if there was chance the execution could be called off, but those were the only references to the reason we were there.
Just after 10:30 p.m. two words stopped the conversation instantly.
“Y’all ready?” a correctional officer asked.
This time it went according to plan and 14 minutes after the first drug was administered to Troy Anthony Davis, he was dead.
We swiftly led from the death chamber and driven to the staging area where we were to give a "pool report" to the hoards of reporters and photographers waiting. They have set up a bank of microphones where they wanted us to stand. Their lights make the dark seem like day.
The protesters were still there as well, though they were quieter than when I left the staging area.
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It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were so many reporters, so many demonstrators and so many law enforcement officers.
In the days since the execution, interest is still high.
For most of Thursday, it was as if I had become a part of the story. I answered questions from national and international media outlets, all wanting to know what it was like. A few ask what I think about the death penalty, a question I don't answer.
I've been asked repeatedly if I'm okay and if I will continue witnessing executions.
I don't know.
But it's important to me that someone from the media is there. We are the eyes of the public. We are the ones who will report if something goes wrong. We are the ones who will report the final moments of a condemned murderer's life.
Rhonda Cook has been a reporter at the AJC for 22 years covering crime.
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