I was born in San Jose, California. Been unhappy from the time I was born.

Never had a moment of happiness in my life. I was raised by my step-father and my mother. My step-father was abusive. He built RVs. Very hard worker, very successful. I respect him for raising two kids that weren't his, but he was under a lot of pressure and he was violent. He would get mad and hit and then get madder as he hit, and if I cried, he'd hit me more so after awhile I learned not to cry, and pretty much just toughed it out

When I was a kid I didn't talk to nobody. Didn't talk at all. I attempted suicide when I was nine years old--as much as a nine year old can, right? I took a whole bottle of Excedrin headache tablets, mixed in a cup of water and drank it. I just didn't want to live no more. But I don't blame my step-father. Anybody that blames their crime on somebody else--on child abuse or anything like that--that's just an excuse.

I left home when I was fifteen-and-a-half and stayed on my own until I was twenty five, when I was arrested for this crime. I shot a man and killed him in Greenville, Texas, off Interstate 30. I've never denied it. I had just gotten out of jail in Arkansas--one hundred days for receiving stolen property. Detective in Arkansas drove me to the county line told me to get out and don't come back. No wallet, no ID. So it's getting near dark, and I'm walking down Interstate 30. I see this shed-type thing and I say, "I'm gonna go in there and sleep." I go in and they had an arsenal--shotguns, handguns. I grabbed me two handguns and I walked down the road. I started talking to this guy standing out front of this Ramada Inn. He says "Where you headed?" I said "Dallas." He said "All right." He was in the process of moving and had to get his things into the car. So we go into his motel room and the guy come over and he put his hand on my leg. And I told him, "I don't go for that crap." So he got mad and told me to get out. I don't remember pulling the gun out of my pocket, but I know I did--there's no doubt about that. I remember he was trying to hand me his wallet. I knocked the wallet out of his hand and said "I don't want that." And I started shooting. There wasn't no blood, but he lay down and he died. Shot punctured his lung and he drowned in his blood. I don't know why I shot the guy. I could have beat him up--he was half my size. It was almost as if I was shooting my bad luck or something.

All I had to do is walk away, that's all. There was no witnesses, no fingerprints. But I took his car and stayed in it until I got caught seven days later. I hadn't slept during that whole seven days. I had gotten some diet pills and some marijuana, used the guy's credit card to buy beer and stayed up drinking. For some reason I headed to Miami--never been there before. There was this little country gas station store in Florida and I decided I'd take the money out of the cash register. There was this lady there. She was stocky--one of them country women that probably worked on the farm--cowboy boots, short gray hair. Anyway, I told her to stand still and tried to get the register open, but I was too messed up even to do that. She made a move for the telephone, so I shot her. She went down and I said, "to hell with it," and took a case of beer and left. I was driving away and could see her on the telephone calling the police. I knew it was over then. They sent me back to Texas and the district attorney offered me 40 years. I turned it down--thought I could do better.

This is my fourth execution date. Had three in my first three years, and then didn't have any for 14 years. They told me about the execution four months ago. It's kind of shocking because you go on and go on and years go by and you hear nothing. Then all the sudden--bam--they tell you in four months they'll kill you. Comes out of nowhere But I've done some bad things in my life and I did shoot the man, so I guess that's just the way it goes.

I'm supposed to be executed next Wednesday--I believe at 6:00 at night. I believe I have until then. I have a minister--Father Walsh--is gonna be there. He's a friar. Franciscan Known him for a long time. He's helped me with my burial, funeral--whatever it is. Tuesday night I'm going to be re-baptized over again by him, given my last rites and all that. Twelve o'clock Wednesday they'll come to my cell and I'll give them my personal property. Then they'll take me over to the Walls [the prison in downtown Huntsville where executions take place] where I'll have my last meal. What happens after that I don't want to think about. I don't like needles, so that's the worst part. I wish they'd just take me over there and use a guillotine--something quick and painless. I'm not afraid of dying, I'm just afraid of the process.

I don't think the man's parents are going to be there, so I'll probably just tell everybody that I've known that I'm sorry that I didn't live up to their expectations. Then I'll probably tell God that I'm sorry for disrupting His world. I'm not sorry to society, though I feel bad about the man that died, and if my death could bring him back, I'm all for it. But as far as society goes, how can I feel bad? I mean, all these people that say "go ahead and kill him" are no different from the people that knew my stepfather was whipping the hell out of me and my brother and my mother, and they didn't have enough guts to step up and say anything about that. Yet they got enough guts to say go ahead and kill me now So that's how I look at it.

Then I'm going to be cremated. My mom's going to get my ashes and that'll be the end of it. You're going to die someday anyway, so it's too late to cry about it now. I guess I've been lucky to last this long. That's one way of looking at it.

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