John Michael Lamb

John Michael Lamb was the 87th death-row inmate executed this year, and the 587th since the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1976. On November 10, 1999, he spoke to David Isay and Stacy Abramson at the Ellis Unit, a state prison near Huntsville, Texas, one week before his execution.

I was born in San Jose, Calif. Been unhappy from the time I was born. Never had a moment of happiness in my life. I was raised by my stepfather and my mother. My stepfather was abusive. He built R.V.'s. 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 a while 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 9 years old -- as much as a 9-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 stepfather. 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 15 1/2 and stayed on my own until I was 25, when I was arrested for this crime. I shot a man and killed him. In Greenville, Tex., off Interstate 30. I've never denied it. I had just gotten out of jail in Arkansas -- 100 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 going to 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. Didn't sleep for days. Used the guy's credit card to buy beer and stayed up drinking. Got caught in Florida seven days later. 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 3 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. I'm supposed to be executed next Wednesday, I believe at 6 o'clock at night. I believe I have until then. I have a minister, Father Walsh, who's going to 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 rebaptized over again by him, given my last rites and all that. Noon 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 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.

John Michael Lamb received a lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. on Nov. 17, 1999. He was pronounced dead six minutes later. His last words were: "I'm sorry -- I wish I could bring him back. I can't. Goodbye. Do it."

From the January 2, 2000, New York Times Magazine. Photograph by Dan Winters.

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