home > on-air > american talkers > parents at an execution >

LARRY: I'm Larry Whitehead. I live in Wake Village, Texas, and I'm the father of Richard Wayne Whitehead.

JACKIE: I'm Jackie Whitehead, Wayne's mother.

ELLEAN: My name is Ellean Banks. I'm the mother of Delma Banks, Jr.

LARRY: Wayne was a very smart young man. He was, I guess you'd say, a typical young boy.

JACKIE: Like his daddy, he loved bowling. Him and his brothers started bowling when they were --couldn't even pick up a bowling ball, they were so heavy. He was just a sweet innocent kid.

ELLEAN: Delma was a very kind person, took everybody to be his friend. He didn't think that there was no bad people. White and black, he just loved people.

LARRY: Monday morning, they told me that Wayne had been found and that he was dead. And then I had to come back to the house and tell my wife and she just collapsed.

JACKIE: I could think about a certain day of the month: they found him on a certain day, we buried him a certain day. And that day might pop up in any given month. It would just bring it all right back. It was just like you relive it. It's there and you never forget it.

LARRY: It can hit you just out of the blue. There's been times at work when it will pop right into my mind -- the memory will come there. I don't know what triggers it. But it'll just come right out of the blue.

ELLEAN: It's not a day pass that I don't think about it. I feel like I have been on death row right along with Delma for 22 years. When he first went in there, he said, "Mamma, here I am in here. I'm listening to these men brag about who they done killed. I haven't killed anybody, and look where I am!"

JACKIE: I don't think I've ever questioned that he did it. Maybe we can just have some peace, after almost 23 years.

LARRY: Now this is the first time that they've said, "Okay, we feel pretty sure." So it has been set up for us to go and witness the execution.

ELLEAN: I was sitting there at my desk, telephone ring. Delma was on the other end, and he said, "I hate to tell you this, mamma." He said, "They want to know who going to be at my execution. They want to know who going claim my body. They want to know what I'm want to die in and what I want to eat for my last meal."

LARRY: We're allowed five witnesses and three support persons that will be allowed into the prison on March the 12th.

JACKIE: I'm going to be a witness. I'm on the list. But I tell him, I said when it actually comes time I really don't know if I can go in there.

LARRY: I need to see this. I can't explain it beyond that. But I just feel like I need to see this justice done.

ELLEAN: I got to be there. I got to be a witness. I got to be in there with him. I want him to see my face, telling him "I love you, I love you." At the last.

JACKIE: I think when a parent has to bury a child, it's quite devastating. And in that respect I can feel for how Mrs. Banks would feel right now.

ELLEAN: I spend many sleepless nights thinking about what they going to do to my son -- put him on that table and take his life. Twenty-two years and then they want to execute him. How can I say goodbye? I'm sorry. I can't make it if he don't -- I can't make it.

LARRY: If I knew he wasn't coming back, I'd have to give him the big hug and tell him that I loved him and I hope he'd never forget how much I did love him.

JACKIE: When something like that happens, it makes you remember to tell people that you do love, tell them a lot that you love them, because they can walk out the door and never come back.

Producers: Karen Callahan and Matthew Ozug / Editor: David Miller / Executive Producer: Dave Isay / Production Assistants: Joni Murphy and Ruby Sheets / Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Photograph by Andrew Lichtenstein.

"Parents at an Execution" premiered March 11, 2003, on All Things Considered. Copyright © 2003 Sound Portraits Productions. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider supporting the work of Sound Portraits and StoryCorps by making a donation.

This piece is available in the following audio formats [4:02 min]:
		28.8 kbps Real Audio
		56 kbps Real Audio
		ISDN Real Audio

		intro
		transcript

		Photographs of the Whiteheads and Ellean Banks
		A message from Delma Banks to his mother [RealPlayer required]
		Updates on Banks's case from the Death Penalty Information Center
		An essay about Richard Whitehead, written by his parents
		Washington Post article about the Banks case
		Witness to an Execution, a documentary about the Texas death house

home  |  ON-AIR |  in-print |  about |  education |  support |  store

Sound Portraits Productions, 80 Hanson Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Telephone (646) 723-7020 | Fax (646) 723-7026

Copyright © 2008 Sound Portraits Productions. All rights reserved.