In November 1999, Sound Portraits producers David Isay and Stacy Abramson traveled to Huntsville, Texas, to interview two men living in the Ellis Unit of Huntsville’s death row. The inmates’ oral histories appear in “The Lives They Lived,” a special issue of the New York Times Magazine featuring profiles of people who died in the previous year, and are part of an ongoing project in which death row inmates talk about the days leading up to their executions.

John Micheal Lamb and Sammie Felder Jr. had been on death row for 17 and 24 years respectively. They were interviewed on November 10, 1999, and were executed shortly thereafter.

Sammie Felder Jr.

DOB: 08/23/45
EXECUTED: 12/15/99

Sammie Felder was the 98th death row inmate executed in the United States in 1999, and the 598th since the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1976. He was interviewed on November 10, a little over a month before his execution. Felder was 54 years old and had spent 24 years on death row for the 1975 murder of a paraplegic during a robbery. He was the last person to be executed in the United States in the 20th century.

My life of crime started when I was 14 years old. It seems that I just turned bad. Not bad in the sense of someone who is constantly walking around thinking about evil deeds. Not like this. Bad in the sense that I just started doing wrong, started stealing. I was burglarizing people’s houses, I was robbing peoples, I was just a common thief.

My name is Samuel Felder, Jr. I was born August 23, 1945, in a small town called Copeland, Texas.

Four or five hundred people lived there. When I was about 7 years old, we moved to a town seven miles away called Taylor, right outside of Austin. That’s basically where I grew up. I’m one of nine children–five girls and four boys. We weren’t no rich peoples. My father was what you call a sharecropper. Picked cotton. Just about everybody picked cotton, especially the black people in the community. My mother basically raised us. My dad drinked. A few of us finished high school, but nobody ever went to college. I got some nieces and nephews that has been, but in the immediate family everybody was more or less simple people. I went through the 7th grade. I more or less refer to that as ‘the carefree days of my youth,’ you know. We were just living.

My life of crime started when I was 14 years old. It seems that I just turned bad. Not bad in the sense of someone who is constantly walking around thinking about evil deeds. Not like this. Bad in the sense that I just started doing wrong, started stealing. I was burglarizing people’s houses, I was robbing peoples, I was just a common thief. In 1975 I was 28. My sister was going to go up to Denver to visit my brother, and she asked me if I wanted to go along with her. I needed some money to get there, and this is mainly what motivated me in doing what I did.

I had me a good job at a place where handicapped peoples stayed. I was something like an attendant– whatever they needed is just what I did. This particular gentleman, name of Hanks, he had some money at that time so I decided to rob him. So one night, I just walked up, opened the door, and he was laying there on the bed asleep. I knew that he kept his money under his pillow, and as I was reaching my hand to get it, that’s when he woke up and he hollered and it scared me. I just … there’s a table that’s sitting next to the bed, and they have all the medical supplies and stuff on it, and there’s a pair of scissors laying there and I just grabbed it, and I started stabbing him. When he kept on hollering, I got the pillow and put it over his head and tried to muffle sounds out. It was not my intention to kill him. I just snapped.

I will die on Wednesday, December 15th, 1999, at approximately 6:00 in the afternoon. I can be pretty precise. When I found out exactly what my day was, I made me up a little calendar, and it’s going backwards to the day. I got it marked as ‘D-Day.’ I’m 54 years old and I’ve been down here since I was 30, so I have had a lot of time to think about it and it don’t scare me no more.

I’ll probably get up that morning pretty early. From 5:30 in the morning until 8, I’m probably going to say my prayers, read my scriptures, let God know that I’m gonna come–but He already know all that. And then from 7:00 to 8:00 I’ll probably watch the morning news, because we watch the news around here every morning–CNN. And then my breakfast will come. I’ll probably be out here in the visiting room from 8:15 until about 12:30. You can make a list of everybody you want to see and they’ll bring them to you off the list and you can say your good-byes.

They’ll come get me around 12:30 and transfer me over to the Walls unit. They’ll load me in the van and drive me over there and I will be placed in a holding cell a little ways from the execution chamber. I will be allowed to have a spiritual advisor. I think that’s from 2:00- to 4:00. Then you get your last meal. Then they will transport me to the chamber. They got this little table there, and two of them will strap me down stretched out almost like a cross. Then they put a needle here and one here. Then they’ll open up the curtains and if there are any visitors of the victim, they’ll be there also. There’s absolutely no way I want anyone I love to be there. I just want to get it over with. They’ll ask me if I have any last words to say. If the victim’s family is there, I’ll probably tell them how terribly sorry I am that this happened, because there was no need for him to die. I know this is not going to be any consolation to them, because they lost a loved one. I’m very sorry for it. If no one’s there I don’t need to say a thing, just whatever comes to my heart. I don’t have nothing planned out or anything like that, I’ll just deal with the moment as it comes. After that you give the nod and it’s over. Lethal injection.

When I was a kid, the year 2000 fascinated me. I went so far as to figure out exactly how old I’d be when the year 2000 got here. And I was really looking forward to seeing it. So when I first heard about this December 15th date, I was really disappointed. I really in my heart wanted to see that year. But, you know, we don’t always get what we want.

Sammie Felder received a lethal injection at 6:09 p.m. on December 15th. He was pronounced dead six minutes later. His last words were: “Like to tell my friends that I love them. Appreciate them being here to support me. Alison, I love you.”

December 15, 1999
2:15 a.m.
Inmate asleep on floor.

7:00 a.m.
Inmate sitting on bunk.

8:15 a.m.
Inmate visiting with Minister LaFaure.

11:40 a.m.
Inmate visiting with his attorney.

12:30 p.m.
Inmate visit terminated.

9:30 a.m.
Inmate escorted to visitation.

11:00 a.m.
Inmate continues his visit with a friend.

12:00 p.m.
Inmate visiting with Chaplain Brazzil.

12:15 p.m.
Inmate visitation terminated.

6:00 p.m.
Inmate taken from holding cell.

6:01 p.m.
Inmate strapped to gurney.

6:02 p.m.
Solution flowing: right arm.

6:03 p.m.
Solution flowing: left arm.

6:08 p.m.
Inmate gives last statement.

6:09 p.m.
Lethal dose begins.

6:11 p.m
Lethal dose completed.

6:15 p.m.
Inmate pronounced dead

From Sammie Felder’s death watch and execution record, courtesy of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

John Michael Lamb

John Michael Lamb was the 87th death-row inmate executed in the United States in 1999, and the 587th since the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1976. Lamb was 42 years old and had spent 17 years on death row for the 1982 murder of a Virginia businessman. He was interviewed on November 10, one week before his execution

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.

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.

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