Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. Page #2

to paint the chair...

with a special,

high-quality epoxy paint,

the same basic paint

that's used by NASA...

on the nose and body

of the space shuttle.

[ Steve ]

That was back in '89,

I believe it was.

At that time

I was still in school.

I just remember coming home--

"What is this big box

in the front yard?"

"Well,

it's an electric chair. "

"Oh. "

Fred and my uncle were here.

They'd come out

with the crowbars.

They had to break the box open,

unscrew all the parts.

There was an electric chair

sitting in the front yard.

It was very unusual,

something I wasn't expecting.

I guess Fred

was expecting it.

[ Laughs ]

It was very difficult

getting up and down

those stairs...

with a couple hundred-pound

piece of oak chair.

Of course, before we even

brought it inside, had to

have Fred sit down in it.

Strapped him in--

[ Laughs ]

I said,

"No, thanks. "

[ Camera Shutter Clicks ]

[ Leuchter ]

I had processed

a couple of rolls of film,

photos that I took

for engineering purposes--

detail stuff,

so you'd know how it looked

before you took it apart.

I went through it and said,

"What the hell's this?"

We had a magnifier

and we were trying to

figure out what was there.

We saw what appeared to be

more than one image.

As far as I understand it,

certain objects

give off auras,

and some objects that have

been exposed to high-intensity

electromagnetic fields...

absorb some of that energy

and would give off an aura.

I don't know

what we photographed.

We don't know

if we photographed an entity.

We don't know what's there.

It may still reside

in the parts

that are in Tennessee.

When I tore the chair apart,

maybe it was freed.

I don't know.

That's assuming there was

something there to start with.

Because of my work

in electrocution,

I was contacted by

the state of New Jersey...

to consult with them

on the construction of

a lethal injection machine.

They realized that

lethal injection is a difficult,

if not impossible problem,

even for trained

medical personnel.

They determined

that there should be

some kind of a machine...

that could repetitively deliver

the necessary chemicals...

at the proper

time intervals...

for all executions.

This completely took

the human factor

out of it.

I studied

for several months,

and I put together a proposal

on how this machine should work.

The syringe is driven

by a weighted piston...

that floats

on a column of air.

This causes

a push-pull relationship...

between the machine

and the individual's

vascular system,

and it allows the executee

to take the chemical...

at a rate that his body

and vein will accept.

The doctors were satisfied.

Now they had

to make the presentation

to the prison officials.

The deputy commissioner

was sittin' there through

most of the meeting very bored,

probably because

he didn't understand

what I was talking about...

most of the time.

But then he finally heard

something he understood.

One of the doctors said,

"Fred designed the helmet that's

used on the electric chair...

in the state

of North Carolina."

At that point

the deputy commissioner said,

"Wait. Stop the meeting."

He looked at me and says,

"You designed the helmet,

the one that they just used?"

I says, "Yes."

He said, "Okay, that does it."

He turned around

to the doctors and he says,

"Do the necessary paperwork...

and see that Mr. Leuchter

gets the contract. "

Now, what lethal injection

has to do with electrocution

is beyond me.

Simply because I'm capable

of building an electric chair...

doesn't mean

I'm capable of building

a lethal injection machine.

They're two totally

different concepts.

[ Beeping ]

With electrocution,

unconsciousness takes place

in 1/240th part of a second.

Gas chamber,

within three or four minutes.

And with the gallows

it doesn't matter,

because you're being dropped

almost immediately after being

brought onto the scaffold.

None of the procedures require

that somebody lay on a gurney

for 35 minutes...

looking at a ceiling.

You have to have the man

immobile.

He has to be unable to move,

or else he's gonna damage

his arm with the catheter.

But you certainly can

make it more comfortable.

You could put him in

a contoured chair like they have

in the dentist's office.

Then at least

he'd be sitting up.

You could give him

a television, music,

some pictures on the wall...

rather than put him

in a concrete room.

That's not humane.

Essentially, the states

talk with each other.

We immediately got Illinois,

and we got Delaware.

They had a hanging problem

that they totally were not

able to deal with.

They had a gallows

that had been stored

for 25 or 30 years.

They took it out,

they screwed it together

and it fell over.

The only thing left

that was functional were

the hinges for the trap door.

The reasoning here is that

I'd built helmets

for electric chairs,

so I could build

lethal injection machines.

I now built

lethal injection machines,

so I'm now competent

to build a gallows.

And since

I'm building gallows,

I'm also competent

to work on gas chambers...

because I'd done

all of the other three.

What really makes you competent

is the fact that you have

the necessary background,

you do the investigation,

you find out what the problem is

and you solve it.

It's not anything different

than any competent engineer

could do.

The difference is that

it's not a major market.

A lot of people

are not interested...

and are morally opposed

to working on

execution equipment.

They think it's somehow

gonna change them.

As you've probably guessed

by now,

I am a proponent

of capital punishment.

Uh, I'm certainly not

a proponent of capital torture.

We must always remember...

and we must never forget...

the fact that the person

being executed

is a human being.

One of the things

that I've had to deal with...

is the feelings of the people

who are doing the executions.

The guards that work

with the execution equipment...

are generally

the same guards that have

dealt with that inmate...

for the last five,

ten, fifteen,

sometimes twenty years...

while the man

was on Death Row.

The warden

of the institution...

is, in many respects,

the surrogate father...

is, in many respects,

the surrogate father...

of the inmate

who's being executed.

He sees that inmate

maybe five or six times a week.

He's concerned

if the inmate is sick, if

the inmate doesn't feel well--

the general welfare

of the inmate.

Then, at the end of the time,

he must take that inmate out,

strap him into

his electric chair,

his gas chamber,

strap him into

his lethal injection machine...

or put a noose

around his neck.

Most people think

of a hardened criminal

and a murderer...

as someone who is in a cell

and gonna be executed,

but these people are really

no different than somebody

that we work with every day.

The only difference is,

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