​Introduction

 

“The Casey McWhorter Tapes” is a project that flows out of my relationship with Casey McWhorter, as his spiritual advisor.  Barring a miracle, Casey will be executed on November 16, 2023 by the State of Alabama.  As a spiritual advisor on death rows throughout the country, I work to encourage each of my guys to develop an understanding of their own agency, so that they might be an advocate for themselves.  Part of such work is helping each of them construct and tell their own story.  You see, I believe that we are all made in the image of God and that when we share our divine image with the world we are actually sharing the presence of God with the world.  To this end, Casey and I are embarking on this journey to briefly tell his story in a way that is accessible to the masses.  More than anything, I hope that these words describe Casey as he is, human.

 

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

October 17, 2023

 

 

“‘Daddy Didn’t Love Me’ Kind of Kid”: The Casey McWhorter Tapes (1): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama 

 

Just yesterday, I was informed that I am to be executed on November 16.  There is no doubt that it’s a sobering thought.  The culmination of a life.  Before I go…literally…I want people to know who I am.  I’m thankful that my spiritual advisor The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood has created this opportunity.  For now, I just want to give an overview of who I am.  Then, I’ll get into some details in subsequent iterations of this conversation.

 

I’m one of those “daddy didn’t love me” kind of kids.  I spent all of my childhood trying to figure it out.  Such thoughts took me deeper and deeper down the road of trying to fill that void.  Those roads can take you to some dark places.  There are some awful things that I thought I needed to validate myself.  I ran around with some awful people with the idea that they might make me whole.  I just kept going deeper and deeper into an evil hole.  Until, three months after my 18th birthday, I was part of a robbery that killed a man.  Obviously, I was willing to go far down an awful road to get people to like or notice me.  Then, of course, everybody noticed me…as a murderer.

 

When I found out that the prosecution was going to seek the death penalty, it didn’t faze me too much…because I was already dead on the inside.  Of course, for what I did…but also because of what I did to all the people that I love.

 

It’s been 30 years since those days.  I never expected to live this long.  I assumed that they would kill me quickly.  Instead, I’ve had to sit here and think about things for a long time.  As crazy as it might sound, prison has actually been really good for me.  I’ve become a man.  I no longer need the approval of everybody around me.  I can stand alone.  Prison has been a net gain for me.

 

One memory particularly stands out.  That is of my friend Max Payne.  We got to death row around the same time.  Slowly, we became brothers.  Really, we grew up together.  Our families became closer and closer.  Really, we became one big family.  When they scheduled Max a date, it broke me.  For the first time, I felt like I had a friend who let me just be me…and then he was gone.

 

I missed out on having a family of my own.  I know I could have been a good husband…a good dad…but I never got the opportunity…rather, I gave up the opportunity.  I never got the chance to use the talents that God gave me.  Or at least, I had to learn to use them in a very different way.  I’ve lost a lot.

 

I think about what I did all the time.  I’m haunted by my own sins I guess you could say.  I wish I could go back and change it all.  Go back in time, stop all of it.  I shouldn’t have been there…but I was.  One of the most devastating parts of all of this is that the best I can do is, “I’m sorry.”  I know that will never be enough.

 

In spite of all that has transpired, my dream is that through it all I have become someone that my mother and grandmother can be proud of.  I’ve let them down so much.  I know that I’ve learned how to love in ways that I was never loved by my father.  I hope that they can be proud of that.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 18, 2023

 

 

“Hope Comes Back Around.”: The Casey McWhorter Tapes (2): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama

 

Hope is an interesting phenomenon.  It grows.  It changes.  Sometimes it’s close.  Sometimes it’s far away.  Regardless, it seems like hope always finds a way to come back around.

 

Even though my dad was absent throughout my childhood, I was loved by my mother and grandmother.  They picked up the slack.  I didn’t want for too much.  If hope and security are the same thing, I guess you could say that I found it in them.  Now of course, I experienced hope around Christmas just like every other kid…you know, hoping to get what I want.  When I thought about the future, I guess I took great hope from the movies.  I used to watch old westerns all the time.  I wanted to be the gunslinger that beat the bad guys all the time.  I now realize that I became the bad guy instead…at least for a time.

 

During that time, I hoped for something more than what I had.  I wanted to be accepted by the guys.  I wanted to be a man.  I wanted control over my life.  It was all a figment of my imagination.  It wasn’t real hope.  It was a mirage.  I think a great many people commit crimes with the hope that they might become bigger than they are.  When I committed the crimes I’m in here for, I killed hope for myself and a great many others.

 

Honestly, I didn’t know what a capital crime was.  I mean I knew it was about the death penalty…but I didn’t know what that meant about when it was going to be carried out.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I just hoped they wouldn’t kill me as quick as I thought they might.

 

Over the years, a more realistic hope has returned.  When my grandmother got cancer and eventually passed, she helped me understand that I had to get back to God in order to have any hope at all.  Slowly, I think I have.  I guess I just keep casting my hope out there in hopes that I might pull something back.  Most of the time I do…and if I don’t, I just keep casting.

 

Here at what I believe might be my end, I’m trying to keep hope alive.  No matter what happens, I hope that people will think that my life mattered for something positive.  I hope that God will grant me that.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 19, 2023

 

 

“Peace is going to see me through this execution” : The Casey McWhorter Tapes (3): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama 

 

Faith is something much more than an idea to me.  It’s something I’ve been chasing my whole life.  I yearn for it.  Occasionally, I’ve touched it.

 

One of the first times I remember praying was when my relative tried to commit suicide.  I was very little.  I remember hearing the sound, running in to see that my relative had shot herself in the stomach and falling on my knees to pray that she would be ok.  There was a tremendous amount of blood.  I don’t know where that faith came from…but I knew to reach out to God.  I guess you could say that faith found me.

 

I used all the right words.  I’d gotten saved.  I’d gotten baptized.  But I was still running the streets.  I don’t know how much all of it meant.  I guess I hoped it meant something.  When you’re screwing people over daily, your prayers become very stupid.  Money, cars and sex were the extent of it I guess.  I remember asking God to put 20 dollars under my pillow.  I remember begging God for a new sports car.  I remember asking for my se3xual desires to be fulfilled.  I don’t know if selfish prayers are a sign of faith or not…but I sure prayed some selfish prayers.

 

After the murder, I prayed repeatedly with my grandmother.  She was very religious.  Repeatedly, she kept telling me to go to God.  I’d never had a faith like that before.  You could say that I was a little directionally challenged.  But I loved and trusted my grandmother.  So, I tried to have faith.  I prayed hard that God would get me out of all the shit that I’d gotten myself into.  I suspect that I thought God was a genie that was just going to bust me out.  But my grandmother pointed me to deeper prayers for peace.  I’d never known peace before.  She helped me make sense of some things.  Sincerity started to creep in.  I guess you could say that peace did too.  Without that peace that crept up on me, I don’t know that I would be here right now.

 

Prison has been a good incubator of faith.  I’ve had a tremendous time to listen.  I’ve realized that prayer is as much more about listening than talking.  Prison can be a decent place to listen.  Peace follows listening to something more than yourself.  God exists in the knowledge that peace is peaceful.

 

The closer I get to God the less I’ve trusted in people.  I don’t know if that’s the way it’s supposed to happen…but there sure are a tremendous amount of selfish people out there.  I was one of them.  I guess you could say that I’ve repeatedly met my old self and I’ve been less than impressed.  Isn’t it fair to not want to be lied to?  Lies are the opposite of faith.

 

Can you imagine having any faith in humanity if an entire state was determined to kill you?  I’ve got to put my trust in God.  That always seems to be the much safer bet.

 

I don’t know how…but peace has found me.  I’m holding on to it with all that I got.  My faith is in the peace that God has given me.  Peace is going to see me through this execution.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 20, 2023

 

 

“I’d Found Humanity Again” : The Casey McWhorter Tapes (4): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama

 

I know this path very well.  Despair is something that I’ve grown quite intimate with.  I’ve caused it.  I’ve experienced it.  I’ve lived it.

 

Despair seems like too nice of a word to describe the feelings that I felt around the murder.  I was in despair when I realized what I’d done.  I was in despair when the door slammed behind me.  I was in despair when I realized they were going to try to kill me.  I guess I could go on forever down the line…but I think you get the point.  I’ve known despair.

 

When you get a death sentence, you have a monumental time with the dehumanization of it all.  Think about it.  You basically have a group of people saying that you are so worthless that you need to be killed.  I’m surprised I didn’t end it all right then and there.  Despair is when your own life is taken from you before you are even dead.

 

When I got to death row, I was barely 19.  I was in despair thinking that I’d be around a bunch of monsters.  The worst of the worst.  Then, I went to a deeper level of despair when I realized that I was one of them.  I stayed in that place for a long time.

 

Despair seemed to be my home…my reality…for several years.  Slowly, things began to change.  Eventually, I was able to rehumanize myself as I began to humanize those around me.

 

Cancer took my grandmother from me really slowly.  We’d always been close.  I knew she was going to die…but it didn’t make it any easier when I found out that she did.  I was in my cell weeping.  One of the other guys asked me what’s wrong.  For the next little bit, he sat with me as I processed things…and prayed with me.  I was in complete despair…but even amidst the despair of losing my grandmother…I realized that I’d found humanity again.

 

Now, I just try to cling to that peace that I felt back then.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 21, 2023

 

 

“I Might Have a Son Out There that I Love Very Much” : The Casey McWhorter Tapes (5): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama

 

When you’re loved from the beginning, you don’t even have an awareness of not being loved until you realize that somebody doesn’t love you.  Consistently, my mom and grandmother always showed me loved.  We used to do everything together.  Meals.  Movies.  Playing outside.  They were there.  I guess I didn’t realize I wasn’t loved until I realized that my dad wasn’t there…didn’t want to be there.  I couldn’t get my head away from the absence of my dad for some reason.  Of course, my mom and grandmother used to beat me pretty good.  That didn’t feel very loving.  Maybe I deserved it?  I don’t know.

 

Now, I guess falling in love is a different story.  I met a girl on my school bus that knocked my socks off.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  It was like she lived in my brain.  Of course, I was far too shy to talk to her.  I tried to get some advice about talking to girls.  Nothing ever seemed to work.  I had absolutely no courage.  Then, I made a plan.  I was going to talk to her one afternoon when we were the last ones on the bus.  Unfortunately, before I got the chance…she was killed in a car accident.  That shit messed me up something serious.  Love seemed so lost.

 

Like a bunch of other people, I just started to have sex as I got older.  I wasn’t interested in experiencing the pain of losing someone again.  Falling in love was something I avoided at all costs.

 

I snuck into one of my coworkers’ house for some sex one night.  She lived with her parents.  Of course, they didn’t know anything about me.  We did the deed…you know what I mean.  Not long after, she switched jobs.  I really didn’t think about her all that much.  It was just sex.  The next time I saw her, she was pregnant.  When I asked about the father, she assured me that it wasn’t me.  I decided to put it all out of my mind.  Many months later, someone contacted me with a picture of the baby…and I instantly knew…it looked just like me.  I didn’t have the courage to reach out.  Really, I was just a coward.  I tried to tell myself that he would be better off without me.  Now, I’m not so sure.  It’s strange, I’ve loved that child (now a grown man) like it was mine from the first time I saw him.  We’ve never met and I’m sure that he has no idea…but I might have a son out there that I love very much.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 22, 2023

 

 

“There Will Be No Life in Killing Me” : The Casey McWhorter Tapes (6): Scheduled for Execution on November 16, 2023 in Alabama

 

Destruction?  Honestly, I’ve been the most successful at destroying myself.  There were so many things I could’ve been.  I was talented.  I had a good personality.  There were so many paths.  So much potential.  So much.  I pissed every bit of it away.  I repeatedly chose destruction.

 

Sometimes I think that the only thing that I’m good at producing is tears.  Take my mother for instance, I’ve caused her so much grief.  She raised me better than this…but I kept choosing destruction.  My stupidity has literally destroyed a great deal of her life.  I’ve pummeled her heart over and over.

 

The only thing I knew about Edward Lee Williams is what his son told me.  If even half of that was true, he was a horrible person.  That doesn’t give me the right to do what I did…but I guess I thought that bringing a little destruction might help his son.  There was a bunch of money that we thought could help us start anew.  I thought I might be creating freedom.  I was actually destroying it.  It was all very stupid.  This is why we shouldn’t have this kind of power…the power to destroy.  We just don’t know…can’t know…the consequences.

 

My execution is going to create a whole new round of destruction.  By destroying me, all of those connected to the horror will be destroyed as well.  We can’t continue on like this.  My executioners need to realize that there will be no life in killing me.  I know destruction.  There is no life there.

 

Casey McWhorter

October 23, 2023

 

 

Conclusion

 

Occasionally, life surprises us.  We find hope in a distant prison.  The words from behind bars begin to change us.  Freedom ushers us into a new relationship of great promise.  That’s how I met Casey McWhorter and began to document his story.

 

It is our stories that reveal the mess of life.  There are highs and lows.  There good decisions and bad ones.  There is hope and despair.  There is mess.  Perhaps proudly, God is messy.  Such mess comes from loving us.  Love is always messy.  Or maybe God just is the mess.  Regardless, Casey’s life has occasionally been a mess.  Isn’t every life a mess from time to time?

 

Casey was a young man who made mistakes.  He’s not that young man anymore.  That’s the problem with the death penalty.  It’s a snapshot in time that can never measure the whole of a person’s life.

 

I don’t know that any of us are all that much different than Casey.  We’ve all made mistakes and fallen short of our own ideals.  Without question, our society would be very different if we realized that not much separates any of us really.  We are all human.  Casey is too.  So why are we determined to kill him…us?

 

I’m not.  I’ve actually come to love him.  I wish we all could.

 

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

October 24, 2023

 

 

Appendix

 

Killers in Our Midst:  My Grandfather, Casey McWhorter, the State of Alabama and the Consistent Immorality of Killing

 

 

Growing up, I was very close to my maternal grandfather.  In my mind, he could do no wrong.  Then of course, I grew up.  I remember one evening my grandfather told me he needed to tell me something.  Sensing the gravity of the moment, I leaned in closer.  All previous ideations of perfection went out the window.  Over 60 years prior (he would’ve been in his late 20s), had been driving home drunk with my grandmother in the car when he drifted over the middle line, hit another car head on and killed a woman.  Of course, he was young and dumb.  One of the parting words he left me with was, “People all make mistakes, right?”

 

When you minister to people on death row like I do, you encounter people who’ve made some pretty big mistakes.  Casey McWhorter is one of those people.  In 1993, Casey (just past his 18th birthday) was part of a crew of teenagers that robbed and murdered Edward Lee Williams.  Like all stories, this one is much more complicated than can be contained in a few sentences, but for now I will leave it at that.  For multiple months, I’ve been acting as Casey’s spiritual advisor.  We’ve grown incredibly close.  I’ve been very touched by his recollections of stories from scripture that always seem to have a Southern twist (whether it’s just his accent or how he tells it I can’t figure it out).  I don’t know everything about him.  How could I?  How could we know everything about anybody?  Beyond the noise of his case, all I know is that I recognize him.  In a strange way, he actually reminds me of my grandfather.  Such familiarity has brought about a host of practical questions.

 

Why does one person’s bad decision that killed another matter more than another’s bad decision that killed another?  Maybe more directly put, why did my grandfather get to enjoy a full life while we were just informed today that Casey is scheduled to die on November 16, 2023 at the age of 49?  What’s fair about that?  If we are talking about an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, why are some killers left with full vision and a full set of teeth…while others are not?  I don’t know that I know the answer to any of these questions.  I just know that a few years ago I watched my grandfather slowly die in his favorite chair…and on November 16 I will watch the state of Alabama murder Casey McWhorter.  Is one more of a killer than the other?

 

The Rev. Dr Jeff Hood

October 25, 2023