In May I interviewed my second death row inmate in 22-years as a journalist.
The first was with Texas inmate Michael Eugene Sharp within days of his execution. The last was with Frank Jarvis Atwood, who is still fighting tooth and nail to get a new trial.
I interviewed Sharp in person at the Huntsville prison. I interviewed Atwood over the phone. I was supposed to have 15 minutes to interview him; prison officials gave me a little over 18 minutes.
Sharp was a serial killer. Atwood was convicted of kidnapping and killing 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in September 1984.
What struck me about both men was how intelligent, mild-mannered and devout they tried to come across. Hannibal Lector they were not.
In order to interview Atwood, I had to seek him out and ask to be put on his visitation list. I ended up writing him twice. He sent me five missives.
He told me he was baptized in the Greek Orthodox church in 2000, is trying to accept God's will for him and is practicing humility and patience.
"In many ways for you to secure absolute knowledge of my now being guided by the Lord Jesus Christ will remain for you an elusive enterprise," Atwood said.
He went on to write he believes the proof is that he has had relatively few write-ups in prison since his baptism. Prison records show he went nine years without a write-up between 2002 and 2011.
He also claims he went 23 years on death row without being attacked, but has been attacked three times in the past two years.
Although death row inmates are isolated from each other, Atwood says the attacks happened while walking to the medical unit, recreation area, showers or visitation area.
"Sometimes that’s within maybe three feet of other prisoners’ cells and they make blow guns or you know spears, slingshots, hot boiling hot water, a variety of different weapons and I’ve been on the short end of that three different times," Atwood said.
In our phone conversation, Atwood specifically mentioned former Tucson resident Christopher Payne, who is on death row for starving two of his children, Adriana and Tyler, to death.
Atwood said he believes it's hypocritical to claim a religious conversion and then watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Desperate Housewives" and he calls his fellow inmates on it.
(Given the length of our interview, I didn't have time to ask him how he can criticize people when they are supposed to be isolated from each other.)
Anyway, Atwood said prison officials were forced to move him because of the repercussions of his outspokenness.
"(The inmates) said ‘Now we can live in peace’ and I thought I’m not talking to anybody, they can only mean that now they can engage in their behavior and that was in a pod with (child killer) Shawn Grell and Christopher Payne. So I can only imagine the kind of stuff those people are into," Atwood said.
He described his fellow inmates as monsters, unrepetent and self-centered.
His last friend on death row, Thomas Kemp, was executed April 25.
Aside from proclaiming his innocence, Atwood said he agreed to be interviewed because he wants Star readers to know "they may consider me a monster, what’s important is that they realize Orthodox Christianity can change people, even someone like me..."
Read today's Star for more on the Atwood case. It's a print exclusive.
