NPR uncovered secret execution tapes from Virginia. More hidden

On a summer afternoon in 2006, in an apartment near an old Virginia death chamber, an 82-year-old man handed over a briefcase to an archivist. The bag contained four execution tapes, so rare that similar recordings from another state have only been released once in history.

When executions take place, only a few people can be present as witnesses. Since even these journalists, lawyers and family members are prohibited from recording audio or images by prisons, there is virtually no physical evidence from their point of view in any state. But they are not the only ones watching. Prison officials also see what happens on death row and sometimes record it on tape.

The tapes in the briefcase were recorded by the staff, and the donor, R. M. Oliver, worked for many years in Virginia prisons. But how that government audio tape ended up in his bag — and why he privately donated it to the Virginia Library — remains a mystery. Oliver left his last position with the Richmond Department of Corrections before the execution was taped. His family said he took the story with him to his grave when he died.


Four tapes were marked “limited” in the archives of the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

Chiara Eisner/NPR


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Chiara Eisner/NPR


Four tapes were marked “limited” in the archives of the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

Chiara Eisner/NPR

“Dad kept it a secret from us,” his son Stephen Oliver said. I don’t even remember seeing this briefcase.

The records from Oliver’s bag remained inaccessible for 16 years. The library initially restricted them and planned to keep them out for another decade. But NPR advocated for their public release and received audio in 2022.

An NPR investigation may now uncover records showing that the prison neglected to record key evidence during what was considered one of the worst executions in Virginia, and staff were unprepared for some of the work they were assigned to do in the death chamber.

Before Virginia abolished the death penalty in 2021, the state executed more people than any other state in America. This is the first time that an audio recording of any of these executions has been made public.

Behind the scenes: “We didn’t know for sure”

Minutes before he was to die in the electric chair, Alton Way used his last words to forgive the workers who were soon to help kill him.

“I would like to state that what is about to happen here is a murder,” he begins with a tape recording.

The employee whispers into the recorder the rest of Way’s statement: “And that he forgives the people involved in this murder. And that I don’t hate anyone and love them.”

This worker then contacted another colleague to make sure he had heard the statement correctly. He didn’t have.

“I’m trying to get it,” the second man replies. “I would like to state that what is about to happen here is murder. Anyone else caught the rest?”


Oliver’s briefcase also contained other official documents from the prison execution, such as this photo of Elton Way taken before he was executed in 1989.

Virginia Library/Chiara Eisner/NPR


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Virginia Library/Chiara Eisner/NPR


Oliver’s briefcase also contained other official documents from the prison execution, such as this photo of Elton Way taken before he was executed in 1989.

Virginia Library/Chiara Eisner/NPR

In the end, the prison understood Way’s words correctly. But other records show that uncertainty was common in the death chamber. At the beginning of the 1987 execution of Richard Wheatley, the staff seemed confused about how they were supposed to record the event.

“Are we using a blank tape?” one worker asks, before another asks aloud if the recorder is on.

The prison staff seemed even more unprepared during the electrocution of Richard Boggs. For more than two minutes on the tape, officers can be heard struggling to connect a call from one of the few people with the right to call off an execution at the last moment.

“We need to clear 306, they are calling from the governor’s administration,” the worker says.

The situation was urgent.

“Debbie, they’re tying him to a chair!” exclaims the second woman. “Wait a minute.”

If the governor wanted to save Boggs’ life, he needed to quickly connect with someone in the death chamber. However, minutes passed, and the problem seemed unresolved. A third employee predicted that they would have to disconnect Debbie in order to connect the governor.

“Let me call the Switchboard and see what’s going on,” one of the workers interjects before the line appears to be down.

Eventually Boggs was executed. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder did not call to spare him. But if Wilder had thought differently—and if the staff hadn’t been able to connect him in time—Virginia might have been close to executing the pardoned man.

“We didn’t know for sure if you had a connection with the prosecutor’s office there,” one of the workers repeats on the tape.

The fourth and final entry revealed a more serious oversight.

Bloody evidence hidden under the record

Local reporters who watched the execution of Wilbert Lee Evans in 1990 said they had witnessed one of the worst executions in Virginia’s history. Three journalists wrote to Richmond Times Dispatch that after the first discharge of electricity from the chair, Evans bled from his eyes, mouth and nose.

“Blood was flowing from under the leather death mask,” a journalist from Virginia Pilot.

Third newspaper reporter Alexandria Magazinesaid something similar.

“He started bubbling blood,” remarked Jeff Brown, “and it ran down his stomach and shirt.”

But the recording made in prison at the time of Evans’ execution recorded none of these details.

“It’s 11:04 am, the first surge of electricity has been applied,” the employee states.

Reporters reported that immediately after that first push, blood began to flow down Evans’ chin and soak into his shirt. The voice of the narrator is heard on the tape. But if the scene influenced her, she did not specify the reason. She never mentioned any evidence of blood.

“It’s 11, 11:05,” she stutters. “The second wave of electricity has been introduced.”

Then, after a few minutes, simply: “The prisoner died.”

What is the state trying to hide?

None of the 27 states that currently allow the death penalty use the chair as their primary method of execution. Most switched to lethal injection. But death chamber bugs are still common.

In 2022, more than a third of 20 execution attempts across the country failed. The governor of Tennessee canceled the execution after he learned that the staff had not tested the chemicals they planned to use to infect. Workers in Texas tried for more than half an hour to put a drip in the neck of a disabled person.

Official cover-ups after botched executions are also not uncommon. On July 28, 2022, behind closed doors, it took performers in Alabama over three hours to inject an IV into the body of Joe James Jr. The department said that during this time nothing unusual happened. But the non-profit organization Reprieve received permission from his family for a subsequent autopsy. He revealed multiple stab wounds, bruises and evidence that the state may have cut open his skin to find a vein, said Blair Andres, who leads the death penalty projects for Reprieve.


The Alabama Department of Corrections released this undated photo of Joe Nathan James Jr. to the press.

Alabama Department of Corrections via AP


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Alabama Department of Corrections via AP


The Alabama Department of Corrections released this undated photo of Joe Nathan James Jr. to the press.

Alabama Department of Corrections via AP

“All this was hidden from the eyes of the journalists who were supposed to be witnesses to the execution,” Andres said. “If the state does everything right, they have nothing to hide. So the question arises, what is the state trying to hide?”

The Alabama Department of Corrections did not respond to NPR’s request for comment. The same question now remains open in Virginia. Although the library eventually released the tapes donated by Oliver, NPR found that the Department of Corrections had more audio tapes, which it still chooses to hide from the public.

After NPR asked the agency for all remaining Freedom of Information Act audio recordings of the execution, corrections confirmed that it had at least six additional audio files with the 70-minute tape recorded on them. But he refused to share the tapes. He also turned down an interview request.

In an email, a spokesperson for the agency defended the decision to keep the sound hidden. Because the records are private prison records, private medical records, and contain sensitive personal information, the agency is under no obligation to share them, the spokesperson wrote.

A lawyer who teaches at the University of Virginia School of Law, Jan Kalisz, reviewed the email. He said correctional facilities appeared to be acting against the intent of the state’s Public Records Act, which was designed to give people access to government files.

“These types of records are really key to facilitating public scrutiny and holding public bodies and government entities accountable,” Kalisz said. “I am very concerned that such information is being withheld.”

While corrections refuse to release the rest of the execution audio, Oliver’s tapes may be the only existing content from the Virginia death chamber that people can hear. Together with 19 recordings of executions from Georgia that the lawyer subpoenaed during the trial, these two sets are the only publicly available audio evidence of more than 1,500 executions that have taken place in the US over the past 50 years.

It is unclear whether Oliver knew how important these four cassettes would be when he handed them out. But Roger Christman, the archivist who took the briefcase from Oliver’s apartment back in 2006, thinks he might have had an idea.

“He was very happy that he could find a home for these records,” Christman recalled. “He thought they were very important.”

Barry Hardimon edited this story. It was produced by Monika Evstatieva.

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