DTL -The Interviews: Warden Burl Cain

0:09 In the sultry heat of Louisiana, where the bayous whisper secrets and the air hangs heavy with the scent of magnolias, a darkness lurked beneath the surface. Dereck Todd Lee was a man whose charm masked a sinister reality. He was a monster. Lee, a seemingly ordinary man with a disarming smile, led a double life that would unravel in a series of murders in the capital city of Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas. As the first reports of disappearances and murders began to surface, South Louisiana was thrust into a nightmare, igniting a frantic search for answers. The true horror was just beginning, and the hunt for a serial killer eventually known by just three letters, would reveal not only the depths of Dereck Todd Lee's depravity, but also the resilience of those most affected by his evil acts, the families and the survivors.

1:00 This is DTL. Hey y'all's kJ here back with another episode, and this is going to be a special one that I If you're watching me podcast right now, you're going to see me Grinn and ear to ear, because I will tell you that I think I have one of my heroes in the studio with me today. Of course this is going to be an extension of the Derek Todd Lee series, but I have the man, the myth, the legend, Warden Burl Kane in the studio with me today, and I could not be prouder that you accepted my invite. So I want to thank you.

1:42 Yes, sir, I learned a lot from you in my time in the prison, and also Warden Fonteau, who was under your stead as well. And I just think that I've worked under a lot of people in supervisor positions, and I would say that yours. Even though it was a short while and we didn't have a lot of one on one, it was a very impactful experience and I learned a lot about leadership, especially under when you're in control of people who aren't very nice and you know, have been locked up for doing you know, not for missing church. And I think that your approach was probably one of the most I don't want to say underappreciated, but I think the general public probably didn't understand it.

2:22 But having been behind the wire with you, I think that approach was amazing. And the growth right because you brought religion into the prison. Is that correct, like as far as building the churches and allowing all of that, is that correct? Right? Because the moral people don't rob and steal. So to rehabilitate and you can do correction under which means correct deviate behavior, then you have to change them the way they think and so forth. So morality is a key factor in rehabilitation. So then morality in a job, you'll usually have success and when you get out because the felony keeps you getting a job. Many times we said, if you don't have a job and you don't have skill, and you don't have any morals, you're just gonna come back to prison again. And so therefore that means it's another victim, gotcha, And that's what's bad, all right?

3:10 Awesome, So with that in mind, obviously we're going to jump into Derek Toddley and that he was brought into your facility and what were your immediate priorities. In managing him? And I know, maybe we could go back to where you picked him up and he had to be brought to the prison. Can you kind of talk us through that? Yeah, it's really kind of a different situation with him. And he wasn't brought there. We brought him there because he was in West Bounderige Parish. And so the court the trial, and so the judge and the sheriff wanted us to be at the trial. At the sentencing, he said that he was sent us. They wanted us to take control of him right there in the courthouse. So when he goes into the courthouse, we're there already. So they bring him in the courthouse and he's all legged up and chained and so forth, and he's hollowing to the press. I'll talk to you all when I come out, I'll let y'all know. I'm gonna say all this is this and this and this and this and run his head like he did. And so he comes into the courthouse and we all in the court room and the judge sentences him to death. And so immediately then we had our tack team there. They stepped up and took him in the room next door to the right outside of the judge's chamber, and so and there he was being smart enough, But then what we did is we just stripped him all his clothes, take him, stripped him totally naked, and then we put on our clothes on him.

4:36 And then I told him this one thing. I said, you better not stumble with your lips when you come out here because you might hit your head. And so then one day so then it was all business. We wouldn't let him talk and shut up, be quiet. And then when he put him in the elevator to come down, was on the second floor. They just walked him straight into the elevator. There was one on each side of everyone behind him, and he just put his head right up against the wall of the elevator with his forehead against the wall where he just put pen to the elevator wall. And then we come down, come out. He knew not to say a word. So then we brought him out and there was a van. Our van was rapped by the door when we came out, and so they just almost threw him in the van. And we got a little criticism say that we handed him a little bit rough, but the whole point was to show him that this was not foolishness. We were really at what we said, and you come into another world and you're going to do what we say. And so he went he left there with that message, and so then he got to prison. We did not abuse him, but it was all business. He shut up, sit down, and be quiet.

5:46 Interestingly, people may criticize that, but that's exactly how he treated his victims and so and then they got a whole lot of abuse. He didn't get that. He just got the you know, sit down, shut up, and do what we say portion of it. And so for someone to to size that, I think is a bit of a stretch considering. Yeah, and he was even closer to us, he might realize, because one of his victims was the niece of one of our correctly one of our wardens. Wardens and uh anyway, but we treated him, you know, constitutionally and so forth. It was pretty interesting. So whenever y'all did pick him up, I know it was. It may have been irrelevant, but I'm just curious. So are you provided any of his behavioral history as far as what his nuances and all that we're in the jail, so that you could be better prepared for how what how he may behave in the prison setting or did it not really matter you were going to figure it out.

6:39 Okay, we didn't get it. They didn't provide us anything. We didn't ask these ours and we took him got it? And uh it's like we as we his mom and his dad, and he going to do what we say. I got it. I love that. I have to do that because you have to have or you have to be good as they let you, mean as. They make good as they let you, but mean as they make you. That's right, burger king. They canna have it their way. I love that. That's great. You know, yeah, well we did. Because if you were good, and we wanted good because we didn't want to have to have all the chaos. So if you'd be a right and be good and we read you with dignitine respect, but if you weren't, then we didn't. And it's light raising kids. Then what's what happened with parents? When parents have no discipline? What do they expect? I mean, you know, he's gonna They're gonna run wild because they don't know any different. Right.

7:30 It's kind of like in in the school settings on a micro level. And I had to keep bringing up school, but it's the same concept because they run wild in the general setting that most people, most kids can acclimate to. Then we pull them out and we put them in one of the disciplinary school settings and then it's like they thrive because they get the structure, they get the point that you've got to get. Yeah, and so home failed and then they wonder why my kids so bad? Well, why were you such a terrible parent? Yeah, maybe you have any discipline? Look in the mirror. So, considering he was classified and I had to go to death row, rehabilitation isn't really the goal at that point, would you agree with that? No, we want him to it's important because then he behaves better, so then we don't have the problem with him.

8:14 And so so we want him to be good and do right. But we're gonna give you a chance to do that. But if you don't, you don't And we don't want to escapes out of death row. We had four escape from our death row and that was a whole nother story. You know how they did it and how they got out, and how we caught them, and we caught him. They left it like twelve o'clock. At nine, we had them back, caught it at three o'clock. We had a angola. We had a great chase team. You couldn't We never lost anybody we didn't catch Now, I got one off of golf course in Needles, California, and I got one in the house and in Texas, but we just never stopped chasing you. And so because they had to know we're going to find you, so the deterrent to escape. But on death row we couldn't afford escape, so we made sure that we did everything right and correct and good, but had complete control of them.

9:11 So in terms of his presence at the prison, were there any Obviously there's always safety concerns, but was there an elevated concern in any way for the female officers that were there. Was there any special discussion about Look, you know, he he doesn't like women, you know. Uh. The best warden we ever had a death row was Angie Norwood, and she was really, really awesome. She's very, very intelligent. She's still in the business today, but she was over death row for about six years and she was in control. So, no, he was. He was in that cell and they brought him out only in leg irons and handcuffed, and uh, we had a camera on him all the time, which he did not like. But that's just tough because we had to know he was there.

10:02 We were not gonna and I'll let him a chance to get away from us. So what would you describe his behavior like while he was incarcerated? What was his what was he like? He was cocky in the night, he did it. So we'd have these conversations. I'd say, you know, you the serial killer because he quit having serial killing after you left, after we got you in here. He said, well, I'm not a serial killer. They lied with the DNA. I said, well, they can't lie with the DNA. He'd have to be you. He said, oh no, they put somebody else in DNA there. Sure, I said it was you and so. But the main thing was there's no more serial killing. Well, he said, he went underground. He's not doing anymore. So I take the wrap. We'd have this conversation back and forth. Not always granted himn like when I tell him and I know Miss Burrito. One time she didn't want him to we were having ribs for Fourth of July. She didn't want him to have any ribs. I said, well, I gave him squirrel ribs. Ho on Uh Anyway, she liked that.

11:03 So because she and I had conversation that also on this very paced because they won't know where he was. I mean, he look what he did. Look at Pam Kennimore and look he killed her, and what he did to her. Yeah, and he was so brutal, and yet he would act so normal and be so normal, and you could see how he would do it. So I had a listener, matter of fact, reach out to me because in one of the episodes, I mentioned how he almost had a dumbness about his look. He didn't look I don't know why we put what we think a serial killer would look like, but he didn't look like this scary monster. He almost looked boyish in a way. And she said to me online, this listener said, you know it's scary because this listener was not a fan.

11:43 She was afraid of men in general because of some assaults that had happened to her as a child. And she said, what's scary is that he would not have scared me. You didn't know I'm alarmed. Well, he normally would have on his sharp pass It looked like a delivery guy and he would knock on the door and get you to open door, and as soon as you did, he hit you in the face with his fist down and knocked you down. He had no chance hardly to to you know, to defend yourself at all. And then it was on could you come in the house and the kitchen, the knives and so forth, and he just was. It was horrible killer. Were there any obvious or anything that any instances that stood out where he tried to be manipulative or play a game against staff that they would catch one too, that you know of.

12:33 We didn't give him my chance. We watched him like a hawk, and he was on one tier and he was at the very first cell. And when we tour, we'd go down the cell and uh, I remember John Piper, the theologian, he he was, he went down. There s a lot of a lot of people that toured, and we were pretty wide open to tour because there was nowhere you could really couldn't go because we wanted to be normal and with prison. But we were so really really safe, and we didn't put up with you. He couldn't he couldn't talk or you know, to anybody, or be making any faces or be so right. So he need not to do that, you know, we wouldn't have put over with it got you.

13:17 And so if someone's on death row for my listeners who don't know how if someone's on death row and lock down to that level, how do you discipline an inmate who's already at that level of of security. Well, I'm not going to tell all my secret, okay, but I can make you be good. You can. I got you, but you and you could take away privileges I guess, so to speak, and just windle away just like a kid, until they can make their experience as miserable as they want it to be. We ran a constitution pro I don't want to imply that we didn't right, and we always did. But but you know, we have a lot of tools that we can do to make you a right. Yeah and so, and you're not dealing with normal people that you're disciplining here.

13:59 You're dealing with people that have gotten going to the extreme. And I think sometimes society misses that you can't discipline them like they didn't. They weren't animals though in there they were normal people. He would he would be normal like he was when you see him on the street, and like he was deceiving the public, and like he would deceive his victims. He was, Uh, you wonder well is he crazy, Is he meddling and so forth? And I don't want to go there because I don't really know, but I know he could be very normal, and he's very tall, and he could deny and deny deny, which he always did to me, never admitted it, but we never let him get away with denying it. We didn't never give any doubt. Yeah you the zerio killer, Yeah you did it, you hear, and that's what you're gonna do. And you're gonna pay with your live at some point.

14:39 So I I noticed so in some of my research I came up. I really wanted my people to understand my listeners, how the games are played, and how inmates do sometimes do things that in the public will scrutinize this, but we have you know, we're playing a catch up game here. We're having to figure out what the scam is. We're having to figure out what the what the game is that's being played. And one that made news, which you were there at this time, I'm sure, was that he was supposedly selling artwork that he would draw and then try to make money basically off of this artwork. And I know it made the news, and I even have some of the articles here and I'll post them on my Patreon for my listeners because I want y'all to see what I'm referring to here. And the media jumped on it and said that, you know, he was going to make money off of his artwork. Obviously knee jerk reaction from the public, like like, what what do you mean he's going to make money? But this was part of a game he was playing with a woman named Jessica. She put Geen as her last name. I have her real last name, but I won't say that because I'm a nicer person than that. But can you kind of discuss that type of situation about the art work?

15:47 Yeah, there was. It just happened with death Row across the country pretty much where that they were, and some people would pay a lot of money for their stuff because who they were and what they did, which really irritated us really bad. We hated it and we wasn't going to put up with him making any money or anybody else. But not only us, but in you know, other prism across the country and of the states had the same attitude we did that you wasn't in here to make money, you in here to pay the price for what you did, and we're not going to let you do this. So it really made us put the kwaeitas on them for doing it. And so then we and I remember in talking with other warden in other states at the same time, we put the squeeze on them that we cut all that out. But the public didn't like it either. I mean really the victims went nuts over it because he wasn't in there to make money.

16:37 But people would pay a lot of money for dumb stuff that they made anything off death row. It'd be like, you know, you just think of these different killers that were famous, bunding all them. They would pay a lot of money for that stuff. And so we just had to shut it down and we did really well, and I think you know, we we found work came from and we just adopted it. We couldn't see anything out. We will let it go. And the joke, just so y'all know, my listeners, O, the joke was on this woman who was trying to get this art to sell it because there were some write ups and some disciplin disciplinary reports from with inside the prison that I've got right here in front of me.

17:18 And the joke is that this artwork. Derek Tidlee didn't even draw it. Another inmate drew it and they both got in trouble. This inmate's name was Daniel Blank. He was another inmate. But they've got the report. He even admitted it. He's the one who drew it. He was the one sending it out and it wasn't even Derek Tidley's drawings. So I think sometimes people I could not look at Lynn Marino or and Pace or any of those mothers and say, yeah, I just paid seven hundred and fifty dollars for artwork from the guy that took the life from your daughter, and I think. It's sick, terrible. So I'm glad we have laws that have changed that Daniel Blake.

18:00 Caught because he won the fight at a casino, because he did what he right. He broke in these people's house and robbed them and done on and towards New Orleans. And so then he takes the money and goes some of the money and goes to the casino and then he wins the jackpot, huh on eighteen thousand dollars, And so then they put his picture on the wall, and so then some of the family came by and saw the picture and recognized him and then called the police and how they caught him. No way, Jackpot, that is awesome. I love that, Like that's all. Yeah, you go, boy, go ahead and put his picture up. Yeah, be happy you won.

18:41 So to that note, since you brought that up, you know these inmates, you know their stories. It seems like you did you ever sit down and review jackets or files to get to know these guys better or how did you what was your method? No? I just talked to him and we listened. We do when they came in. Who they were, Daniel Blank. He did. It's a terrible crime. I think he killed these people, the older older man and woman, his wife, and he would he was a small man. He would get in their houses through the ventilator. It's like we learned a lot about him. It's like a serial rapist. What he did. He would get in the he would break in the car port and wait for you to come home, and you'd open your car port door and then you'd drive your car in, you'd close it down, you'd be female, you'd get out. Well, you caught, because then he could get in the house. Yeah, then he'd take you in the house and then it'd be quitting time and eating and he would do all his He would rape you in front of the family. He was terrible, and it'd be at supper time when he was doing his victims and he had over one hundred victims and so h But then he told us how he did it. You know what he did. He'd always they tell you how they did it. Pretty common. He was a pretty good prisoner.

19:53 And I think you find he's gone, but you know he's there for life. He had the longest sentence. I think he had twenty two, three hundred years and nineteen life sentences of my mind right on him. And I know you're a very religious man, have you when you've looked into the eyes of some of these guys, have you felt real true evil? Yeah, you can see it. I didn't feel it because they didn't bother me, but I could see there. I could. I see you a bad dude. I'm gonna watch you close and I'll let you get away from us. But you know, we had a really good protocol and death row. We had that one escape and that was quite a complex deal they did, and there was some fire on security part and that really started with the prat with the preacher, because the preacher bought in cassette tapes, and the cassette tape for blank they just had the tape across the front and then the tape was loaded ben Adrill tablets, and so they could put everybody to sleep on death rod because they were making sandwiches and give spread the sandwich which is out, and they were four gonna leave, which four did, and so they would sit like sixteen on there, so twelve of them they put to sleep. They'd practice on them been Adrill tablets that the preacher was bringing in the cassettes that he thought he was doing a good thing to bring them religion.

21:16 So they were tricking him. Their family was on the street. He was going to picking them up. And that's why you can't bring anything in the prison because you don't know what you bring it all the sky. The escape we had from the check mix where they had a gun in it and they brought it in for Christmas and it made us men bought it so they'd have their Christmas party and they were all happy. But they had torn the label off the check mixed can and they had cut a hole in it and they put the gun in it Saturday Night Special and then they had put it all back together and put the label back around it, and here they bring it in. So then they take him hostage and out they go, and so then we got to chase them. That's when we dropped the flashlights from the helicopter to the chase team.

21:58 Could have got dark and running him and we caught him. And then one of the guy there was an escape. One of them shot himself with a little low gun, killed himself. He didn't want to go back. That was in the museum, right, yep. I've seen that many a time. And they cut the can and the air compressor tank, one of them within the tank because it was three in the car. So from that point on everybody had to stop and get out of the car to sally Port, which was good security, and we didn't have good security. You didn't have gotten out. So mistake. Just to clear it up for the people. So inmate workers can move amongst the prison, so they're like freely driving and moving amongst the prison, but they're still within the prison walls so to speak.

22:41 I guess I don't know how to explain this people. I give it been there. I mean, he's eighteen thousand acres right. So they had all these tools like they were going to go work, and then they cut out the air compressor and then climbed inside and that's. Yeah, they cut it out. One of them got inside because they had planned this escape for Christmas. It was a Christmas party. They were having a Christmas party and the mainus guy, I brought a check mix. It's one of the things they wanted to eat. So it was in a can. It would be already be safe. They opened the can, not knowing the can already been opened. The side was cut open, but they didn't know it because the label was back taped around it, and so it was a pretty slick way to get the gun. And they took him hostage. They took him out and tied him to a tree. Thank god it didn't kill him, and he was tied the tree in the woods. We found him there. It was embarrassed.

23:28 But anyway, this is a six degrees of separation moment for us. But my student the last year I was teaching, his dad was the kid that skipped school to go hunting and had alerted to one of the escapes. He saw the inmates run by. Yeah, and so how weird you know that it was my student's dad that was the one that. We gave him an award. Yeah, yeah, he helped us. He didn't realize that what he was he was in the woods. They say, kids that hunt and fish don't rob and steel. Well, hey, kid that hunt and fish also skip school and catch inmates on the run too. So that's pretty neat. So I was my question. My next question was going to be kind of about did you ever communicate with the victims' families? Obviously you've you've touched on that. How how did that work? They would just call up to the prison and say I want to talk, and you'd say okay, and you'd jump on the phone.

24:20 Oh it was if it was here's a protest, and I would bypass it all because I would make them come if they wanted to see the inmate. Inmate had to be worthy, first of all, he had to have changed his life and be sorry and want to say I'm sorry for what I did. If he would ready to admit it and be sorry, then we were ready to talk, because then the victim could get some comfort from that and then get some answers but they had to bring their pastor and we had to really search them good because we didn't want them to get into the present and bring a gun, shoot him, know something, right, you know, get even with him, hurt him or something. So anyway, protect both sides. And so we would let that happen because it gave closure to the victim many times, and only one time or two it didn't work. But that would because the inmate change his story and decided he didn't do it. And it took about I think maybe forty five seconds of that conversation for it to end, because as soon as he said that, we slam the doors.

25:24 No way, you're out of here. Yeah, because you're not going to revictimiz of somebody that's come here looking for something. And then you flip the script. Now I go to sit there and argue that you didn't do it. I remember that it took it was less than a minute. It was forty five seconds. We'd ended right there. And so that was a rape case. That was George Crawford, I don't know his name. It was was it the twins? It was in a vault. He came from a vault. Fare Yeah, that's the one with a twin. Yeah, so I've seen the farm a bunch. I used it in my classroom, so. I could quote you in it. Look at the toilet paper bill, forty thousand dollars just for toilet paper this year, you would say that. But yeah, so the power struggle there. We don't want there to be a power struggle. If they want to be genuinely remorseful, then you want to give that opportunity for both sides.

26:11 But obviously you're gonna take that away if. Restorative justice they call it. And it was quite a process to go through it. I didn't like the process because it was too long and it was just I just believe in it too much. I liked my way better. Of course, were you were there media requests to interview Lee or to talk to him behind bars that y'all would get. We never let him just talk to the media because what's going to happen is if you let them talk to the media, they're going to say they're in us, and the victims are going to hear it. They're going to be offended and heard, and it's not for them to do that. They do that at a trial, and so they could say everything you want to say at the trial. So when trial to the gavel town, that's the end of it. You're not talking to the press anymore unless we got really control of it and for some er of reason that's going to be positive and good for the community. But you can't talk about your case.

27:05 I love it. That's right, that's how it should be. You know, like you said, I like to leave court. That was your time. And if you chose not to speak in court, so be it. Not for much. You know, I'm gonna talk. And we had a wonderful secretary, Richard Staler during my watch, because he was a very probably one of the smartest man I've ever known, but he had of an abundance of common sense to go along with it, and so we were all on the same page and we knew his parameter, he knew ours, and we never crossed the line with him because he really was a boss. But he let us have free will to do and change Angola because the whole deal was for me going there. I didn't want the job because I knew it was a short career about four years. You get fired. You can't control the place. But Staller told me, you go change it.

27:52 Don't let it change you. And so with that little message, then he gave me the free will to change it. I just had to keep it in the road and file the rule and fill the law. But I had pretty much free will to run it anywhere I wanted because I was trying to change it. It was wrecked, and we did change it to probably one of the very best prisons in the country. We were there twenty one years, which is a historically long time to be the warden of a prison, but it didn't take that long. It took the seminary is what changed. It wasn't me, it wasn't us. It was a morality of the prison that they changed their moral when we built the churches and they started the seminary, then they changed their own culture.

28:36 It became a community that became pretty much his ends. Like fish, you can't catch them all, but you deluded the people enough that were the non that were violent with a non violence that you could change the culture. And that's what we did. In the Rodeo helped a lot too, because that was a big trust thing before ever Rodeo. I don't know if they do it now, but we had a meeting with all of them. Both prisons wouldn't put a thousand inmates in one place because they didn't think, oh, they're going to write. But they all want to go to the rodeo. So we put them in a rodeo rent and say this is how it's going to be this rodeo. Any one of y'all mess up, it'll end this rodeo. But then what they did is they really police themselves. Now there's eighty cameras there.

29:19 When I was there in the rodeo arena and we had one of those buildings you may not realize, but it's loaded with monitors and it's full of people monitoring. They probably would have no more than four TVs they had to watch, but we were watching. It's covered really well. But what's most interesting is when the inmates would come and tell us you got inmates and then a stand with family and it'd come to say, you better look at their walking cane by the fence, or you better look over here, you better look over there. They were policing themselves. Which is genius because you give couldn't you give an outlet to people because and that's something that but I think a lot of the average jos don't understand is that control of a prison a lot of times is because the inmates are letting it be controlled ext to some extent.

30:09 Well, there's more than than you, is us, right, So if they want to have, if they want good things to happen, you got to earn them. And if you want to keep them, you got to keep earning them. Because here's the other route. If you mess up at Rodeo, you don't ever go back when I was there. You're over. You go to live in the cell somewhere and it's mostly domitored, but there's twelve, I think fourteen hundred cells. It ain't Gola because when I left, I had six three hundred and twenty five prisoners and they cut the population way back, but you know it whatever, So we had really good control of it and it but they were controlling themselves a lot, because that's what it is.

30:51 It's not raising kids. You manipulate them and train them to control themselves. And no, right, I'm wrong, And so that's why when they get out of prison, they're not gonna hurt you. And that's the whole deal making community safe. And today Angola is different because it used to be. Once you went there. Man, you died there. You weren't getting out. And now it seems to have evolved to shorter termers are you know, being sent there and they're getting released a lot more, I guess for multitude of reasons. I know that's all over the place. But and I'm glad because we hired some of them our chapelain to Mississippi and our maintenance people. And some of them are ex convicts from Angola. They got pardons that have life sentences, and so they're functioning and doing well, but they rehabilitated. But it was a moral thing. Some of them are preachers that he had finished the seminary and there was one hundred and twenty of them in the seminary class at its Mashamal and so then they had their own church and did their own preaching and so forth. And now you have those things in probably thirty states across the country that came out and go, well, that ain't Gola was a change agent for the correction in America actually, and so we saw that happen and that's how we fixed Mississippi. It's pretty well.

32:10 Fixed because you went from Louisiana to Mississippi. So if people, don't you know we have listeners all over. I was out four years before I did that, and I started a nonprofit prison Seminary Foundation, and so we started doing the seminaries and other states because they all knew that whatever we did it and going to work, because it did change and the violence was gone from it. It's one of the safest prisons in the country when I left, and yet it had some of the worst prisoners. So why well, everybody wanted to see it. There was one other reason why we had raised well at that point of the lower a million dollars one point two million, that we had evidence based research from Better University to why I ain't going to change. So that research went all over the country. In having the research is what's really spun it out, and that's what allowed me to do the nonprofit to do it in other states. In the other states were Texas and so forth. Mississippi was one of them. But it failed in Mississippi because they wouldn't give the inmates access. It was just to please a governor and some of the religious folks. But the Department of Corrections didn't change. And so therefore all I had to do was go change that and then it worked.

33:26 I love it. All I had to do was go change that like and he did. So let's knew what was wrong with it. I'd seen what I'd seen what happened, and I knew what he didn't do right, and so it was easy to fix. And I took some good folks to Mississippi, like Kathy Font. Though yeah, by the way, y'all, I don't know. You can see if you're watching, but Warton Font knows back. She's sitting here. I got two of my heroes in one room, and I'm just having the time of my life right now. So hey, let's read directoral quick. So obviously everyone who's been listening knows that that he did not meet his his execution date. He died before that ever happened. But if anybody knows about execution, it would be you. And so can you talk about let's say he were going to go be executed and that date was handed down. Can you talk through real quick, how would you prepare for his execution and some in the protocols and how that should have happened had he lived to see his day.

34:28 Well, at that point, you they're gonna die, and so you want to be as easy on your staff as you do on him. And you don't want, you don't want to have to fight. He been chained him down. You him to go walk in there and do it. And so that's crazy to say it that way. It's not that simple, but it is as simple. And so then you would you would not be so harsh. You'd still have tremendously close security on him, but then you'd find out what he wants to eat for his last meal and within reason, and you would feed him that. And so then you would want to be sure that he would have a chance to, you know, save his soul, and so there would be a chaplain there and so forth, and then you go down the last week, you move over to the execution area, and then that when you got ready to do it, then you're gonna go down to his cell and you're gonna prepare him to go there taken and walk him in there, and you're gonna let him say a statement to his victim. And this goes this way. He can he can deny it. You're gonna give him a short period of time but talk.

35:39 But if he's a brace either or if he's not appropriate with what he says, then you're gonna shut that off because you flip the microphone, which and he's off, and so he's got to be respectful like we have been with him bringing him in there. Then you're gonna lay on the table and there's gonna be somebody for each leg, somebody for each arm, somebody for his chest. They gonna strap him all them and it's gonna and you're going to do the. Process whenever you you chose the executioner. I'm not I'm not going to ask specifics other than like, how how does how does one become an executioner? You know? Is that just kind of a.

36:21 You know, process or is it something that comes more organic based on relationships and who you know can handle it. That's the most You're really getting to the most sensitive area of the whole process. And so those things are by law are not ever exposed or are disclosed. You know, who, what, when or where or how he's chosen, and so we really have to shy away from that. I understand, I completely understand. I just wonder I listened to an audio I bought out of Texas and it was witness to an execution. I don't know if you've ever heard listened to it before, But it's people who were on tied down teams and part of execution process. And some of them, you know, it was just like clockwork and they just did it as part of the job. And then some people it broke them after so many you know that they were a part of that process and they didn't want to do it anymore. And I thought it was so interesting that you would walk away from that. You know, it's got to be hard on people, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at.

37:23 And have you. Ever had any conversations with whomover I'm not asking who that it was. It was hard, hard conversations. Well, we cover that in the process, and in the process that we have a psychiatric person on contract that we don't really we know who it is, and we have that phone number, and we we give that phone number out everybody in vog and we say, you have the right and privilege to college person if you want to, and then that person will build us for the with a call. But we won't ever know who called. We don't want to know, but we would know if they want to tell us, I guess, But we make that available to the staff so that if they feel like they need to talk to someone, they can a professional that can really help them. I don't know if anybody ever call him and they're asked, and uh, it's what we do. And it's a lot of people involved in it.

38:26 Somebody has to sit with the victims family. Somebody has to sit with the inmates family. Somebody has to me we have food for them while they wait, and we don't make the victim's family they wait inside the prison and the inmates family too. Before the inmates family had to wait outside the front gate. Well you know, they got a mom too, and they sorry of what he did, which he would have done it, and they might be very good, fine people, and so you want to treat him with dignity in respect. Too, because punishment, there's a lot of people being punished, not just the person being put to death. There's a lot of people, I would say that, like you said, are good people and they haven't done this. They still love their son, they still love their their uncle, their you know whatever. And that's uh, that's that's the hard part I think that we miss sometimes, you know, you think about all the things Derek Todd Lee did and you want to be like, well, hell, I'll be the one put a bullet and he because of all he did.

39:19 But when it comes down to it, when it comes down to that actual moment, I don't know that I would want to be the person to do it, because then it reflects on me. Am I any better? You know what I'm trying to say. And you get into then you get into that whole personal turmoil possibly of. I don't think like you, Okay, talk to me. That's what I'm trying to get. It's I don't like what he did. Yeah, and I can't, you know, you you really think, how can you be the brutal to do what you did to pay him Kinnimore and or pays and all of them, and how can you do one after the other? And how can we not know that you're going to do another one and another one another one? And is that guy hadn't figured it out Zachary to stop him, then they'd be more and more. So you got to think about that.

40:07 You got to think, hey, this is good that we got you stopped. It's good and nobody else is a victim. It's horrible what you did. And so I don't have to like it. I am, I'm not gonna like it, and so I don't have a problem with it, you know, because it's not getting even. It's just it's just business. Right, It's not punitive. It's the lock you from doing this. It's and hurting these people, you know, it's what you are. And what I read about that really made me understand the job I think better too, was in your book. Warden Kane does have a book, by the way, it's called Caine's Redemption. If you want a good read from someone who has a long history obviously in corrections, I would absolutely suggest that you read that book if you like to read, because I really enjoyed it. But you said something in there about you didn't want to be the person to choose I guess that time of someone's death, so you went with the sunrise or the sunset.

41:03 Yeah, I didn't like picking the time because I did that on the first one and they and they had it's in the book. They bet on the time and I told exact time and it was ten minutes after twelve midnight, And so I felt real bad about that later because who might have picked when someone died? I'm not God, and so therefore I didn't like that, and we got the legislature to change the time. My brother was a senator at the time, and he agreed with me, and what a lot of them did. So we made a time from six to nine, I believe, at night, and that way we let dark beat the time. When it got dark, we did it, we look outside, we said, well we think it's dark, okay, so let's go do it.

41:44 And so that way, that's why it was that time, because we didn't like that picking the time. I didn't like it. I don't want to pick the time. I like that like I like that it's out of my hand. So I have to do the job, and I'm going to do the job, but I'm going to do it on I guess God's time, you know, or at a. Dark So that's why we're gonna do it at dark. And I talked to the preacher after that, after that execution, because I felt real bad because I chosen the time, and and uh, then I knew that they were betting on the time. And so then the guy that I told exactly when I was gonna do it twelve minutes after midnight was he won the deal. And so then I thought about casting lodge for Jesus robe and uh I thought, man, you did that bad. Mom would like that.

42:33 And so when we had to change to get change his time, gotcha? Do you. How many methods of execution have you witnessed? Electrocution and then the lethal injection to. The the electrocution? How did that? How did that hit you? What was that about? Well? I could be you know, I held a hand of a couple of them, or three or four of them that we execute him, because you know, just the situation as it was, and uh so it just was the electrocution. I wouldn't hold his hand. Oh yeah, the way the electrocution is, you know, it's pretty it's pretty kind of violent with you because you've got the mask over your face and you've got your you've covered pretty much.

43:35 But uh, lethal injection is you know the ones I've done, and I've done I think eleven twelve of them there, they've all worked smoothly and been peaceful enough because you're putting him to sleep before you're actually putting him to death. And so. That's how that works. And so therefore then that's you know, there's been no flawing now one and electrocution. It just you're going and just get electrocuted. Yeah, yeah, just all that is. That's why I've strapped around your chest and all, but to hold you in the chair. Yeah, it's horrible that we have to do those things. It's horrible that we kill one another. Yeah, you know, what kind of animals are we? Right?

44:24 I think that was the reflection part I was thinking. I was one, you know, I understand there's a job to do. I just golly when it when it comes down to actually doing the job, I don't think there that there's as many people who would do it as they profess that they would, because it's heavy and it's a lot, and you cannot take away the fact that you're still taking someone's life. And it shouldn't be flippant. In my opinion, it should be taken seriously and with respect, even though the person you're putting to death had no respect often for their victims, you know. And what's so bad about, you know, people that you know murder is all the family that you know that has to pay for the rest of their life, that mother and that wife or those children to the rest of their life. Although it doesn't end with the execution.

45:14 It ends with death and their own and so it's so horrible to do it. I mean, to be a murderer and just go kill people, and these kids with these guns and just shooting each other's terrible. And you talk about you know, you just got to keep control of your kids. You've got to keep the guns away from them. Yeah, and you've got to know where they're going. It's got to be and then you have to We just got a lot of problem with that, you know. I'm far the Second Amendment so forth, but we just need to control ourselves a little better, a lot better. Yeah, there's more respect around the Second Amendment than a lot of people give it. And I think that's probably part of the issue. I know it's another subject here, but with great power comes a lot of you know, responsibility, and I think people miss that point. You know, do you how many years now have you been a warden?

46:09 Which overall, how many years did you have you served as. A ward Well, I was very uniquely awarded. I started at the top. I never worked in the prisons, and I was awarding of the prison and so I didn't work my way up. I just did it. Yeah, I was a school teacher. Any good school teacher can run a prison. What did you teach? Well, I told oh, I knew that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And so they's teaching school to teach the high school student. They have a callum methods course, and so that's teaching the teacher how to maintain decorum in their classroom. And so that very thing that they taught me is what I used to run Angola. I would being like the teacher.

46:49 So that set me apart really from the inmates, I guess in my but I didn't realize that at the time, but it caused me to keep myself at a different status from them. I can be I can be your friend, I can talk to you and all this, but I'm going to always be your boss. I'm always being control. That's what teachers are taught to do. And so that made it work for me. And it's the worst job I ever had. I talked three months, I hate it. It's the worst job in the world to be a school teacher. To me, Yeah, because I had the problem with the discipline. I was impatient with him. I didn't like him screaming hard of being bad in class, which can't do what he did to me when I was in school. They'd give us whip it.

47:29 Man, they paddle you. Hey, my grandfather was a principal, and do you know he's paddled my producer. How many how many jobs have you had where your grandpa paddled you're a your producer. I know they paddled us. If they come back in class, they lined us up, boys and girls and paddle all of us. You're talking and they'd paddy if you fell spelling yeah, yes. And then you go home and get paddled again because your mama. Jumps on you. We don't do that now, and maybe we missing a lot because we lost a lot of discipline at home. And so disciplinement is incredibly important to children. They've got to learn to follow rules. And if they can teach them to follow rules, then they'll follow the law. But if you don't, haven't follow rules at home then and don't be oppressive, but be consistent. And that's what you got to do with raising kids. Be consistent, have a few rules and stick with them, and then that's like the law. You can't cross this rule. I'm gonna do something to you, and don't say what, because then you're committed to what you're gonna do to them. So if you say I'm old paddle you. If you do this, then you've got to do it. Otherwise then your law didn't mean anything. Which here is your rule at home.

48:36 That's a raising kids. That's another day. Well, I guess we can kind of conclude with I've got two more things for you here if you don't mind. You left Angola just fifteen days before Derek Lee died. Did you what did when you found out that he? Can you kind of talk me through how how you found out and you know what what you were told about his death? Yeah? I talked to him. What the ward about his death or what they told me was that he had the pacemaker in him and the pacemaker malfunctioned. It had a defibrillator in it, and it defibrillated and wouldn't stop. And after they killed him, what they you know what they kind of applied on the side, right, I'm not sure if that's true.

49:22 That's what I was told allegedly. Yeah, allegedly, And so I thought, how amusing? You know? Yeah? You you didn't they took God took you on out and and so anyway, just. So he may not have got lethal injection, but he did get electrocuted. I guess we could argue that happened. But yeah, so. It's unfortunate that he didn't, you know, it didn't get to go through the entire process. But he can't hurt anybody else. And it's it's I guess a fitting closure at that that he can't hurt anyone else. So looking back, this is my on on for you looking back over all of your experiences in corrections, what lessons have you learned through the entire process overall? What are the biggest things you've taken from this career.

50:17 I think the biggest thing I took from the career was was what it takes to make it on the street when you get out, and how to correct the DV behavior. And I said that at the beginning, we have to have a job. We have to have morality, and that's our job running prisons, and we have to have and we have to deal with a felony. And I think that we should not have the felony for nonviolent crimes because the felony keeps you from getting a job. Some people will not hire you if you have a felony, and so then that's a hindrance because if you don't have a job when you get out, you have got to eat.

50:58 So how you going to do it to reduce recidivism. You're saying that if it's a non violent offense, it shouldn't be a felony because then you can at least get out and you can job get a job, and so but. Anyway, and we need to do more to really try to help people get jobs. It's been to proven and get out. Now here's the thing. If you have a skill, it doesn't matter. Fallally doesn't matter. I mean, if you're having an ASSE certification in automotive mechanics, you're going to get a job at the dealership or somewhere. If you have an as if you're a carpenter and a good one and certified, you get hired. So you have to have a job with a skill. And that's when we really focused at the end of my career down gol on skilled. Kathy played a major role in that and working with the court, and so then we had to end.

51:45 We realized we could not have enough teachers to teach the skills, so we had to let the inmates be the teachers. That was uniquely done because nobody ever let one inmate have any authority over another. Well, he really doesn't. He's a teacher. If you don't want to learn, you don't have to do it. So when we let the inmate teach, then we saved a lot of money because we could teach vocational skill because they were the mechanics, like the guy that escaped, they were mechanics. They were working doing air conditioning and heating and such as that. Well they can teach it to the new inmates that come in. So I estimated in Mississippi that we're saving about eighteen million dollars a year in teacher salaries because I have almost three hundred inmate teachers and so they're teaching other inmates skills and trades, and we focus on that more than academics because academics is good, you got a balanced checkbook. But skills and trades is a job, and so especially if you're able to work. And so that's what many people do. They never learn a skill, they never had a job. So we teach that then they can make it. That's what I learned most was let the inmates help us and be the teachers. And now that's catching on all across the country. So that started at Angola, and I'm most proud of a lot of things we did at Angola fell in our laud We weren't that smart, but it would just happen, and so evioves, I don't claim credit. It was us. It was we changed Angola, not Old Burrow. A lot of

53:17 people worked really hard. They just caught the vision and we saw it work. Then it worked in Mississippi, which we researched again with another four hundred thousand dollars in research from Baylor and Pepperdine to prove again that it works. And so we just came back to the Museum of the Bible with a video from from Baylor on you know what works in Mississippi the same thing inmate teachers and change the culture and the violence goes. Do these studies are published online? Yeah, they're published yet. Because I'm a you know, I'm a nerd. I want to go. I want to go read it. I want to go learn about it from Baylor. And Pepperdine and what's going on in Mississippi. That's awesome.

53:58 I wish the legislators in Mississippi read it well. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do my job right here in Dennim Springs, Louisiana. I'm gonna, i'merious, I'm gonna read this. I like studies, and I think that there's there's value in that. And if we can't just be punitive minded in prison, if we're punitive minded, we're cutting off society at the knees because these people will get out, like you said, and when they get out, if we have not helped them to evolve into a new productive person, then what have we really done down the road? What have we done but have higher recidivism rates and not benefit our society? And so well, the research with doctor Byron Johnson, so you really he wrote more god Less Crime, so he'd really you know, well, renowned researcher for criminal justice. And so look him up and he's in Mississippi working on working for us, been doing it for three years. So he just published. Some of his works are published.

54:54 Now awesome. There's a book, Dan Gola book about the research. I don't remember the name of it. But anyway, well, I'm gonna have a whole slew of people from here to India looking up looking up these studies and reading Kine's Redemption and. And and doing all of that. So for every for taking the time to come just speak to me. I'm a nobody and so I just well, I really appreciate your time, and thank you so much for coming in. And chatting with me. Thank you so much. Yes, yes, sir M