PARCHMAN — When an inmate is executed inside Mississippi’s death chamber, those watching through observation room windows can make out their own reflections.
This was the case Wednesday at the execution of death-row inmate Dale Leo Bishop.
The 34-year-old carpenter was convicted of capital murder in 2000 for his role in the 1998 beating death of Marcus Gentry near Saltillo.
The two had been friends, and the condemned man said as much Wednesday evening just moments before receiving his punishment — a lethal mixture of Sodium Pentothal, saline, Pavulon and potassium chloride administered into the back of his left hand.
"To Mark's family, I would like to express my sincerest apologies,” Bishop said while surrounded by prison officials, a medical officer and white brick walls. “It was a senseless act. It was a needless act. The world is worse off without him.”
Gentry’s mother and uncle witnessed the execution. Seated in chairs, neither of them moved or uttered a sound throughout.
Bishop wore a red prison jumpsuit, flip-flops and no socks. His goatee matched the color of his brown hair, and tattoos covered his left arm, which was extended out a bit from his body.
With a microphone hanging inches from his mouth and his body secured to a gurney by seven leather straps, Bishop delivered his last words in the clear voice of a calm young man.
His ex-wife and nephew wept; his three teenage boys and mother were not present.
“To my family, I love you,” he said. “It's going to be all good.”
Bishop, who spoke for less than two minutes, then asked opponents of the death penalty to vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election.
"God bless America; it's been great living here. That's all,” were his last words. He closed his eyes, tilted his chin slightly to the left, sucked in a deep breath and never moved again.
He was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m.
As he requested, his body was released to Waters Funeral Home in Baldwyn.
According to Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps, everything went as planned.
The hours leading up to the execution were marked by protocol and technology. At 2 p.m. and 4:45 p.m., Epps entered the media center and gave updates on Bishop’s mood, eating habits and visitors during the day.
Inside the center – a windowless area of military-style press briefings, bright lighted news cameras and laptops – the day carried an impersonal, business-like tone. But when Epps walked in, stood behind a podium between two Peavey amplifiers and talked to the press, the matter came into focus.
Epps said Bishop was talkative, in a “happy-go-lucky” mood and discussing politics with guards.
He had been given three eggs, Jell-O, potatoes, bologna, two biscuits with white gravy, two cartons of milk, juice, coffee and water for breakfast, but he ate just a single egg and drank water. He indicated that he consumed only calories he could burn off during the day.
Roughly 20 members of his family, a few attorneys and the prison chaplain visited him at his holding cell in Unit 17.
Gov. Haley Barbour's policy adviser, Daryl Neely, also visited with Bishop before 2 p.m. Neely reported that Bishop had spent some time writing. “A man who takes no action has no regrets,” he wrote. Bishop indicated that he regretted Gentry’s death.
Before he left, Neely read Bishop a letter informing him that Barbour had denied his request for clemency. Neely said Bishop at that point was “not optimistic, but hopeful” that the U.S. Supreme Court would grant him a stay of execution.
For his last meal, he chose pineapple supreme pizza, cherries-and-cream ice cream and four root beers. He ate three slices of the pizza and eight ounces of the ice cream and drank 20 ounces of root beer.
Sometime before 5 p.m., the country’s highest court denied three last-minute appeals without comment.
Bishop declined both the shower and Valium that were offered to him before he was taken to the death chamber.
Not long after he laid down on the gurney, witnesses were escorted into observation rooms to watch his death. Some held their heads at strange angles or arched their necks slightly so as to not be staring at their own reflections.
