Over 400 executions have been witnessed and chronicled by retiring Texas reporter Michael Graczyk, probably as many as anyone in the U.S. has seen actually happening, but for Graczyk it was all in a day's work during more than four decades with The Associated Press.
Now he has a chance to step back a bit from death row and the execution chamber following a special news service retirement luncheon in Dallas on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.
Graczyk plans to writing as a freelancer for the AP and, as he lives near the state's death row prison in Huntsville, he will still be covering the occasional execution.
While working as an AP reporter for 45 years, Graczyk covered a range of topics from sports to politics, but his job also had that more sinister side.
Whenever there was an execution scheduled to take place, Graczyk would be there with pen and paper, ready to write the story.
“I understand there’s a certain curiosity that a lot of people have about that," Graczyk said, according to the Post. "It certainly comes up in conversations with people who want to know, 'Wow, what’s that like?' It’s not something I generally bring up."
The State of Texas has executed 551 people since 1982, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Graczyk witnessed his first execution in March 1985, when James David Autry (nicknamed Cowboy) was given a lethal injection for the murder of a convenience store clerk four years earlier.
Over the years he has seen hundreds of other executions, with some of them etched forever in his memory – such as the 1998 execution of double-murder convict Jonathan Nobles, who sang "Silent Night" as he died, the Post noted.
"I am reminded of that every Christmas when I’m in church and the hymn is being sung," Graczyk said. "People are celebrating the joy of the season, and I’m thinking of Jonathan Nobles."
Journalists reporting on executions are supposed to put personal feelings aside, but this may come with a psychological price, The Week reported.
Clinical studies have found that reporters show symptoms of dissociative disorder in the weeks following an execution.
The next execution in Texas is scheduled for Sept. 12, when Ruben Gutierrez, convicted of killing an 85-year-old woman, will be put to death. Graczyk will be there.
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