On a summer's day in 2006, inside an apartment not far from Virginia's old death chamber, an 82-year-old man handed over a briefcase to an archivist. The bag held four execution recordings so rare, similar tapes from another state had been released just once before in history.
When executions take place, only a few people are permitted to attend as witnesses. Since prisons forbid even those journalists, lawyers and family members from recording audio or images, virtually no physical evidence from their vantage point exists from any state. But they're not the only ones watching. Prison employees also see what happens in the death chamber – and they sometimes tape it.
The cassettes in the briefcase were recorded by staff, and the donor, R. M. Oliver, had worked in Virginia prisons for years. But how that government audio ended up in his bag – and why he privately donated it to the Library of Virginia – is a mystery. Oliver left his last position with the Department of Corrections in Richmond before any of the executions were taped. His family said he took the story to his grave when he died.
"Dad kept it a secret from us," said his son, Stephen Oliver. "I don't even remember seeing that briefcase."
The tapes from Oliver's bag remained unavailable for 16 years. The library initially restricted them and planned to keep them off limits for decades more. But NPR argued for their public release and obtained the audio in 2022.
An NPR investigation can now reveal the tapes show the prison neglected to record key evidence during what was considered one of Virginia's worst executions, and staff appeared unprepared for some of the jobs they were tasked to do in the death chamber.
Before Virginia abolished capital punishment in 2021, the state executed more people than any other in America. This is the first time audio recorded during any of those executions has ever been published.
Behind the scenes: "We didn't know for sure"
Minutes before he was scheduled to die by the electric chair, Alton Waye used his last words to forgive the workers who would soon have to help kill him.
"I'd like to express that what is about to occur here is a murder," he starts by saying on the tape.
An employee whispers the rest of Waye's statement into the recorder: "And that he forgives the people involved in this murder. And that I don't hate nobody and that I love them."
That worker then checked in with another colleague to see if he had heard the statement correctly. He hadn't.