Williams changes mind, wants witnesses to his execution
Bay City News
Monday, December 12, 2005
SAN QUENTIN -- His legal options all but exhausted, his execution imminent, Stanley Tookie Williams apparently changed his mind tonight about inviting witnesses to the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
Williams, a co-founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles, is scheduled to be executed at San Quentin State Prison at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for four robbery-related murders committed in 1979.
Though supporters said this afternoon Williams wanted no one to see him die, Elaine Jennings of the state Department of Corrections said tonight Williams has asked for all five of the witness seats available to him to be filled.
Prison staff did not identify those five people.
Visiting hours with Williams ended at 6 p.m. Prison protocol then called for him to be moved to the death watch cell, which Jennings described as a 45-square-foot, bare cell with a toilet and bed.
Upon arrival in the death watch cell, where he should remain until about 30 minutes before his scheduled execution, Williams received a stack of mail. Jennings said most of the 50 to 75 letters appeared to be from strangers offering spiritual advice.
Williams has not requested any spiritual advisers to be with him today, Jennings said, but the prison chaplain is available to him.
Condemned inmates usually eat their last meals in the death watch cell, but Jennings said Williams has not asked for such a meal and has been drinking only water today.
Williams has been "very calm, very cooperative'' throughout the day, Jennings said.