ST. LOUIS — Oftentimes, when there is a state-sponsored execution, we hear from spiritual advisors who’ve shared the last moments with the accused. They speak of redemption and remorse while describing horrifying verbal images of inmates strapped to gurneys, with life-stopping chemicals coursing through their veins.
We rarely hear about the impact on spiritual advisors or counselors.
Those situations were addressed Saturday during Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (MADP) annual meeting which included “Prayer in the Chamber: A panel with Spiritual Advisors to Those on Missouri’s Death Row.”
Michelle Smith, MADP co-director, said it is important to hear from people who “played vital roles in affirming the humanity of individuals facing execution, providing support, comfort, and spiritual guidance.”
Rev. Darryl Gray, 68, is a pastor at Greater Fairfax Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis and a racial justice activist.
Gray spent one-on-one time with condemned Kevin Johnson, who at the age of 19 fatally shot Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee, a father of three, in 2005. Johnson was executed Nov. 29, 2022.
Gray, who said he’s been involved in prison ministry for more than 30 years, first met Johnson three months before his execution.
“Absolutely nothing prepared me for the journey I took with Kevin,” Gray said.
Before agreeing to be Johnson’s spiritual advisor, Gray he had to be satisfied it was the inmate’s sincere desire and not just a “check-the-box moment while he was still going through the legal process and hoping for intervention from the governor.”
“It took me five minutes in the presence of Kevin to realize he was genuine,” Gray said.
“Then it became even more enormous to me to realize that my job as a spiritual advisor was just to be there for whatever Kevin needed.”
Describing Johnson as “inquisitive, extremely smart and extremely gentle,” Grey said Johnson was “totally unlike” anything he’d assumed.
“I expected him to be hard…I did not expect the compassion or humanness.”
Gray emotionally recalled the impact Johnson’s death had on him.
“I’m still not over it…for all of us (spiritual advisors) you don’t forget it, you don’t get over it…it’s not something that’s left in that death chamber…it’s not.”
Rev. Lauren Bennettwasthe spiritual adviser for 49-year-old Missouri inmate Amber McLaughlin, an openly transgender woman who stabbed, strangled, and sexually assaulted an ex-girlfriend 19 years ago.
Bennett said it was a “huge honor” getting to know McLaughlin personally before she was executed on Jan. 4, 2023, by lethal injection.
“She was really hesitant about having a spiritual advisor for a long time,” Bennett recalled. “She was dealing with the prejudice of having killed someone and of being a trans woman.”
Bennett said McLaughlin, who read on an elementary school level, mostly wanted her interpretations of scriptures.
“She wanted to know if, when she died, if God would love her as a trans woman,” Bennett explained, adding that McLaughlin’s last statement was about “God not judging people by their worst acts, especially if they tried to turn their lives around.”
The Rev. Jeffrey K. Hood, II, bald with a long red beard, spoke with a Southern accent when describing the unusual trajectory of becoming a spiritual advisor.
“When you go to seminary you don’t think “I want to be a death row chaplain’ or ‘I want to be a spiritual advisor’…you don’t look at the seminary website and think you can get on this track.”
Hood elaborated, saying “the work” can be intensely frustrating.
“I reflect on the work of Martin and Malcolm, but I think this moment calls for us to be a bit more like Malcolm. It calls for great rage and anger that the state is killing marginalized and oppressed people.
“As a person of faith who believes in the message of Jesus, a message of ‘the ‘least of us,’ it’s an affront to human rights, our sensibilities and an affront to what I think faith and spirituality is supposed to represent.”
Rev. Gray shared a question he’s been asked about his role as a death row spiritual advisor present during executions.
“People ask me if I would ever do it again and a whole lot of me says ‘no,’” Gray said earnestly. “Knowing what I know, I’m not sure if I would…knowing you’ll be sitting this close, holding them, touching them…as an advocate who struggles with why I’m even there…I ask, am I complicit?”