The Waye recording offers a rare public glimpse into an execution, a government proceeding often shrouded in secrecy and only witnessed by a select few, including prison officials, victims, family members and journalists.
The department rejected an Associated Press request under the state's public records law to release the recordings after NPR obtained and reported on four of them. – On a 1989 audio recording crackling with static, an inmate is barely audible as he offers his last words before he is executed in Virginia's electric chair.
The recording of Waye's execution, which was recently published by NPR, is one of at least 35 audio tapes in the possession of the Virginia Department of Corrections documenting executions between 1987 and 2017, the department recently confirmed. “States are wary of things being done right and being challenged in court, and want to have their evidence,” Dieter said.
The tapes obtained in NPR's investigation were donated to the library in 2006 by a now-deceased former Department of Corrections employee named R. M. Oliver, the library said in a statement to AP.Carla Lemons, a spokeswoman for DOC, said the files that ended up at the library were taken “without VDOC’s knowledge or permission.” The department asked for them back “so we could appropriately maintain them with the other execution files in the agency’s possession,” Lemons wrote in an email.
Brumfield said he thinks the value of the tapes to the average listener is minimal, though he said they offer insight when compared to other records and news accounts.
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