Y’all, my Great-Grandfather was on his second day as the newly appointed deputy sheriff when he was shot and killed by escaped convicts whom he caught robbing a gas station. The law at that time required that they be put to death, and the verdict was unanimous...

Four men who were involved (the oldest being 23) were condemned to die in North Carolina’s cutting edge gas chamber. His widow, my great-grandmother, was a devout Christian who actually believed what Jesus said and lived like it. She(!) started a petition to NC’s governor...

To grant clemency to the men who murdered her only husband. Moved and shocked by her holiness, not only did the trial judge sign the petition, but EVERY (!) juror signed as well. Governor Hoey received it, and...

On March 6 1940, just an hour before the four condemned were to meet their bitter almond asphyxiation, the governor called and granted clemency. The men served time and were eventually released. The newspaper has as the only quote of one, “Praise God!”

Personally, I understand the death penalty. People do awful things, and I don’t find it heart wrenching that they meet this fate. Yet. I am Catholic: this means I fully accept the teaching of the church whether I ‘feel it’ or not. Mercy heals the world, not vengeance...

May my great grandma Florence. who was so holy that she could forgive so passionately, pray for our nation that we may abandon capital punishment. This picture was her’s, then my grandfather’s, mom’s, and now mine. In the condemned Jesus is saying to us ‘It is I, be not afraid’

(Every December 7, the Burlington NC PD honors my great-grandfather: Sonnie Vaughn, because he’s the only policeman ever to die in the line of duty in that county. https://www.burlingtonnc.gov/439/Awards-and-Recognition His wife, though, is the hero. She died, alone, on a Saturday night. When they found her...

Her offering envelope was on her bedside table with $5. Her social security, which was her only income, was $60 a month. I have zero doubt that she’s in heaven.)