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Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on Revisionist History.

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Speaker 2: He was taken out of the cell, thinking that his

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Speaker 2: execution was imminent, strapped to a gurney, and he's asking,

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Speaker 2: you know, the corrections officers who are with them, what's

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Speaker 2: going on.

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Speaker 3: You know, an antiseysiologist in good standing is not going

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Speaker 3: to spend their wednesdays over at the you know, State

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Speaker 3: corrections sticking ivs and people for execution.

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Speaker 4: It's not something that we do.

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Speaker 2: Because a cold blooded, convicted killer complains about the prodding

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Speaker 2: and poking of a small abby.

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Speaker 5: Line, really.

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Speaker 2: Potting and proo with a needle. After three and a

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Speaker 2: half or four hours being strapped to a gurney, you know,

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Speaker 2: he was unable to stand, walk, unbutton his shirt, you know,

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Speaker 2: change his clothes, do any of that without assistance.

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Speaker 6: They attempted to kill him.

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Speaker 5: On November seventeenth, his lawyers called me, I think ten

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Speaker 5: days later. I didn't know them, They didn't know me,

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Speaker 5: and they said, you know, we have a client who's

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Speaker 5: had this thing happen. He's really struggling. Would you take

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Speaker 5: a look at him? And we talked to him.

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Speaker 4: In the months after his botched execution, Kenny Smith had

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Speaker 4: a confidant Kate Porterfield a psychologist who specializes in trauma.

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Speaker 4: She's consulted on dozens of row cases in her career,

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Speaker 4: spent a lot of time at the US Military prison

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Speaker 4: at Guantanamo Bay. Worked for years treating patients at the

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Speaker 4: Clinic for Torture Victims at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. A

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Speaker 4: very good friend of mine, Stephen, knows her well and

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Speaker 4: told me one day, you have to meet my friend Kate.

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Speaker 4: She has the strangest job in America. So I called

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Speaker 4: her up and we began to talk with no real

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Speaker 4: plan or agenda, And in one of our conversations, she

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Speaker 4: told me about a case that I had never heard

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Speaker 4: about before, and a person she'd been asked to evaluate

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Speaker 4: who had affected her deeply, Kenny Smith. That's how I

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Speaker 4: learned about the murder of Elizabeth Sennett. Everything in this

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Speaker 4: series began with my conversations with Cape Porterfield. So tell

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Speaker 4: me about your first busy with Kenny.

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Speaker 5: So my first contact with him was a call. Actually

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Speaker 5: it was remarkably.

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Speaker 6: Pleasant.

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Speaker 5: Kenny was a very resilient man. He was you know,

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Speaker 5: he had been on death row for thirty four years.

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Speaker 5: This was a man used to living on death row

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Speaker 5: and least to being in prison. And one of the

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Speaker 5: things he said to me is, you know, he used

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Speaker 5: to call me Doc. He'd said, Doc, I am very institutionalized.

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Speaker 5: I know how to do this. I've made a life here.

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Speaker 5: I have a very good set of friends here, and

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Speaker 5: I have really good relationships on the outside. He had

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Speaker 5: been married, he had children from before he went in,

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Speaker 5: and he had relationships with his children. So he said

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Speaker 5: to me, I'm very institutionalized. I've been through a lot,

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Speaker 5: but I'm actually pretty stable. And he said, but I'm

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Speaker 5: I'm falling apart right now from what happened.

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Speaker 6: I mean, I think what now.

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Speaker 5: What I think is he was signaling to me, I'm

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Speaker 5: pretty sturdy, but this really messed me up.

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Speaker 4: Kate Porderfield would end up spending many hours with Kenny

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Speaker 4: Smith over the next year, looking to him on the phone,

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Speaker 4: visiting him at home in prison, trying to understand what

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Speaker 4: happened to him in that execution chamber on the night

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Speaker 4: of November seventeenth, twenty twenty two, trying to figure out

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Speaker 4: how damaged he had been by the experience, writing an

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Speaker 4: assessment of his condition that could be used by his

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Speaker 4: legal team in court, and most of all just trying

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Speaker 4: to understand who he was. My name is Malcolm Gladwell.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to the Alabama murders. In this installment, I

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Speaker 4: want to look at Kenny Smith through the eyes of

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Speaker 4: Cape Porterfield, to see the Kenny Smith that she saw

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Speaker 4: in those many encounters between the end of twenty twenty

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Speaker 4: two and the Long Winter of twenty twenty three. This

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Speaker 4: is episode six, the Porterfield Sessions. In my third conversation

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Speaker 4: with Cape Porterfield, well before we got to Kenny Smith,

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Speaker 4: she told me about a patient she'd seen many years ago,

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Speaker 4: an older man. This is when she was working at

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Speaker 4: the Torture Clinic of Bellevue. He was a refugee from

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Speaker 4: a war torn country. He'd been imprisoned, tortured, and at

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Speaker 4: one point he had been subjected to a mock execution.

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Speaker 4: He had been made to believe by his captors that

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Speaker 4: he was about to die.

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Speaker 5: So this was probably the first person I ever worked

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Speaker 5: with who had had a mock execution, and it is

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Speaker 5: its own unimaginable horror that leaves a really really bad physical, physiological,

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Speaker 5: rather imprint.

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Speaker 4: Her goal was to gently push him back towards his

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Speaker 4: traumatic experience to better understand and to help him.

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Speaker 5: He was very rigid and he would sit just really

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Speaker 5: tightly wound in the sessions, really gripping the chair, and I.

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Speaker 6: He didn't want to go there.

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Speaker 4: It took a very long time to draw him out.

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Speaker 4: She would go on to work with five or six

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Speaker 4: other patients who had gone through something similar. A gun

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Speaker 4: they thought was loaded, put to their head on to

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Speaker 4: realize it was empty, being held underwater almost long enough,

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Speaker 4: and even in one case, being left in a cage

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Speaker 4: with a lion. She came to believe that this kind

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Speaker 4: of experience deserved its own category. Why is a mock

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Speaker 4: execution uniquely damaging?

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Speaker 6: Let me say it this way.

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Speaker 5: When someone says you're about to die, you know you're terrified,

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Speaker 5: and terror doesn't even capture it. You're you know, most

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Speaker 5: people lose control in some part of their body, maybe

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Speaker 5: they're bladder or a bow.

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Speaker 6: You know, there's usually.

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Speaker 5: Incredible exclaiming of horror. You know, it's not good to

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Speaker 5: think you're about to die. I mean, I've seen six

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Speaker 5: people or whatever try to describe it to me, and

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Speaker 5: they all fall apart. It's like I've never had someone

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Speaker 5: say it the first time and not really fall apart.

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Speaker 6: Like collapse and different ways.

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Speaker 5: I had a guy who had been kidnapped and the

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Speaker 5: soldiers came in and said, if we don't get the ransom,

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Speaker 5: you know, we're going to kill you. And then they

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Speaker 5: came in the next day and they had a gun

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Speaker 5: and they put it to his head. This man was

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Speaker 5: the most put together, disciplined, you know, kind of controlled guy,

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Speaker 5: and when he tried to tell that moment, he just

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Speaker 5: fell down in his chair and grabbed his head and

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Speaker 5: he was like, my head's hurting, my head's urting.

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Speaker 6: I can't, I can't.

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Speaker 5: There's just this incredible physiological, you know, probably hormonal dump

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Speaker 5: into his system of the same thing that happened, you know,

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Speaker 5: when the mock execution took place. So essentially what trauma

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Speaker 5: does is it becomes imprinted in your body and your

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Speaker 5: memory banks are then linked and hooked up with the

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Speaker 5: fear reaction.

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Speaker 6: So that's the problem. It's a bad linkage.

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Speaker 5: And so when you think about being told I'm about

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Speaker 5: to kill you, and then you try to tell it,

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Speaker 5: your body just goes it goes right into that state

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Speaker 5: of terror.

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Speaker 4: This is the first thing that Kate Porterfield saw when

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Speaker 4: she sat down with Kenny Smith that he was in

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Speaker 4: that special category, but his experience in some ways was

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Speaker 4: even more overwhelming. This was not a mock execution. It

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Speaker 4: was a botched execution, meaning it wasn't a trick. They

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Speaker 4: were actually intending to execute Kenny. They just didn't manage

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Speaker 4: to pull it off. And Kate was entreating someone years

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Speaker 4: after it had occurred with Kenny Smith, this had just happened.

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Speaker 6: This was different, you know.

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Speaker 5: This was this very orchestrated, slow, systematic process being done

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Speaker 5: by these guys all in this room who he knew,

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Speaker 5: Guys who had been his guards for like some of

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Speaker 5: them he knew something he didn't, but you know, guys

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Speaker 5: he's known for a lot of years trying to kill him.

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Speaker 6: Very hard to wrap your and around.

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Speaker 4: How did the guards react?

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Speaker 5: You know? I think that he believed they got very

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Speaker 5: rattled and he watched it on their faces, but no

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Speaker 5: one could do anything.

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Speaker 6: And it's a scary narrative then of what.

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Speaker 5: People will do with orders, right, Like I mean, there

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Speaker 5: was a point, after all these poking of him with

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Speaker 5: needles going around his feet, his arms, where they took

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Speaker 5: the gurney and inverted it upwards with his feet up

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Speaker 5: and left him there for I have to look, but

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Speaker 5: I think it was upwards of twenty minutes, thirty minutes.

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Speaker 5: They came back in and they t so then they

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Speaker 5: started poking on his collar bunt. So they took this man.

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Speaker 5: They tipped him upside down so that the blood would

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Speaker 5: rush to a part of his body. They came back in,

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Speaker 5: they injected him with something which he believes and we

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Speaker 5: believe was probably a painkiller, and then they started going

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Speaker 5: on his neck, you know, around his collar bun. I mean,

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Speaker 5: I'm sorry, but I don't imagine that a person who's

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Speaker 5: doing that and witnessing it can walk away from that

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Speaker 5: unscathed themselves.

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Speaker 4: Kenny wanted to apologize to the Senate family and say

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Speaker 4: goodbye to his own family, but he was all alone

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Speaker 4: with the execution team. He thought they were killing him

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Speaker 4: before the witnesses could get there.

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Speaker 5: And he said one of the ways he stayed calm

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Speaker 5: when there was all that dead time was he would

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Speaker 5: he would say to himself, turn to the right, to

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Speaker 5: the victim's family and apologize.

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Speaker 6: Turn to the left, tell my family, I love him.

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Speaker 6: So he would have this little practice.

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Speaker 5: To the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you,

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Speaker 5: And he said that kind of helped him pass the time,

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Speaker 5: which also was like remarkable to me. He was thinking,

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Speaker 5: thinking about how you're managing, like how you're gonna choreograph this.

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Speaker 6: They come back in, they begin to untie the.

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Speaker 5: Tourniquet on his arm, and they say it's over now.

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Speaker 5: And then one of the people on the team who

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Speaker 5: he did no says to him, it's over and I'll

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Speaker 5: be praying for you. So these kinds of moments for

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Speaker 5: Kenny were just what's the word unmanageable. Afterwards, they were

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Speaker 5: unmanageable moments with other humans.

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Speaker 4: One minute they were trying to kill him, then they

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Speaker 4: weren't trying to kill him.

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Speaker 5: It's very confusing. And then the man, you know, references God.

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Speaker 5: Kenny's you know, most core faith right is his belief

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Speaker 5: in God and his belief that because of his faith,

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Speaker 5: you know, he had really been saved. I'm not talking

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Speaker 5: about saved in the execution. I'm saying saved as a man,

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Speaker 5: you know, his faith saved him. So this collision of

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Speaker 5: people trying to kill you, your body being in something

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Speaker 5: that we don't really understand unless you've had unless you

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Speaker 5: thought you were going to die, and then someone bringing

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Speaker 5: God in and saying this sort of generous thing, I'm

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Speaker 5: going to pray for you. It was it like the

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Speaker 5: word unmanageable is what I keep coming up with. He

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Speaker 5: couldn't grasp it, and he couldn't he couldn't deal with

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Speaker 5: it after. I mean, there were many things that made

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Speaker 5: in distress, but that was one. You know, the warden

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Speaker 5: taking his head and saying this is this is what's

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Speaker 5: best for you was another.

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Speaker 4: Kate Porderfield would end up having seventeen marathon phone sessions

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Speaker 4: with Kenny Smith, and she would twice fly down to

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Speaker 4: Alabama to meet with him in person, and after he

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Speaker 4: had told her the story of what happened on November seventeenth,

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Speaker 4: he told her the story of his life in the

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Speaker 4: years leading up to the murder of Elizabeth Sennett. That's

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Speaker 4: after the brain. Kenny Smith's full name was Kenneth Eugene Smith.

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Speaker 4: Both Kenny and his brother Joey were named for their father,

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Speaker 4: a truck driver named Wesley Eugene Smith.

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Speaker 7: Did you ever naming the matter? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Linda Smith, Kenny Smith's mom, still lives in the shoals.

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Speaker 4: She spoke with Lee Hedgspeth, a local reporter who knew

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Speaker 4: Kenny well and covered his case.

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Speaker 7: Has he passed now, Jane, Oh he is, Yeah, Hey,

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Speaker 7: I think he was forty five when he passed.

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Speaker 4: Linda and Jean had five children together in quick succession.

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Speaker 4: Kenny was the eldest.

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Speaker 7: He didn't really want a child that at that point.

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Speaker 8: Why do you think that was?

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Speaker 7: I just I don't know. I guess he wouldn't through

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Speaker 7: with his wild oats, I guess.

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Speaker 8: So tell me about the wild oats.

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Speaker 7: Not too much of a drinker, more of like pills.

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Speaker 7: Back then, it was kind of uppers and downers.

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Speaker 4: Jean was on the road a lot. He had another

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Speaker 4: relationship then that says it was with an underage girl.

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Speaker 4: Jean got her pregnant, but he still came around to

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Speaker 4: see Linda, to sleep with her or just to hit her.

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, he always did that, just about I mean,

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Speaker 7: not when we first started dating. It started. I guess

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Speaker 7: it started after Kenny was born. You know what I

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Speaker 7: think is he was doing stuff and he was thinking

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Speaker 7: I was, you know, he was jealous. Yeah, but I wasn't,

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Speaker 7: you know, I had a kid to raise. I mean,

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Speaker 7: he would just hit me in the head and I

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Speaker 7: mean I still got a scar right there. Where he

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Speaker 7: through a bottle at me and right here. It may

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Speaker 7: have been gone now, but it was just you know,

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Speaker 7: hit me, knocked me in the floor, slappen me. We'll see,

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Speaker 7: like I said, he thought that I was you know,

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Speaker 7: out doing stuff and partying, and like I said, which

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Speaker 7: I wasn't.

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Speaker 8: And can you recall, like, for example, the incident with

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Speaker 8: the bottle, Can you tell me what happened then? Do

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Speaker 8: you remember?

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Speaker 7: Yeah? I mean, I I mean I didn't know he

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Speaker 7: was coming in there that which it didn't matter, but

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Speaker 7: I was at home, you know, and a friend of

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Speaker 7: mine for work was just there with me, and Kenny

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Speaker 7: was there and he just came in and he was

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Speaker 7: just enraged that night.

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Speaker 8: Do you remember what Kenny's reaction would be when that's happening.

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Speaker 8: How old is Kenny around this time?

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Speaker 7: I remember that time, He's probably throughfore, I mean its run,

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Speaker 7: get up on the couch and sit ye and Joeyan

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Speaker 7: just you know.

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Speaker 8: Do you remember anything that Kenny ever said to you,

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Speaker 8: either when the abuse was happening or afterward?

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I mean he would I mean, you know,

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Speaker 7: and hug me, and you know, I guess you don't.

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Speaker 7: I guess they was telling me, you know, everything would

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Speaker 7: be okay.

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Speaker 4: Kenny would draw pictures and give them to his mom.

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Speaker 4: Kenny's sentencing hearing, a series of witnesses testified about Jeane's abuse.

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Speaker 4: One was a woman who worked as a waitress with Linda.

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Speaker 4: Jean would come into the restaurant when Linda was working.

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Speaker 4: This is what she said, Well, he would take what

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Speaker 4: money Linda had made in tips, and if she did

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Speaker 4: not make what he thought he needed, she would get

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Speaker 4: slapped and beat around right in the restaurant. He would

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Speaker 4: walk in and he would tell her he needed to

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Speaker 4: talk to her. Well, she would walk off into a

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Speaker 4: private place with him, which was around the corner in

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Speaker 4: the hall, and the next thing, you know, you would

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Speaker 4: hear this commotion and he would be beating her. He

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Speaker 4: would slap her and he would hit her with his fist.

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Speaker 4: I have seen him back her up in the corner

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Speaker 4: and just beating her. And I have seen her when

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Speaker 4: her pocket would be torn on the uniform where he

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Speaker 4: had taken the money out of it. Question and how

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Speaker 4: often would he come around? Answer? Well, at least three,

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Speaker 4: two to three times a week that happened. He always

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Speaker 4: made a point to hit her around the eyes, The

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Speaker 4: fifth of the children Linda and Jean had together was Michael,

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Speaker 4: who died a few hours after birth. His lungs never developed.

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Speaker 4: In testimony, Kenny's brother Joey said, quote, well, he blamed

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Speaker 4: mother for it and said it was her fault, and

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Speaker 4: pretty soon, you know, she felt bad, even kind of

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Speaker 4: accepted the blame and started drinking real heavy. Question does

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Speaker 4: your mom drink now today? Answer no. Kenny, Joey said

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Speaker 4: in his testimony, was the one taking care of her.

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Speaker 4: He would be in there with a cold rag on

302
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Speaker 4: her head, cleaning up the vomit out of the floor

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Speaker 4: when she missed the commode, and trying to wrestle her

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Speaker 4: up out of the floor to get her in the

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Speaker 4: bed because she was a big woman. Question how old

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Speaker 4: do you think Kenny was the first time that you

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Speaker 4: saw him picking your mama up and talking to her

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Speaker 4: and wiping her How old do you think he was?

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Speaker 4: Answer probably eight or nine. Question did there ever come

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Speaker 4: a time when you saw your brother turn to drinking? Answer? Oh, yes.

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Speaker 4: Question do you remember how old he was? Answer he

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Speaker 4: was sixteen. Question did there ever come a time when

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Speaker 4: you saw your brother start to drink too much? Answer yes,

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Speaker 4: Kenny met a woman. They had a child together, Michael,

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Speaker 4: named for Kenny's brother who died. They moved to a

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Speaker 4: house in Florence, and one day a friend of his

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Speaker 4: from high school asked him if he wanted a little

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Speaker 4: quick money roughing someone up and off He and John

319
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Speaker 4: Parker went in Parker's Pontiac Grand Prix with a hunting

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Speaker 4: knife and a fifth of wild turkey on the console

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Speaker 4: between them to do what he had seen people do

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Speaker 4: one hundred times in his life. Kate Porterfield and I

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Speaker 4: sometimes digressed into more personal subjects. We talked a lot

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Speaker 4: about our kids and parenting, what she had learned as

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Speaker 4: a mother of three daughters. And there was something she

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Speaker 4: said at one point that I can't stop thinking about.

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Speaker 6: You know, Catherine Harrison, You know that is she's a

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Speaker 6: great writer.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and she she wrote this incredible memoir about her

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Speaker 5: life with her father who had disappeared and then got

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Speaker 5: involved with her in incredibly inappropriate way.

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Speaker 6: And it was a beautiful, very painful memoir, very brave.

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Speaker 6: And she has a line in there.

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Speaker 5: I'm going to get it wrong, but where she says,

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Speaker 5: we think that parenting is about unconditional love, and what

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Speaker 5: we mean by that is that the parents have unconditional

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Speaker 5: love towards the children. But what you learn as you

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Speaker 5: grow and as you have kids is that actually the

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Speaker 5: unconditional love is coming from the child to the parent.

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Speaker 5: And I will say I see that all the time

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Speaker 5: in my patients who got abused as children, which is

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Speaker 5: they love their parents. They're hungry for their parents. They

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Speaker 5: yearned for the memory of their parent to be the

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Speaker 5: good parts. And it doesn't matter that the parents did

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Speaker 5: terrible things to them.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't matter.

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Speaker 6: No, I mean, it matters to who they've become.

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Speaker 5: But in their sense of self, oh, I see, they'll

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Speaker 5: yearn for that parent. Children have an unconditional My point is,

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Speaker 5: children have an unconditional love of the parent.

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Speaker 4: When Kate Porterfield was just out of college, she had

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Speaker 4: been attacked by a stranger. He took her by surprise

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Speaker 4: and beat her up. She suffered from what she now

354
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Speaker 4: realizes was PTSD. It took her years to recover. That

355
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Speaker 4: experience was one of the reasons she developed such an

356
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Speaker 4: interest in treating trauma. She had no connection to her attacker,

357
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Speaker 4: though no reason to return to him, it was possible

358
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Speaker 4: to understand ultimately that this was just a case of

359
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Speaker 4: being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But

360
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Speaker 4: what if he wasn't a stranger. What if you loved

361
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Speaker 4: your attacker, And what if your love was so powerful

362
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Speaker 4: and instinctual that you couldn't help yourself that you kept

363
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Speaker 4: coming back again and again, hoping things might be different.

364
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Speaker 4: I think that's another kind of suffering that deserves its

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00:22:06,756 --> 00:22:09,236
Speaker 4: own category.

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Speaker 5: I can't tell you how many the moms of my

367
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Speaker 5: clients were sexually abused. I can't tell you. It's incredible,

368
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Speaker 5: you know, and you just go, It's just perpetrating and

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Speaker 5: perpetrating and perpetrating through generations.

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Speaker 4: I'm curious about what it is you said that dealing

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Speaker 4: with these repeated cases if people who had been through

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Speaker 4: this kind of childhood experience, Yeah, taught you a lot.

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Speaker 4: I want to put my finger on what it taught you.

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Speaker 5: I understood child development. I'd trained in child psychology, and

375
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Speaker 5: I was like, you know, pretty good on it.

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Speaker 6: But when you see it.

377
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Speaker 5: Go wrong, you really then understand what it takes for

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Speaker 5: it to go right. And so watching again and again,

379
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Speaker 5: men grown men sitting across from me, cover with tattoos,

380
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Speaker 5: you know, guys who had killed a couple people, maybe

381
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Speaker 5: crying watching these men sobbing when they recounted being eight

382
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Speaker 5: years old and being here's one and I'll frame carefully,

383
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Speaker 5: but you know, raped at age eight multiple times by

384
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Speaker 5: an older family member, and this you know, person who

385
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Speaker 5: had committed homicides, no question, sobbing talking about it. That

386
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Speaker 5: was so powerful for me in getting me to understand

387
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Speaker 5: that this guy is sitting across from me who is quote

388
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Speaker 5: unquote scary to everybody in the world. And he looks scary. Right,

389
00:23:36,796 --> 00:23:39,036
Speaker 5: he is a hurt person. If you go all the

390
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Speaker 5: way back, he's a hurt little boy, and he's now

391
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Speaker 5: got warrior He's got warrior shit all over himself, right,

392
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Speaker 5: he's got armor, he's got tattoos over his face. He's

393
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Speaker 5: so bad ass and he hurts people, right, and it

394
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Speaker 5: all if you can kind of back channel it and

395
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Speaker 5: go back in time, he was a little boy who

396
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Speaker 5: had happened to him.

397
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Speaker 6: He was really really harmed.

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Speaker 4: In this hypothetical, semi hypothetical case of the guy with

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Speaker 4: the tattoos. Yeah, uh, how often in his life do

400
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Speaker 4: you think he talked about that childhood abuse to somebody?

401
00:24:08,396 --> 00:24:10,476
Speaker 6: Never hed ever, never talked about it.

402
00:24:11,396 --> 00:24:14,276
Speaker 4: More to the point, no one bothered to ask him

403
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Speaker 4: until she did.

404
00:24:15,996 --> 00:24:18,596
Speaker 5: And then I went and visited his family and interviewed

405
00:24:18,596 --> 00:24:20,916
Speaker 5: all these relatives. It was one hundred percent known. Everybody

406
00:24:20,996 --> 00:24:24,876
Speaker 5: knew this older relative sexually abused kids in the family,

407
00:24:25,156 --> 00:24:31,036
Speaker 5: and particularly had done so with this child. Nothing ever done.

408
00:24:31,476 --> 00:24:37,076
Speaker 5: Imagine no treatment, no assessment, no law enforcement, nothing. Now

409
00:24:37,116 --> 00:24:39,676
Speaker 5: imagine what that does to that kid. Think about the

410
00:24:39,716 --> 00:24:42,836
Speaker 5: growing sense of yourself. I'm gonna get hurt by this person.

411
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Speaker 5: Everyone's gonna know. People are terrifying. They hurt you, and

412
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Speaker 5: there's no recourse ever anywhere.

413
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Speaker 4: The waitress who worked with Kenny's mother remembered this detail

414
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Speaker 4: about Kenny's interactions with his dad at the trial. She said,

415
00:25:02,196 --> 00:25:04,556
Speaker 4: you did not see him go to Jeane or like,

416
00:25:04,916 --> 00:25:06,916
Speaker 4: you know, like a child usually runs up to his

417
00:25:06,996 --> 00:25:09,396
Speaker 4: daddy and approaches him, that he was glad to see him,

418
00:25:09,516 --> 00:25:13,636
Speaker 4: or that his daddy was glad to see him. At first,

419
00:25:13,676 --> 00:25:15,956
Speaker 4: when I read that, I thought she meant that the

420
00:25:15,996 --> 00:25:19,116
Speaker 4: tragedy of Kenny and Jane was that Kenny didn't want

421
00:25:19,156 --> 00:25:22,716
Speaker 4: to run up and hug his father. But after talking

422
00:25:22,756 --> 00:25:27,116
Speaker 4: to Kate Porterfield, I realized, No, it's much worse. It's

423
00:25:27,196 --> 00:25:29,316
Speaker 4: that he wanted to run up and hug his father,

424
00:25:29,836 --> 00:25:34,396
Speaker 4: but understood even at that age that that was impossible.

425
00:25:36,876 --> 00:25:41,036
Speaker 4: Kenny Smith's crime was not committed in isolation. It was

426
00:25:41,076 --> 00:25:42,636
Speaker 4: a violent act that came at the end of a

427
00:25:42,676 --> 00:25:43,476
Speaker 4: long cascade.

428
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Speaker 5: We like people to either be victims or bad guys, right,

429
00:25:50,156 --> 00:25:53,236
Speaker 5: and so victims are people that things happened to, and

430
00:25:53,516 --> 00:25:55,836
Speaker 5: people who do bad things are just people who do

431
00:25:55,876 --> 00:26:01,756
Speaker 5: bad things. And the area that I think were woefully missing,

432
00:26:01,796 --> 00:26:05,316
Speaker 5: as especially in criminal justice, is seeing that people who

433
00:26:05,316 --> 00:26:08,316
Speaker 5: do things that are against the law or even violent

434
00:26:08,516 --> 00:26:14,156
Speaker 5: or even murder are usually or frequently doing that themselves

435
00:26:14,196 --> 00:26:20,636
Speaker 5: having suffered really bad harm, hurt, maltreatment, abuse, violence. People

436
00:26:20,756 --> 00:26:22,436
Speaker 5: have a hard time recognizing that a lot of bad

437
00:26:22,476 --> 00:26:23,996
Speaker 5: behaviors come out of trauma too.

438
00:26:29,236 --> 00:26:31,556
Speaker 4: At the very beginning of this series, I played an

439
00:26:31,556 --> 00:26:34,996
Speaker 4: excerpt of part of my conversation with Kate Porterfield. It

440
00:26:35,076 --> 00:26:37,276
Speaker 4: was about the first time she saw Kenny Smith in

441
00:26:37,316 --> 00:26:40,996
Speaker 4: person at home in prison in December of twenty twenty two,

442
00:26:41,396 --> 00:26:44,916
Speaker 4: about a month after the botched execution. And now I

443
00:26:44,956 --> 00:26:47,396
Speaker 4: want to play it again because now I think it

444
00:26:47,436 --> 00:26:50,276
Speaker 4: will make more sense, It will be easier to see

445
00:26:50,276 --> 00:26:53,276
Speaker 4: why this case, out of the many Kate Porterfield has

446
00:26:53,316 --> 00:26:55,156
Speaker 4: done affected her so deeply.

447
00:26:57,556 --> 00:27:01,276
Speaker 5: When I first went to see Kenny, he wanted to

448
00:27:01,316 --> 00:27:04,956
Speaker 5: talk for the first probably two hours of our visit

449
00:27:05,676 --> 00:27:09,876
Speaker 5: about how beautiful his goodbyes were and the love he

450
00:27:09,956 --> 00:27:12,916
Speaker 5: received from his family as he was going into the execution.

451
00:27:13,236 --> 00:27:14,476
Speaker 6: That's what he wanted to start with.

452
00:27:15,476 --> 00:27:20,076
Speaker 5: And I found this so powerful and also fascinating honestly

453
00:27:20,116 --> 00:27:25,156
Speaker 5: as a clinician, because what I first thought was, Oh,

454
00:27:25,196 --> 00:27:28,236
Speaker 5: he's avoiding, right, he can't talk about the execution. He

455
00:27:28,556 --> 00:27:30,876
Speaker 5: spent a lot of time telling me the story of

456
00:27:30,876 --> 00:27:33,916
Speaker 5: everything else, the goodbyes, the phone calls, the last meal,

457
00:27:34,356 --> 00:27:35,876
Speaker 5: what people said to him. I mean, he went through

458
00:27:35,916 --> 00:27:40,156
Speaker 5: each family member, his grandson, his mom. So he told

459
00:27:40,156 --> 00:27:42,276
Speaker 5: me all about his last visit with her and saying

460
00:27:42,316 --> 00:27:45,236
Speaker 5: goodbye to her, her walking out of the visiting room

461
00:27:45,276 --> 00:27:47,556
Speaker 5: and turning back to him, you know, and.

462
00:27:47,556 --> 00:27:50,396
Speaker 6: It was all about love.

463
00:27:51,196 --> 00:27:53,756
Speaker 5: He talked to me about love for probably two two

464
00:27:53,796 --> 00:28:00,116
Speaker 5: and a half hours, so he really kind of got me.

465
00:28:00,836 --> 00:28:04,316
Speaker 5: He made me really pause and think a lot, Kenny Smith,

466
00:28:04,356 --> 00:28:07,756
Speaker 5: because watching someone only start from a place of love

467
00:28:08,076 --> 00:28:10,836
Speaker 5: after something so hard was I'd never seen that before.

468
00:28:12,276 --> 00:28:13,676
Speaker 4: You don't think he was avoiding the.

469
00:28:13,716 --> 00:28:15,356
Speaker 6: Subject well, I think he was in a way.

470
00:28:15,476 --> 00:28:17,716
Speaker 5: I think both were true, and I would and I

471
00:28:17,796 --> 00:28:19,076
Speaker 5: ultimately we got to know each other well, and I

472
00:28:19,076 --> 00:28:21,596
Speaker 5: could tease him a little and say, you know, you know,

473
00:28:21,636 --> 00:28:23,356
Speaker 5: you got the gift of gab, Kenny, you're really good

474
00:28:23,396 --> 00:28:25,436
Speaker 5: at like keeping me off the stuff that and he

475
00:28:25,476 --> 00:28:26,956
Speaker 5: would just laugh and say, oh, yeah, I don't want

476
00:28:26,956 --> 00:28:28,396
Speaker 5: to go there. I don't want to go there, Doc.

477
00:28:28,876 --> 00:28:30,996
Speaker 5: And he would say, I get nauseous, I start sweating,

478
00:28:31,036 --> 00:28:32,516
Speaker 5: I can't do it. Don't make me do it, Doc.

479
00:28:32,596 --> 00:28:34,396
Speaker 5: So like we got to a place where we knew

480
00:28:34,396 --> 00:28:37,036
Speaker 5: what avoidance was. But I don't think that's.

481
00:28:38,596 --> 00:28:39,396
Speaker 6: The whole ballgame.

482
00:28:39,476 --> 00:28:41,436
Speaker 5: I think what really happened is that I got to

483
00:28:41,476 --> 00:28:44,636
Speaker 5: have this time with this man who thought he was

484
00:28:44,636 --> 00:28:47,356
Speaker 5: about to die and had a pre death experience of

485
00:28:47,396 --> 00:28:48,276
Speaker 5: intense love.

486
00:28:53,756 --> 00:28:56,156
Speaker 4: There's a famous quote from the Arc critic John Ruskin,

487
00:28:56,956 --> 00:28:59,636
Speaker 4: hundreds of people can talk for one who can think,

488
00:29:00,476 --> 00:29:04,316
Speaker 4: but thousands can think for one who can see. After

489
00:29:04,356 --> 00:29:07,076
Speaker 4: a lifetime working with people who had suffered great trauma,

490
00:29:07,796 --> 00:29:13,516
Speaker 4: Kate Porterfield was the one who could see. And what

491
00:29:13,636 --> 00:29:16,676
Speaker 4: she saw was a very different version of Kenny Smith,

492
00:29:17,916 --> 00:29:21,876
Speaker 4: someone in pain over what had happened and what was

493
00:29:21,916 --> 00:29:22,276
Speaker 4: to come.

494
00:29:26,716 --> 00:29:31,036
Speaker 5: And he was just having severe nightmares of being executed

495
00:29:31,596 --> 00:29:32,236
Speaker 5: over and over.

496
00:29:32,796 --> 00:29:34,516
Speaker 6: So he was really tormented at night.

497
00:29:35,196 --> 00:29:37,716
Speaker 5: Then during the day he'd be exhausted, he had a

498
00:29:37,756 --> 00:29:40,956
Speaker 5: ton of nausea, and he had a lot of images

499
00:29:40,996 --> 00:29:44,076
Speaker 5: coming back to him over and over again. And then

500
00:29:44,596 --> 00:29:46,876
Speaker 5: on top of that starts the meaning making, and the

501
00:29:46,916 --> 00:29:52,236
Speaker 5: meaning making started to really be dark. After, you know,

502
00:29:52,876 --> 00:29:55,476
Speaker 5: several weeks, he started to really think about what had happened,

503
00:29:55,476 --> 00:29:57,436
Speaker 5: that these people who he knew had done it.

504
00:29:57,396 --> 00:29:59,636
Speaker 6: To him, How can people.

505
00:29:59,436 --> 00:30:00,916
Speaker 5: Do this to other people? You know, he started to

506
00:30:00,916 --> 00:30:03,356
Speaker 5: get really and then he got depressed. He just got

507
00:30:03,476 --> 00:30:08,436
Speaker 5: full undepressed. He was actually doing pretty much post traumatic

508
00:30:08,476 --> 00:30:11,036
Speaker 5: stress symptoms at first, and then he moved into depression

509
00:30:11,076 --> 00:30:14,156
Speaker 5: in the spring, and then that kind of worsened for

510
00:30:14,196 --> 00:30:15,516
Speaker 5: a while and then he sort of came out of

511
00:30:15,516 --> 00:30:18,316
Speaker 5: the depression and then the second execution came up.

512
00:30:21,156 --> 00:30:27,276
Speaker 4: The second execution, the State of Alabama wasn't finished with

513
00:30:27,396 --> 00:30:39,156
Speaker 4: Kenny Smith coming up on the series finale of the

514
00:30:39,196 --> 00:30:40,236
Speaker 4: Alabama Murders.

515
00:30:42,596 --> 00:30:50,116
Speaker 7: They said, well, mom, they're coming to Kidney and you know,

516
00:30:50,156 --> 00:30:54,476
Speaker 7: weisted our good pass and you know, the life the

517
00:30:54,556 --> 00:30:58,196
Speaker 7: thing he said, was I love you, Mom, I've got

518
00:30:58,316 --> 00:30:58,476
Speaker 7: to go.

519
00:31:01,876 --> 00:31:06,836
Speaker 3: So the theory was that because nitrogen gas was not noxious,

520
00:31:07,476 --> 00:31:10,556
Speaker 3: it would be could be given to some one as

521
00:31:10,596 --> 00:31:14,836
Speaker 3: a kind of, you know, method of gas execution that

522
00:31:14,956 --> 00:31:18,756
Speaker 3: would not be so troubling to them because they would

523
00:31:18,756 --> 00:31:22,756
Speaker 3: breathe it and not know it and if they would

524
00:31:22,756 --> 00:31:26,836
Speaker 3: then lose consciousness and die.

525
00:31:27,676 --> 00:31:31,556
Speaker 2: I'm not a medical person. I can't opine on the

526
00:31:32,996 --> 00:31:35,356
Speaker 2: on what happened. The only one who can tell us

527
00:31:35,476 --> 00:31:39,436
Speaker 2: if he experienced pain and is not here to describe it.

528
00:31:42,036 --> 00:31:44,076
Speaker 4: But what I observed.

529
00:31:43,596 --> 00:31:47,836
Speaker 2: Anyhow, did not look like what Alabama had advertised.

530
00:31:58,276 --> 00:32:01,756
Speaker 4: Revisionous History is produced by Lucy Sullivan, bend A daf Haffrey,

531
00:32:02,076 --> 00:32:06,036
Speaker 4: Anina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by Benda daf Haffrey and

532
00:32:06,156 --> 00:32:10,196
Speaker 4: Lee Hedgebeth. Our editor is Karen Shakerji. Fact checking by

533
00:32:10,276 --> 00:32:14,556
Speaker 4: Kate Furby. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Production support

534
00:32:14,596 --> 00:32:18,556
Speaker 4: from Luke LeMond. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, Original scoring

535
00:32:18,596 --> 00:32:22,476
Speaker 4: by Luis Guerra with Paul Brainard and Jimmy Bott. Sound

536
00:32:22,476 --> 00:32:38,076
Speaker 4: design and additional music by Jake Gorski him Malcolm Gladmam.

537
00:32:38,916 --> 00:32:42,796
Speaker 4: You can get this entire season now add free by

538
00:32:42,836 --> 00:32:46,916
Speaker 4: subscribing to Revisionist History on pushkin Plus. Sign up on

539
00:32:46,956 --> 00:32:50,916
Speaker 4: the show page on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin fm,

540
00:32:51,196 --> 00:32:56,356
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541
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Speaker 4: full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all pushkin

542
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