When he worked as warden of Florida State Prison from 1996 to 1998, Ron McAndrew gave the signal to flip the switch on three executions. But when one went wrong, it nearly destroyed him. He'd spend night after night watching the fan spin, haunted by the dead. His attempts to numb himself with a bottle of whiskey a day only made everything worse. His wife begged him to see a therapist. He finally did.

It helped. Now, at seventy-five, he works seven days a week as a prison consultant and a death penalty abolitionist. When we talk, he's full of life at six in the morning, babysitting his granddaughter's dogs. He's in a good mood as he gets down to telling his story. He says it all started with some French perfume in Vietnam...

he last place I ever expected to find myself working was in a prison. It simply wasn't me. I was never designed for this kind of work—or at least I didn't think I was.

I had worked for a European firm for almost twenty years. I worked in Europe, I worked in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and finally in Hawaii. I dealt in French fragrances, primarily. We sold only to duty-free outfits, like the U.S. military. As the Vietnam War started out in the early sixties, this company, Bluebell International, was looking for somebody who could speak English and French, and could handle the business in Vietnam. In Vietnam in the mid-'60s, we had over five hundred thousand GIs stationed there. Huge business. I used to walk out of the Army and Air Force office in Saigon with purchase orders in my shirt pocket that totaled several million dollars. It was a huge business for the French fragrance industry.

But the war ended, and I had some problems with the company. I was fired. I left Hawaii and wound up in Florida, thinking I could start a small business of some kind down in Dade County. It was just me and my dog, because I was divorced—for a second time. Time went on and I just couldn't get myself wrapped around anything productive in terms of income. I had a high school–aged son back in France and it was becoming worrisome for me.

One day, somebody said, "Hey, Ron, why don't you go down to the prison? They're desperate for help." I needed a job and I needed health insurance. I went into the personnel office and they said, "Well, you have to take the test. There are sixty questions. You have an hour to take it. And you have to pass it. It's a state law."

I sat down at a folding table and it was one of those multiple-choice things where you color in the little blocks. And I started to color one in and, over my shoulder, peeking, the guy in the personnel office said, Nuh-uh-uh. So, I went to another one and he said, Uh-huh. I got a hundred on the test.

I went down at ten o'clock in the morning and by four in the afternoon I was in uniform and working at that prison. That's how desperate they were. That's how desperate I was. They literally gave me the keys to a dormitory and I was put in charge of one hundred and forty-five inmates. I didn't know what to do. And the inmates realized that I didn't know what to do. So, they volunteered to give me a hand and help me out. My first trainers were the inmates.

In the first weeks, I'd never hated anything so much in my life. It reminded me of basic training, when I was in the Air Force, sharing a room with sixty other men. I wasn't wearing a three-piece suit and flying first class on Pan Am. I was working in a prison with some really low-life kinds of people. But I had to have this job and I kept saying I'll just do it for another week.

Before I knew it, a couple of months had passed. I found out that I was pretty good at this. I had no training, but my dormitory was the honor dorm. It was the cleanest dorm on the compound. My colleagues, the other officers, started making some really negative comments to me. They were saying things like "What are you giving those convicts? What are you doing to get all this cooperation?"

Even the lieutenant made that comment: "Oh, Mac, what in the hell are you doing for them convicts?" I said, "I tell you what, lieutenant, I speak a foreign language to them and it gets me all kinds of cooperation." "What kind of fucking foreign language?" Those were his exact words. "Well, I use words like please, thank you, how about, would you mind, good job, and hey how's it going." I just treated them the way I wanted to be treated.

My efforts were recognized. We had an escape one night. Five inmates, on my birthday in 1979. I was working overtime that night—a sixteen-hour shift because somebody didn't show up. And I wound up out on post. So when they ran, I opened fire. I wounded two or three of them. It was enough to scare the others, and we were able to get everyone back into the institution. Nobody got killed—a couple of them got some buckshot in their legs and their ankles—but it made me some kind of a hero. Within a month I was a sergeant.

I used to look up at the warden's office and say, "I want that guy's job. I want his job. I want to run this place."

In 1992, I was asked to put in for a warden's position. They had four positions open statewide and they would not tell you which prison you would be assigned to. Two of them were in really bad locations. But my wife knew that this was my goal. My ultimate goal. I didn't want to be a regional director. I didn't want to run the Florida Department of Corrections. I wanted to be a warden. I just had it in my mind that the warden was the heartbeat of the institution.

I was selected, and I couldn't believe it: They told me I was going to open a new prison. And it was in a prison that had stood empty for four years, because the local community and the county commission did not want a prison in their neighborhood. My number one job was getting buy-in from the community. So, I opened up Gulf Correctional Institution and this was the biggest success of my career.

Within four and a half, almost five years, I knew I was going to be transferred. Prison wardens don't stay in a place longer than four years. They move you around the state. I told my wife they were going to move me at any time. So, I put in for Florida State Prison.

Harry K. Singletary Jr., who was the secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, called me and told me he had selected me for warden of Florida State Prison. He said, "I'm going to need you to go there right away." But then he said, "Ron, I have one very important question I have to ask you and I need an immediate answer. Are you going to have any problems, whatsoever, carrying out death warrants?" My answer was instant. "No, sir," I said. "I support the death penalty. It will not be a problem for me. It's an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as far as Ron McAndrew is concerned."

I was raised in the Deep South—on a dirt road off another dirt road in an old frame house—by my grandparents. They had a copy of the Old Testament and they had a copy of the New Testament. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was something I heard more than one time.

o the warden, your everyday inmate on death row is just another convict in a cell on death row. Until the death warrant arrives. Suddenly, he's no longer a person with a number. You start getting to know him. You're going to be visiting with him every day for twenty to thirty-five days. You suddenly realize that he's an individual. He's not just a number. He suddenly becomes human.

On the day of an execution, at 3 A.M., I'd arrive at the prison. I never parked my car where it says "Reserved for the Warden," because I didn't want anybody coming here to know that car belonged to me. At 3:45 I would visit with the condemned and make sure that his final requested meal was being prepared, and that it was going to be delivered by at least 5:15. I would check his status. I would check the death room. I would visit with the executioner, who was, by this time, on the site. My colonel would pick him up and bring him through the back gate with a hood over his head so nobody could identify him. I made sure that he was well hidden and well accommodated. I would show him the $150 that I was going to be giving him after the execution, because that's what they paid.

I'd visit with the colonel and make sure that the death team was ready to meet with me. From 4:15 to 4:30, I'd meet with the death team. I had a special room. I'd feel out each member. I'd sort of go around the room, chatting with the guys, making sure no one had any alcohol on their breath and nobody was looking real timid or scared.

At 6:45, I'd go into the death cell and sit on the bunk next to the condemned. I'd have a personal, quiet talk with him, and I'd let him know it was time. I'd read him the death warrant. I'd make certain his head and his right leg had been properly shaved. That he'd been dressed in new black slacks and a white shirt.

At 6:55, I would allow the deputy warden of operations and the colonel to use the lead clamps. These are clamps you put on someone's wrists. And I would tell him, "This is to help you, so you won't be embarrassed if you get rubber legs. If you start feeling a little wobbly, they're going to have their arm underneath your armpit on each side and they're going to help you get into the room."

We had a system for strapping the condemned into the chair immediately. I'd place the microphone next to the condemned's mouth and ask him if he had any last words, and I would allow him to speak. I then would go to the captain with the phone and I would address the governor, asking him again if there were any stays. After the governor had told me, "There are no stays, there are no stays," I would thank him and I would return to the condemned. I'd have the mask pulled over his face. I'd give the secret signal to the executioner, who was hiding behind a wall, and who would turn the electrical current on.

had some good crutches. I had the crutch of pretense. I had to put on a real good face like none of this was bothering me. Then there was the red wine, cognac, and pills. Thank God for a very supportive wife. The scars are so goddamn clear it's scary. All just so some little asshole of a governor could pound his little chest and scream, Vote for me because I'm hard on crime.

My last electrocution at Florida State Prison was the Pedro Medina execution. Pedro was an inmate I really got to know before his death. I read all his files, the pre-sentence investigation, all the documents.

This was my third execution. As I told the executioner to turn on the electricity, there was a pop. Immediately following the pop, there was a plume of smoke that came from beneath the helmet, sort of out in front of my face, with a bad odor. Then there was a long flame. It was a flame that dipped down out of the helmet and in front of my face. It almost hit me. The flame was so long. I was standing two and a half, three feet away from the electric chair. I couldn't believe it. For the next eleven minutes, instead of electrocuting this man, we burned him to death. We literally burned him to death. I'll never forget the muscles in his body, the twisting, the clenching of his fists, his toes turning apart like they were being pried apart by a wrench. It was the most ghastly thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of dead people in my time.

Two or three days later, I got a call from Governor [Lawton] Chiles. He said, "Listen, it's too bad we had that mess. That really hurt. The legislature is not going to let us have another electrocution. We gotta get the needle out." He said, "I talked to Governor Bush"—George W.—"down in Texas. I made arrangements for you to go down there and work with the death team."

I went to Huntsville, Texas. They had a bachelor office suite set up for me there so I could live right around the corner from where the execution chamber is. I did a lethal injection that week. Then, over a period of three months, worked five more. Learned how to do it. I was told not to write down anything, because once you write it down the media owns it. You memorize everything. You bring all of that knowledge back to Florida.

n the meantime, I was starting to have what you could call a mental confrontation. I don't know if it was the stress of that last execution or what, but suddenly I couldn't sleep at all. Not without drinking a lot of liquor. A lot of wine. Not without taking sleeping pills. My doctor at Veteran's Affairs was starting to caution me about the number of sleeping pills I was asking for. He was asking me about my drinking habits.

It was starting to get really bad, because, mixed in with all this, I started to have some horrible nightmares. It was the faces of the men that I executed. I woke up and saw them literally sitting on the edge of my bed. I'd moved over to make room for them. They didn't say anything to me. They just looked. If I had a nightmare at midnight, I did not sleep the rest of the night. I'd watch the paddle fan until the alarm went off at 4 a.m.

I was having a hard time getting a grip on things. I had called Mr. Singletary, the corrections secretary, and told him, "I need a big favor"—because we were getting ready to start these lethal injections. I said, "Please get me out of here."

Within two weeks, I was back in Orlando, where I had worked as a deputy warden.

But leaving Florida State Prison did not bring me back to a healthy level. It was really, really bad. It had my wife scared to death. She called my doctor at the VA. He told me, "Listen, we have a psychologist here. She and you have a lot in common. She used to work in a prison and some of her clients were inmates who have since been executed up in Virginia. She worked with some of the offenders and even some of the staff who had to deal with this."

Because my wife had been all over me about this, I agreed. And the woman I saw that time is still my therapist. I don't drink any hard liquor anymore. I don't take sleeping pills, except once in a while. And I'm doing a lot better.

About a year after leaving Florida State Prison, I'd had all the thinking and all the nightmares that I could stand about the death penalty. I needed to make up my mind about it. It was not a bolt of lightning. I didn't have a light in the sky. It was just a dull awakening one day, when I had this wonderful feeling of relief. It was the feeling that the death penalty was wrong, that I should have known it was wrong, and that I would pull up my bootstraps and I'd do something about it. No matter who disagreed, no matter who it pissed off. I knew it was wrong. I knew the right thing to do was to fight it.

Ron McAndrew has fought the death penalty before state senates in Montana and Nebraska. He's fought the death penalty as an expert witness in Florida and Georgia. He's fought the death penalty alongside other wardens and activists and exonerated prisoners—including one man, Juan Melendez, who had been an inmate on McAndrew's own death row. And he's gotten into other fights, too. He joined two amicus briefs on the abuse of post-9/11 federal detainees in New York City ("You wouldn't believe how these guys were treated for fourteen, sixteen months—I mean, totally innocent"). In March of 2012, he worked on the case of Charles Toll, who suffocated to death during a cell extraction in Tennessee. McAndrew now has forty or fifty active cases, and he's hitting that old stride, when he first worked at the prison, when he couldn't get that uniform on fast enough and get to work.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io