A quick heads up before we get started. This episode contains a description of what it's like to witness an execution.

This description comes right at the top of the show. We think it's worth your ears anyway.

When I reached Reverend Jeff Hood, he was in a hotel room in Florida.

His kids were still in bed behind him, and he was getting ready to go to what he calls

a murder rehearsal.

This rehearsal was for the killing of an inmate, a man who is 74 years old and scheduled to be

executed this Thursday. The rehearsal was a chance for prison officials to meet up with

witnesses and explain the run of show, for lack of a better term. This will be the 12th

execution reverendhood is witnessing.

He travels all over the country, ministering to people on death row, sometimes to the very end.

Have you witnessed a good execution?

Well, none of them are good.

But there are some that function certainly more systematically than others.

I've seen at this point nine lethal injections and two nitrogen executions.

And the nine lethal injections look like, you know, going to recess in comparison to the nitrogen executions. You know, I compare them to a gas chamber and a mask. The mask extends from sort of the

hair line to underneath the chin. It's filled with nitrogen until the person practically suffocates to death.

And so as fluids come out of the mouth and the nose and boogers and saliva and all, you know,

eye gunk and all this kind of stuff is coming out, it's catching at the front of the mask

and sort of drizzling down like a waterfall.

That sounds horrific.

It is.

And it's incredibly traumatic.

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