The truth of matter was, stories were everything and everything was stories.

Everybody told stories.

It was a way of seeing who they were in the world.

It was their understanding of themselves. Okay, number 25 on my execution log was on July 26th of 2000, and it was a man named Juan Seria.

Right before his execution, Saria had actually attacked an elderly chaplain

at the Polensky unit. This chaplain had reached in because Soria had said that he wanted to hold his hand

and pray. When he did, he had a rope and he used it to tie the chaplain's hand so that he couldn't

pull it back and he began slashing him with a razor

and the chaplain was taken to a hospital and later died never recovered.

Apparently right before his execution he had tried to kill himself and he was a self-mutilator

so he was a cutter and these are the notes that I took.

Because he'd been on suicide watch, Saria wasn't given access to shaving gear or haircuts,

but apparently he was told he could have both on his day of his execution.

He declined them, so the result was this crazy, wild growth of hair, both on his head

and all around his face and neck.

He looked like a wild caveman, and I've been hiding in the woods type.

He looked at the ceiling pretty much the entire time.

His arms were covered with towels to cover up all of his wounds, which I'd been told were

pretty nasty.

He was really soft-spoken, nobody could tell what he was saying.

I did get the impression that this guy was far from being all with it.

He talked and talked in this really low voice, and every once in a while you'd pick up an audible word.

...