HUNTSVILLE, Texas – "He gasped what seemed to be four or five times," Michelle Lyons read from her personal journal.
It's filled with such stories about death. "I got the impression he was trying to fight," she continued.
She wrote about the stories of people, men and women, who took their final breath in front of her eyes.
"Many, many people asked me if I really was OK and I really was," Lyons wrote. She added, "I felt bad, like am I supposed to be upset about this?"
For 10 years Lyons served as spokesperson for the Texas Prison System and estimates she witnessed around 280 executions.
It was her job to watch as condemned inmates were put to death so she could later answer questions from reporters around the world.
She described the process as clinical.
"The inmate would lay on the gurney and be strapped to the gurney and the IV lines would be established," Lyons told Local 2 reporter Jace Larson. "You never knew what was going to be said in the last statement. There were times I saw a lot of anger from the inmate. There were times I saw sincere emotion and apologies."
(Mobile users click here to see the raw video.)
Lyons wants to make it clear that she supports the death penalty, but her feelings for those on death row have changed over the years.
"As time shifted and you see more about the world and became a parent. I began seeing it wasn't so black and white. There was a lot of gray in the middle," Lyons said.
"I never saw an execution where I thought, you know, this person didn't do it. I did see executions where I felt troubled because I thought, 'That person, if given another chance, could be redeemed.'"
Lyons is a mom, and it was hard for her to watch the victims' mothers or the inmates' mothers go through this process.
"There is nothing you love more than your child and to see some of those women and how strong they had to be for their son, watching them die was extremely hard," said Lyons.
Read Jace's blog about interviewing Lyons here: http://jacelarsontv.blogspot.com/
Today, Lyons no longer works for the prison system. She's had a chance to reflect on everything she's seen.
"I realized for a long time, a big chunk of my life, I had done something really heavy and it bothered me, in a way it bothered me that I had seen all that," she said.
Have a tip for investigative reporter Jace Larson? Email jlarson@kprc.com or call/send him a text at 713-635-9941.
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