IN MEMORIAM:
KEITH DANIEL WILLIAMS
by Steven King Ainsworth
I AM STARTING THIS WRITING on March 11, 1996. Somewhere in Merced County,
California, a judge of the Superior Court will wake up this morning, shower,
shave, eat breakfast, kiss his wife goodbye, and drive to the county court
house, where he will dress in black robes, mount an elevated dais, and preside
over a gathering of attorneys. He, in concert with the others, will decide
the exact date and precise time that the State of California will kill my
best friend.
There will not be much bickering or argument at this court hearing. The
county, the state with all its power and money, holds all the cards. My
friend of 16 years has none. No money, no power, and nowhere to turn. In
fact, he won't even be in the courtroom. His fate will be decided in a remote
act far from his death row cell, where my friend will awaken, wash his face,
and eat a breakfast of hard-boiled egg and rehydrated potato. What won't
be said at this hearing or in the days to come that will culminate in his
being strapped down to a table in cruciform, his arms outstretched, his
veins punctured by stainless steel hypodermic needles, and his live body
filled with a poisonous mixture of drugs until he is declared dead-is that
he is a human being and a good friend. Despite how much the state and media
try to stigmatize him with the animal label, I will remember Danny for his
humanity, his laughter, his pain, his heart, his comforting words, his kindness
and compassion.
I first met Keith Daniel Williams (Danny) in 1980, when he yelled down the
tier to me from his cell on death row, asking me if I needed anything. Did
I need some coffee, tobacco, stamps, envelopes, writing paper or a book
to read? Having just gotten up to the shelf (as death row was called back
then) from the adjustment center, nine days after being sentenced to death
in Sacramento County, I had nothing, and yelled back, "Yes, who am
I talking to?" The voice replied, "This is Danny in Cell 28!"
A while later a guard brought a brown paper bag to my cell with some coffee,
tobacco, stamps, envelopes, writing paper, a paperback book, and a note
written in shaky handwriting, telling me the dynamics of the row and advising
me which exercise yard group to ask for. About a week later I met Danny
face-to-face in the birdcage yard atop the North cell block where the then-27
men condemned to death exercised.
Over the years Danny and I became close friends. Friendship is a rarity
in here, as everyone plays it close to his chest, and very seldom allows
others to become privy to his innermost thoughts. Danny was different, and
I felt a kinship with him. Hell, we could relate. We both had a lot of time
under the gun; he a little more than I, having started his convict career
at age 9 as a ward of the State. Both of us had been through the crucible
of gladiator school at DVI in Tracy and progressed through the penal system,
ultimately ending up on death row at San Quentin. We would chuckle when
we heard the governor talk about career criminals. Shit! We were career
convicts! Between us we had over 60 years in custody!
Danny shared my joy at seeing my infant son in 1980. A few years later in
1984, when my shit hit the fan and I spun out . . . screaming, yelling,
crying, and pleading for the gunrail to shoot me, it was Danny who stepped
between the gun and me and pushed me into my cell, warning me that the goon
squad was coming. I had allowed my street problems, a wayward wife, no visits
with my son, a dying mother, and frustration with the courts to get to me.
Danny tried to calm me down, but I was beyond help and continued to rant
and rave. Lighting my cell afire and forcing a confrontation with the guards,
I was tasered, forcibly extracted from my burned-out cell, and sent to the
hole for a year.
Danny kept in touch with me, sending messages to see how I was doing. When
my mother died in 1985, he was the first person to console me through my
grief. I did the same for him when his daughter was killed by a hit-and-run
driver. Oh yes, even condemned killers lose family members to crime and
feel much the same emotions that other victims of crime feel.
Danny liked to pull a practical joke now and then. One time when there was
a tour of civilians up on the shelf looking down the death row tier, he
put a big dust bunny that had broken broom straws in it down the back of
another convict's pants! The convict thought it was a mouse and when he
slapped his backside, he thought the mouse had bit him! Yelling and jumping
about, he took off his pants and boxer shorts right there in front of the
tour! We all were trying to cover up our snickers and guffaws! Later, the
guy found out Danny was the culprit and played a joke on him. He put some
jalapeno juice in the top end of Danny's tube of Preparation H! It didn't
work! Some days later we asked Danny if he used any of it. He said yes,
and thought it was real good medicine because it burned so bad! Ha!
After a seven-year hiatus I was able to have my son brought up to San Quentin
for a visit. He didn't remember me as he was only 3 when I last saw him.
Danny was in the visiting room, and I introduced him to my son and they
became friends. Danny told him that I spoke of my son often and loved him
and that my son should be proud of me. Later, my son told me what Danny
had said, and I responded that I was happy that he was proud of me, but
that he should always keep in mind that there are victims of my crimes that
he should also think about. Danny agreed with me, and we both talked about
remorse and restorative justice and how difficult it is for a capital defendant
to publicly address these issues.
Over the years, when Danny h ad the opportunity to talk with younger, non-condemned
convicts, I heard him advise them to turn away from crime and control their
anti-social behavior, advising them that the path they were on would only
lead to a life of pain and sorrow and that by recidivating they were playing
The Man's game. He would coach these young men, no matter what their race.
It was as if he could look into their eyes and see himself at 25 and did
not want them to repeat the cycle of drugs, alcohol, crime, and imprisonment
that he had gone through.
Each time we would receive a bad decision by the court and be scheduled
to be executed, we both would want to give up and die, but I would tell
him and he would tell me, "What good would it do? What message would
we be leaving our children? How would it affect those on the row left behind
us?"
Danny encouraged me in my art and other creative endeavors. He enjoyed sending
xerox copies of my black-and-white drawings to his friends and family. I
enjoyed introducing Danny to my friends and family, and we often arranged
our visits so we could have group visits together. Sometimes there would
be an at-risk teenager in the group, and Danny would tell him that he and
I and our ilk were not role models and that he should look to parents and
teachers as heroes and stay in school.
Danny knew the value of education. Because of his early contact with the
penal powers, he had to teach himself to read and write in a prison cell.
He read voraciously and at times found great wonder in words. He knew what
he had missed and felt great sadness at the decline of public education
in California and the nation. He expressed exasperation over society's prison-building
boom and the incarceration of so many young lives at the expense of education
and quality schools.
One of the most surprising things to me was that Danny was even able to
think. In the late sixties, after an event similar to the one that sent
me to the hole, Danny was subjected to electroshock therapy at Vacaville.
He managed to survive that! He struggled with speech and memory ever since,
and it amazed me that he was even able to put two sentences together. In
the late eighties, facing periodic execution dates , I undertook researching
my son's genealogy so that he might know his ancestry. I told Danny what
I was doing, and he expressed an interest in doing the same for his grandchildren
(yes, he was a doting grandpa!) and asked if I would help him. I did, and
after some correspondence across the nation we found a preponderance of
evidence that Danny was the descendant of early Saxon, Norman, and Celtic
royals. His family came to America in the 1600s and settled in Texas with
Stephen Austin's early colonists in the 1830s.
Over the years, Danny and I both have lost family members to crime, alcohol,
drugs, suicide, incarceration, and death. With each loss, I could count
on him to help me through the hard depressing times. He was there as my
friend, and I am very glad for it.
Danny's mother died in 1995, and though I did my best to console him, her
passing and a bad court decision moved Danny to publicly express a desire
to be executed. He asked me to help him, and for the first time I told him
no, I would not help him die. The Attorney General did not act on Danny's
desire, probably because there is a real question of Danny's competence
to make such a decision.
I could not say goodbye to him. I did not want to. I told him to send me
a sign. Not a white feather like John and Julian Lennon's , but a sign nonetheless,
if it is better on the other side.
Keith Daniel Williams was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State
Prison on 3 May, 1996. His poisoned cadaver joins the rising body count
from death row since reinstatement of capital punishment in 1977.
The State raised him from the age of 9, fried his brain at 25, and killed
him at 51. I do not think the world is any better for it!
STEVEN KING AINSWORTH, C-13201, Death Row, San Quentin, CA 94974