Smile: The Mystery of the Gun in the Typewriter
In 1995, a loaded gun was found inside an inmate’s modified typewriter on Virginia’s death row. How did it get there?
This is an excerpt from my latest book, “Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia,” available worldwide at all online sellers.
LONG TIME VIRGINIA DEATH ROW INMATE WILLIE LLOYD TURNER once claimed to journalist Laura Lafay that he resented corrections officials’ attempts to make him “sound like an amateur, like a fool.”
Turner turned the tables on them.
A firestorm of controversy surrounded the execution of Turner for the 1978 murder of W. Jack Smith, Jr. Turner’s death by lethal injection on May 25, 1995 ended what was at the time the most extended death row term in Virginia history. The 49-year-old had refused to seek clemency from Gov. George Allen after being turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The controversy surrounded not the execution but what happened one hour afterward.
On death row, Turner wrote an 800-page account of his 15 years of incarceration titled “The Real Deal” on a Smith-Corona typewriter. Weeks before his execution, he told his attorney, Walter J. Walvick, that he should take a…
