Prison officials found 46-year-old Tremane Wood unresponsive on his cell floor and rushed him to the hospital shortly after he got the news he and his family had been hoping for, from the Governor. Woods was granted clemency exactly 1 minute before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, so how did he end up hospitalized with a busted head and lip? Later in the day, a much different scene in Florida, where that state executed its 16th inmate of the year, more than 4 decades after Bryan Jennings brutally murdered 6-year-old Becky Kunash.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, folks, it is Friday, November fourteenth. Yesterday, two executions
were planned in the United States. In one, the guy
got clemency but still ended up in the hospital, and
in the other, the guy was asked if he had
any final words, and he gave only a one word answer,
(00:24):
and with that, everybody, welcome to this episode of Amy
and TJ. Kind of an extraordinary week robes when it
comes to executions in the extraordinary year, I should say,
but even within this year, this was an extraordinary week
in last night, extraordinary night, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
We had so many headlines coming out of death Row yesterday,
some from Oklahoma and the other from Florida. And what
happened we obviously have this is This is I don't know,
episode number three. Perhaps we have taken to actually focus
some of our attention to Tremaine Wood's case, but this
is an exceptional situation where we had, in an extremely
(01:01):
rare move, the governor commuting his death sentence one minute
you said you checked all the local reports.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I couldn't believe it. I mean that it's being officially
given as one minute before ten am local time, which
is when he was scheduled to die. The call came
in that the governor had commuted his sentence. Look, it's
better than coming at ten on one, But my god,
can you imagine. So that was high, high and really broke.
(01:29):
We talk about the high drama of that, even it
was high drama last week even at his parole board
hearing when we watched that whole thing live.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yes, everything that happened in his case was exceptionally rare.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was rare for the parole board.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To recommend clemency, and then even rarer for a governor
to step in and actually grant clemency. That is almost
unheard of. And so with all of that, you would
think certainly cost for celebration relief at the very least
for Tremaine Wood and his family. So how did Wood
(02:03):
then end up in the hospital. We're going to get
into all of that. And we also have some incredible
details coming out of Florida, which has now executed a
record setting sixteenth inmate this year alone. That is double
that state's previous high. Their previous record was eight, which
(02:23):
they reached in nineteen eighty four and in twenty fourteen,
so they have now doubled their execution rate. And his
story this inmate story is well. When you hear what
he was convicted of and what he admitted to doing.
This guy was as monstrous as they come. These two
scheduled executions, the prisoners involved in them, and what they
(02:46):
were accused of doing, and their role in all of
it couldn't have been further from one another in a
lot of ways. But will begin with what happened with Tremaine.
I woke up this morning and you said, did you
hear what happened to Tremaine Wood?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I got nervous, to be honest with you. I got
a little My heart jumped a little because of the
time we have spent now with his mother, his nieces,
people who love him and say he is that important
to their lives. We know how much they were fighting
to get this clemency to think it finally came, and
then something happened. So ropes at what I've said was
the headlines all said the same thing. Tremaine Wood found
(03:24):
unresponsive in his cell. That was the headline. Now, after
you and I went through a kind of an emotional
morning or even week with the family, you could argue
and hearing all this thinking a minute before he got clemency, Wow,
what a relief, and he'd go, oh no, My first
thought was, oh.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
No, yeah, the stress of it all. Like, you know,
we talked about what it must have been like. We
talked for him and for his family, but none of
us could have possibly imagined. So yes, Wood was taken
to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So he Basically, what we've.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Gotten from the Department of Correction is that after he
with a minute despair, his death sentence commuted to a
life in parole sentence, he met with his attorney for hours,
That's what we were told, and then he went down
to go take a nap, basically after all of that,
and he said when he laid down to sleep, the
next thing he remembered was waking up in the infirmary
(04:20):
with his head busted and his lip busted.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I mean, it sounds a certain way. It sounds like
you passed out and fell off the bed and maybe
God busted up. Now, they came out and said, and
he said as well, at least according to the statement
that he gave them, so nobody else in the cell.
You certainly, Yeah, it's prison. All things can happen, and
it just so happened that on this day he ends
up injured and in the hospital. It sounds suspicious, but
it appeared, and they did say that it was called
(04:49):
You said it several times. You use the word stress,
and I can't believe. They say, yeah, dehydration and stress
caused this medical event. And I don't know what. He
hadn't eaten anything at least since the night before. I
don't know what fluids they were given him during the
day before. He was about to be executed, So he
(05:09):
was in tough shape, can you.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I was just trying to get my head around the
fact that you said the last time he had eaten.
The last time he had eaten was his final meal
that he had to request months earlier. He's literally sitting
down eating what he believed in that moment to be
the final things he will ever eat. So, yeah, he
was hungry, he was dehydrated, he was stressed, and so
(05:37):
it is interesting his head and his lip robusted. So
it did seem suspicious, but they believe the other alternative
would be if no one was in his room, that
he did it to himself. But they don't believe that.
They believe this literally was the result of passing out
and falling off his bunk.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean, do you we talked about and we saw
the stress on his relatives' faces and just their bodies
and just their they're weak and just not sleeping and
all these things. So imagine how it feels for him.
Imagine how it felt with him the night before, right,
you just said, eating your final meal and then going
to bed that night, and then waking up the next
morning like all of this is struck, even slept. But
(06:14):
then you go, it's nine o'clock in the morning, your execation,
qution is at ten. Now it's nine fifteen. Now it's
nine thirty, it's nine forty five, it's nine fifty, it's
nine fifty five.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Still haven't heard from the governor.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
He gets to nine fifty five. I guess that's it.
Can you imagine what that feels like and then get
to call and say, actually, you're good.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And the relief, the absolute pendulum swing of being at
the worst possible stress level you could imagine anybody. It's
one thing to know you're going to die, and to
know the hour you're going to die, to know the
minute you're going to die. How many people even know
what that stress is like, and then to have it
all be Hey, never mind, you can live out the
(06:55):
rest of your days behind bars.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
He not to nine fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
He was probably at stress level as high as they get.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I cannot imagine.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So, yes, what does that do to your body when
you then swing in completely the other direction? And so
when he finally was discharged for the hospital, we were
very happy to report that he was finally able to
talk to his family and a spiritual advisor. According to
the Department of Corrections, and by the way, he is
only the sixth condemned person to receive clemency in the
(07:27):
state of Oklahoma in modern history. That just tells you
how rare it was what happened yesterday. We're going to
head to Florida now and Brian Jennings a much different story.
He died by lethal injection last night at six twenty
pm Eastern time. He is the forty second inmate put
(07:48):
to death this year in the United States. That's the
number that hasn't been seen since twenty twelve. But this
was not a man who I didn't hear one person
fighting to save his life or anyone who said, because
of his crime that he should somehow his execution be stayed.
I never saw one article In fact, I saw folks
who are primarily anti death penalty actually saying this is
(08:11):
one I don't mind seeing dying's.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
You could only make this argument, I suppose if you're
anti death penalty. There were no one advocating out there
for him. He's been a good prisoner, or any questions
about the crime. It was not that, And I hate that.
We know we'll have to speak on a little bit,
but it's just the crime is so horrific that it's
hard to even repeat. But this guy was.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Convicted up when I was reading and anyone who's read
the case of this specific case, Brian Jennings is the
person who was put to death. But his crime was
against a six year old girl named Becky Kunash. But
this is crazy. He was sixty six years old, a
former marine. He admitted to this horrific crime. But it
(08:56):
happened TJ in nineteen seventy nine, forty six years after
he committed this horrific crime. He was executed yesterday. He
outlived Becky's father, He outlived both state attorneys who prosecuted him.
He outlived three judges who presided over his case. And
I say three judges because this was a case that
(09:18):
went on and on and on and literally tortured the family.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Well, and this is one that the folks ask about,
like what is Florida doing, And the Santas said, yeah,
some of these things have been on the books for
thirty years. We need to give justice, we need to
see this through, we need finality for these families. That's
an argument he's making. So it's people will wonder why
we just saw this such an uptick. Part of it
(09:42):
was a mindset like a dysantis. But also drugs are available.
There were a lot of places that stopped doing executions
because they didn't have the proper drugs or methods to
do so, so here we are. It all come together
this year and then but seventy nine, that was That's
pretty incredible to think he just now faces the punishment
(10:02):
he was given for a crime forty years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It's one of the longest periods of time I've ever
seen anyone serve on death row. He was convicted and
sentenced to death in nineteen eighty, so a year after
the crime was committed, and then in nineteen eighty two
as well, but both of those convictions were overturned on appeal.
So then he was again found guilty and sentenced to
death in nineteen eighty six. That conviction finally stuck. But
(10:27):
this is this crime is horrific, and I want to
get into what happened yesterday first, this execution, this is rare.
We don't hear this very often. According to the Department
of Corrections, the execution took place without incident. There were
no complications.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, we don't hear that often. We don't. Now, I
didn't see who was possibly there or anything with him,
or what audience, if you will, or witnesses I should say,
we're there, I don't. Did you see that he had
family or anybody there? I didn't. I just I just
saw that.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The local reporter said that when asked if he had
any last words seconds before the lethal injection, Jennings reportedly
shouted no loudly. So that's that was the only color
I got in terms of who was there and what happened.
We also were told his last meal was a cheeseburger,
French fries, Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And it's done. It's kind of This was a look
we take seriously anytime you have a state sanctioned death right.
This is no small thing to take a life. It's
part of our system. But it's I don't know, it's
tough anytime to just say we're better off for to
celebrate the death of someone. Other people will see it
(11:39):
that way. It's not necessarily a celebration of a death.
But don't mind or advocating for this person being gone now.
It's it's tough. It's a debate we have. But this
is a guy, and the crime is not one that
anybody's defending.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yes, and we're going to get into some of the
details of the crime. And also, this is a guy,
despite admitting committing this horrific act, he tried very very
hard to stay alive nine appeals and was fighting until
the end to not actually walk into that execution chamber,
which happened last night.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
We'll get into the.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Details of this case and the ripple effects of a murder,
especially on this family more than forty years ago, and
continuing our conversation of what was pretty much a hell
(12:29):
of a day on death row yesterday in South Carolina.
Ex excuse me, that's this evening. But in Oklahoma, Tremaine
Wood was actually allowed to have his death sentence commuted
to a life sentence, but he ended up in the
hospital with all the stress and pressure of yesterday, which
is unimaginable, literally waiting for the governor until the minute
(12:52):
before his scheduled execution to learn that, in fact he
was going to be able to remain alive and stay
in prison for the rest of him his life. But
in Florida, a man who has been known as a monster,
after forty six years after the original crime was committed,
Brian Jennings was killed in the State of Florida, number
(13:13):
sixteen this year for the State of Florida. But his crime,
as we mentioned, happened forty six years ago, and it
was a heinous one. This little girl, six year old Becky,
this was a detail that really got me. Ironically, the
thing that made this little girl feel safe at night
is what led to her death. Her night light. Her
(13:35):
father said that she always wanted to sleep with a
night light, and Jennings told Belie that is what attracted
him to her window. He was twenty years old. He
was staying with his mom while on leave. He was
a marine and a local high school dropout, and he
was awaiting his next set of orders. He said, he
went out drinking and he just ended up outside six
(13:57):
year old Becky Cnash's bedroom window, and that is when
he went in. He took her, and he took her
to a nearby canal, and he did terrible things to her,
eventually killing her. And then the next day he confessed
to the crime, saying, quote, he always had this thing
to look into windows. Isn't that so frightening as a
(14:19):
parent to think what you're doing to comfort your child
actually led to her death. It's unimaginable.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
We all do the best you can do, and sometimes
there are scary people out there and monsters, and this
sometimes is nothing you can do but your best. It's
no way we don't need to stop using night lights.
We don't need to. There's another family somewhere leave sleeping
tonight with the doors open, the windows up and with
no problem, right, and somebody else is going to go
to bed tonight and punch in the code on the
(14:49):
alarm and somebody's going to break in and terrorize them.
He just do the best you can. And yes, it's
got to be gutting and always was for that family.
But this just r randomness of this is so scary.
We talk. It makes me think about those Idaho students,
those four Idaho students didn't know this killer comes in
and kills them. Just the randomness of somebody who just
(15:12):
decides to do you harm is the most terrifying part
of a story like this.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It's so true and can you imagine having lived through
that nightmare of his Sorry Becky's mother came in the
next morning, eight hours later after she had been taken,
to see that she was gone. The window was open,
the curtains were fluttering in the wind. I mean, just
to think, where is my little girl? And then to
have to go through three trials, not one, not two,
(15:37):
but three trials reliving that nightmare of their daughter being
taken and tortured and murdered over and over again. And
it's not surprising that their marriage did not survive it.
I was reading some quotes from earlier reports from her mom, Patricia,
and she said, he took my baby, my husband, my family,
(15:58):
and my home. Is just about the murder of one child.
It was so much more than that and just so devastating.
Her dad said, I've killed him a million times in
my sleep. I was just imagining being those parents and
sitting in that trial and sitting in the same room
as the man who killed my child.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I mean, I don't know what the family feels today. Finale,
Is it over? Is it done? Is it I don't know.
I'm sure there's some peace they had to find way
before this.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yes, and we mentioned her father, Robert died at the
age of fifty two. He had always sworn he was
going to be at the execution. He was going to
watch this man who took his baby die. That did
not come to fruition because of the lengthy amount of
time it took for justice to be served in this case.
We do know that her mother and she had an
older sister, did not attend the execution, and they've really
(16:47):
laid low since then. They moved back to Cleveland, where
they were originally from and just tried to live as
quiet and as peaceful of a life as possible. But
certainly it's just a reminder of just the ripple effects
and the death station from violent crimes like this. It's
not just one family, it's an entire community, and there
are lessons to be learned through all of it. But
we always appreciate you listening to us. We thank you
(17:11):
for your time today. I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ. Holmes,
we will talk to you soon.
Hey, folks, it is Friday, November fourteenth. Yesterday, two executions
were planned in the United States. In one, the guy
got clemency but still ended up in the hospital, and
in the other, the guy was asked if he had
any final words, and he gave only a one word answer,
(00:24):
and with that, everybody, welcome to this episode of Amy
and TJ. Kind of an extraordinary week robes when it
comes to executions in the extraordinary year, I should say,
but even within this year, this was an extraordinary week
in last night, extraordinary night, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
We had so many headlines coming out of death Row yesterday,
some from Oklahoma and the other from Florida. And what
happened we obviously have this is This is I don't know,
episode number three. Perhaps we have taken to actually focus
some of our attention to Tremaine Wood's case, but this
is an exceptional situation where we had, in an extremely
(01:01):
rare move, the governor commuting his death sentence one minute
you said you checked all the local reports.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I couldn't believe it. I mean that it's being officially
given as one minute before ten am local time, which
is when he was scheduled to die. The call came
in that the governor had commuted his sentence. Look, it's
better than coming at ten on one, But my god,
can you imagine. So that was high, high and really broke.
(01:29):
We talk about the high drama of that, even it
was high drama last week even at his parole board
hearing when we watched that whole thing live.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yes, everything that happened in his case was exceptionally rare.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was rare for the parole board.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To recommend clemency, and then even rarer for a governor
to step in and actually grant clemency. That is almost
unheard of. And so with all of that, you would
think certainly cost for celebration relief at the very least
for Tremaine Wood and his family. So how did Wood
(02:03):
then end up in the hospital. We're going to get
into all of that. And we also have some incredible
details coming out of Florida, which has now executed a
record setting sixteenth inmate this year alone. That is double
that state's previous high. Their previous record was eight, which
(02:23):
they reached in nineteen eighty four and in twenty fourteen,
so they have now doubled their execution rate. And his
story this inmate story is well. When you hear what
he was convicted of and what he admitted to doing.
This guy was as monstrous as they come. These two
scheduled executions, the prisoners involved in them, and what they
(02:46):
were accused of doing, and their role in all of
it couldn't have been further from one another in a
lot of ways. But will begin with what happened with Tremaine.
I woke up this morning and you said, did you
hear what happened to Tremaine Wood?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I got nervous, to be honest with you. I got
a little My heart jumped a little because of the
time we have spent now with his mother, his nieces,
people who love him and say he is that important
to their lives. We know how much they were fighting
to get this clemency to think it finally came, and
then something happened. So ropes at what I've said was
the headlines all said the same thing. Tremaine Wood found
(03:24):
unresponsive in his cell. That was the headline. Now, after
you and I went through a kind of an emotional
morning or even week with the family, you could argue
and hearing all this thinking a minute before he got clemency, Wow,
what a relief, and he'd go, oh no, My first
thought was, oh.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
No, yeah, the stress of it all. Like, you know,
we talked about what it must have been like. We
talked for him and for his family, but none of
us could have possibly imagined. So yes, Wood was taken
to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So he Basically, what we've.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Gotten from the Department of Correction is that after he
with a minute despair, his death sentence commuted to a
life in parole sentence, he met with his attorney for hours,
That's what we were told, and then he went down
to go take a nap, basically after all of that,
and he said when he laid down to sleep, the
next thing he remembered was waking up in the infirmary
(04:20):
with his head busted and his lip busted.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I mean, it sounds a certain way. It sounds like
you passed out and fell off the bed and maybe
God busted up. Now, they came out and said, and
he said as well, at least according to the statement
that he gave them, so nobody else in the cell.
You certainly, Yeah, it's prison. All things can happen, and
it just so happened that on this day he ends
up injured and in the hospital. It sounds suspicious, but
it appeared, and they did say that it was called
(04:49):
You said it several times. You use the word stress,
and I can't believe. They say, yeah, dehydration and stress
caused this medical event. And I don't know what. He
hadn't eaten anything at least since the night before. I
don't know what fluids they were given him during the
day before. He was about to be executed, So he
(05:09):
was in tough shape, can you.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I was just trying to get my head around the
fact that you said the last time he had eaten.
The last time he had eaten was his final meal
that he had to request months earlier. He's literally sitting
down eating what he believed in that moment to be
the final things he will ever eat. So, yeah, he
was hungry, he was dehydrated, he was stressed, and so
(05:37):
it is interesting his head and his lip robusted. So
it did seem suspicious, but they believe the other alternative
would be if no one was in his room, that
he did it to himself. But they don't believe that.
They believe this literally was the result of passing out
and falling off his bunk.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean, do you we talked about and we saw
the stress on his relatives' faces and just their bodies
and just their they're weak and just not sleeping and
all these things. So imagine how it feels for him.
Imagine how it felt with him the night before, right,
you just said, eating your final meal and then going
to bed that night, and then waking up the next
morning like all of this is struck, even slept. But
(06:14):
then you go, it's nine o'clock in the morning, your execation,
qution is at ten. Now it's nine fifteen. Now it's
nine thirty, it's nine forty five, it's nine fifty, it's
nine fifty five.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Still haven't heard from the governor.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
He gets to nine fifty five. I guess that's it.
Can you imagine what that feels like and then get
to call and say, actually, you're good.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And the relief, the absolute pendulum swing of being at
the worst possible stress level you could imagine anybody. It's
one thing to know you're going to die, and to
know the hour you're going to die, to know the
minute you're going to die. How many people even know
what that stress is like, and then to have it
all be Hey, never mind, you can live out the
(06:55):
rest of your days behind bars.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
He not to nine fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
He was probably at stress level as high as they get.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I cannot imagine.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So, yes, what does that do to your body when
you then swing in completely the other direction? And so
when he finally was discharged for the hospital, we were
very happy to report that he was finally able to
talk to his family and a spiritual advisor. According to
the Department of Corrections, and by the way, he is
only the sixth condemned person to receive clemency in the
(07:27):
state of Oklahoma in modern history. That just tells you
how rare it was what happened yesterday. We're going to
head to Florida now and Brian Jennings a much different story.
He died by lethal injection last night at six twenty
pm Eastern time. He is the forty second inmate put
(07:48):
to death this year in the United States. That's the
number that hasn't been seen since twenty twelve. But this
was not a man who I didn't hear one person
fighting to save his life or anyone who said, because
of his crime that he should somehow his execution be stayed.
I never saw one article In fact, I saw folks
who are primarily anti death penalty actually saying this is
(08:11):
one I don't mind seeing dying's.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
You could only make this argument, I suppose if you're
anti death penalty. There were no one advocating out there
for him. He's been a good prisoner, or any questions
about the crime. It was not that, And I hate that.
We know we'll have to speak on a little bit,
but it's just the crime is so horrific that it's
hard to even repeat. But this guy was.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Convicted up when I was reading and anyone who's read
the case of this specific case, Brian Jennings is the
person who was put to death. But his crime was
against a six year old girl named Becky Kunash. But
this is crazy. He was sixty six years old, a
former marine. He admitted to this horrific crime. But it
(08:56):
happened TJ in nineteen seventy nine, forty six years after
he committed this horrific crime. He was executed yesterday. He
outlived Becky's father, He outlived both state attorneys who prosecuted him.
He outlived three judges who presided over his case. And
I say three judges because this was a case that
(09:18):
went on and on and on and literally tortured the family.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Well, and this is one that the folks ask about,
like what is Florida doing, And the Santas said, yeah,
some of these things have been on the books for
thirty years. We need to give justice, we need to
see this through, we need finality for these families. That's
an argument he's making. So it's people will wonder why
we just saw this such an uptick. Part of it
(09:42):
was a mindset like a dysantis. But also drugs are available.
There were a lot of places that stopped doing executions
because they didn't have the proper drugs or methods to
do so, so here we are. It all come together
this year and then but seventy nine, that was That's
pretty incredible to think he just now faces the punishment
(10:02):
he was given for a crime forty years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It's one of the longest periods of time I've ever
seen anyone serve on death row. He was convicted and
sentenced to death in nineteen eighty, so a year after
the crime was committed, and then in nineteen eighty two
as well, but both of those convictions were overturned on appeal.
So then he was again found guilty and sentenced to
death in nineteen eighty six. That conviction finally stuck. But
(10:27):
this is this crime is horrific, and I want to
get into what happened yesterday first, this execution, this is rare.
We don't hear this very often. According to the Department
of Corrections, the execution took place without incident. There were
no complications.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, we don't hear that often. We don't. Now, I
didn't see who was possibly there or anything with him,
or what audience, if you will, or witnesses I should say,
we're there, I don't. Did you see that he had
family or anybody there? I didn't. I just I just
saw that.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The local reporter said that when asked if he had
any last words seconds before the lethal injection, Jennings reportedly
shouted no loudly. So that's that was the only color
I got in terms of who was there and what happened.
We also were told his last meal was a cheeseburger,
French fries, Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And it's done. It's kind of This was a look
we take seriously anytime you have a state sanctioned death right.
This is no small thing to take a life. It's
part of our system. But it's I don't know, it's
tough anytime to just say we're better off for to
celebrate the death of someone. Other people will see it
(11:39):
that way. It's not necessarily a celebration of a death.
But don't mind or advocating for this person being gone now.
It's it's tough. It's a debate we have. But this
is a guy, and the crime is not one that
anybody's defending.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yes, and we're going to get into some of the
details of the crime. And also, this is a guy,
despite admitting committing this horrific act, he tried very very
hard to stay alive nine appeals and was fighting until
the end to not actually walk into that execution chamber,
which happened last night.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
We'll get into the.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Details of this case and the ripple effects of a murder,
especially on this family more than forty years ago, and
continuing our conversation of what was pretty much a hell
(12:29):
of a day on death row yesterday in South Carolina.
Ex excuse me, that's this evening. But in Oklahoma, Tremaine
Wood was actually allowed to have his death sentence commuted
to a life sentence, but he ended up in the
hospital with all the stress and pressure of yesterday, which
is unimaginable, literally waiting for the governor until the minute
(12:52):
before his scheduled execution to learn that, in fact he
was going to be able to remain alive and stay
in prison for the rest of him his life. But
in Florida, a man who has been known as a monster,
after forty six years after the original crime was committed,
Brian Jennings was killed in the State of Florida, number
(13:13):
sixteen this year for the State of Florida. But his crime,
as we mentioned, happened forty six years ago, and it
was a heinous one. This little girl, six year old Becky,
this was a detail that really got me. Ironically, the
thing that made this little girl feel safe at night
is what led to her death. Her night light. Her
(13:35):
father said that she always wanted to sleep with a
night light, and Jennings told Belie that is what attracted
him to her window. He was twenty years old. He
was staying with his mom while on leave. He was
a marine and a local high school dropout, and he
was awaiting his next set of orders. He said, he
went out drinking and he just ended up outside six
(13:57):
year old Becky Cnash's bedroom window, and that is when
he went in. He took her, and he took her
to a nearby canal, and he did terrible things to her,
eventually killing her. And then the next day he confessed
to the crime, saying, quote, he always had this thing
to look into windows. Isn't that so frightening as a
(14:19):
parent to think what you're doing to comfort your child
actually led to her death. It's unimaginable.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
We all do the best you can do, and sometimes
there are scary people out there and monsters, and this
sometimes is nothing you can do but your best. It's
no way we don't need to stop using night lights.
We don't need to. There's another family somewhere leave sleeping
tonight with the doors open, the windows up and with
no problem, right, and somebody else is going to go
to bed tonight and punch in the code on the
(14:49):
alarm and somebody's going to break in and terrorize them.
He just do the best you can. And yes, it's
got to be gutting and always was for that family.
But this just r randomness of this is so scary.
We talk. It makes me think about those Idaho students,
those four Idaho students didn't know this killer comes in
and kills them. Just the randomness of somebody who just
(15:12):
decides to do you harm is the most terrifying part
of a story like this.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It's so true and can you imagine having lived through
that nightmare of his Sorry Becky's mother came in the
next morning, eight hours later after she had been taken,
to see that she was gone. The window was open,
the curtains were fluttering in the wind. I mean, just
to think, where is my little girl? And then to
have to go through three trials, not one, not two,
(15:37):
but three trials reliving that nightmare of their daughter being
taken and tortured and murdered over and over again. And
it's not surprising that their marriage did not survive it.
I was reading some quotes from earlier reports from her mom, Patricia,
and she said, he took my baby, my husband, my family,
(15:58):
and my home. Is just about the murder of one child.
It was so much more than that and just so devastating.
Her dad said, I've killed him a million times in
my sleep. I was just imagining being those parents and
sitting in that trial and sitting in the same room
as the man who killed my child.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I mean, I don't know what the family feels today. Finale,
Is it over? Is it done? Is it I don't know.
I'm sure there's some peace they had to find way
before this.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yes, and we mentioned her father, Robert died at the
age of fifty two. He had always sworn he was
going to be at the execution. He was going to
watch this man who took his baby die. That did
not come to fruition because of the lengthy amount of
time it took for justice to be served in this case.
We do know that her mother and she had an
older sister, did not attend the execution, and they've really
(16:47):
laid low since then. They moved back to Cleveland, where
they were originally from and just tried to live as
quiet and as peaceful of a life as possible. But
certainly it's just a reminder of just the ripple effects
and the death station from violent crimes like this. It's
not just one family, it's an entire community, and there
are lessons to be learned through all of it. But
we always appreciate you listening to us. We thank you
(17:11):
for your time today. I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ. Holmes,
we will talk to you soon.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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