The Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:00 am
RAWLINS - A film crew from the Discovery Channel spent time in the gas chamber inside the historic state penitentiary, gathering footage for a special documentary series.
Producer Shyam Balse said Tuesday the series is divided into three hour-long episodes and examines the technologies used for capital punishment. It begins with devices created by ancient Greeks and Romans and finishes with 20th century contraptions, like the electric chair and the gas chamber. The series focuses on the mechanical aspects of each death instrument.
Balse said the series, which includes several other on-site shoots and other studio scenes, should air on the Discovery Channel in October.
The TV crew chose Wyoming's Old Pen because it has one of the few gas chambers that provides immediate access to death row and the gas chamber, including the ability to get inside it, Balse said.
The availability of former Warden Duane Shillinger was another reason.
Shillinger will be the focal point of the Rawlins segment of the show, describing to audiences the engineering mechanisms behind the death chamber as well as the process by which the prisoner was put to death.
"The device is actually very simple," he said to the camera. "All that was required was a chamber to contain gas, a way for gas to be activated and a way for it to be neutralized."
He replicated the action of pulling a lever to begin the execution process.
Shillinger also explained why the gas chamber became obsolete: lethal injection was being developed as a more humane and reliable alternative.