Academy-Award® nominated filmmaker, Werner Herzog, sought to understand the impact of life in prison and the shattering effects of the death penalty in his 2011 documentary Into the Abyss. Now, Herzog is diving deeper into the human soul with ON DEATH ROW, premiering Tuesday, December 4 at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Investigation Discovery. In this four-part series, created exclusively for Investigation Discovery, Herzog interviews five death row inmates in the Texas and Florida prison systems to hear their own account of life in captivity and the crime that condemned them.
James Barnes: After hiding his wife’s corpse in the closet, James Barnes was convicted of murder in 1998. While in prison, Barnes converted to Islam and, during the holy month of Ramadan, confessed to a previous murder – the gruesome homicide of Patricia Miller in 1988. Barnes broke into Miller’s home, where he sexually assaulted and bludgeoned her to death. To cover up his crime, Barnes set fire to the bed to which Miller was bound. Barnes pled guilty to the murder and was sentenced to death.
Joseph Garcia/George Rivas: Joseph Garcia was only 19 years old when he repeatedly stabbed a man after a night of heavy drinking and a jury sentenced him to 50 years. Despairing after six years behind bars, Garcia joined the “Texas Seven.” This now-infamous gang was allegedly formed by George Rivas, a man whose record includes numerous counts of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon. The group escaped the prison walls and while on the run, several of the escapees shot and killed a police officer. As a result, all of the convicts were given the death penalty.
Hank Skinner: The brutal murder of Twila Busby and her two sons seemed easy to solve. Hank Skinner was found nearby with blood from the crime scene on his shirt. After a trial, Skinner was given the death penalty. Skinner protested, complaining that DNA tests had not been performed on many crucial bits of evidence. He was scheduled to be executed in March 2010 but, just 45 minutes before the lethal injection, the Supreme Court stayed his sentence – and Skinner was notified of the stay just 23 minutes before his scheduled execution. While he remains on death row in Texas, new DNA testing is moving forward.
Linda Anita Carty: Linda Carty was convicted and sentenced to death in February 2002 for the murder of 25-year-old Joana Rodriguez, allegedly in order to steal her four-day-old son. On May 16, 2001, Carty organized three codefendants to invade Rodriguez’s home. The young mother was hog-tied with duct tape and placed in the trunk of a car. A bag was taped over her head and she died from suffocation. Carty claims she is innocent and has appealed exhaustively against her conviction. Barring the granting of clemency, she stands to become the first black British woman to be executed in more than a century.
About Werner Herzog: Werner Herzog (born Werner H. Stipetic) was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. He started travelling on foot from the age of 14. He made his first phone call at the age of 17. During high school, he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce his first films and made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then, he has produced, written, and directed more than 50 films, published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas.
