Sir Trevor back on death row
It’s five years since Sir Trevor McDonald first visited Indiana State Prison and now the television veteran meets the inmates of the maximum-security facility again. Georgia Humphreys hears more
After interviewing Saddam Hussein, entering the secret world of the Mafia and reporting from war zones, you’d think nothing would shock Sir Trevor McDonald anymore.
And yet, upon returning to Indiana State Prison’s death row for his latest documentary, that was far from the case.
“I found the place more awful this time,” he says sadly, before explaining: “The prison was on lockdown, for five weeks.
“The concomitant of all that is the place is very grubby, and dirty and they’re shouting and screaming because they don’t want to be locked in for 24 hours a day.
“I did leave there desperately needing a drink,” he admits, perhaps in an attempt to lighten the mood slightly.
It’s five years since the news veteran first visited the maximumsecurity facility, one of America’s most dangerous.
The follow-up, ITV’s Death Row 2018 With Trevor McDonald, sees him talk to both new arrivals at the prison, and some familiar faces.
“I couldn’t get these people quite out of my mind,” the former newsreader confesses quietly, when asked why he wanted to go back.
“I think this is probably my last visit. They’re getting on, and I’m getting on, and another five years, a lot of them wouldn’t be there.”
The programme shows how the future of the death penalty in the state of Indiana remains uncertain.
While there have been no executions at the prison since Sir Trevor last visited, he arrives to find a new death chamber has been built.
But, the Trinidad and Tobagoborn presenter explains, the Europeans have stopped supplying the “killer drugs” needed for the execu- tions - and so the prisoners are just left awaiting their fate.
It’s clear how much meeting these men has impacted Sir Trevor, especially as he discusses the plight of one inmate, Paul McManus, at great length.
Once sentenced to death for killing his wife and children, Paul has now been given life without parole, and so must spend the rest of his life inside.
“Before, although he didn’t particularly want to die, he knew that he would, at some stage,” remarks Sir Trevor. “So, adjusting his mind to that difference was becoming a great psychological problem for him. We talked on a nice sunny day, and you could see the barbed-wire fences all around, and he was looking and thinking, ‘Is this where I’m going to spend the rest of my life?’ And he’s not 50 yet.
“That’s a new kind of storyline for us really, and a new take on the last adventure.”
While all the inmates’ stories are undeniably shocking, William Gibson is a particularly memorable face featured in the hour-long documentary.
Convicted of killing and mutilating three women, he had never spoken publicly about his crimes before.
And, during his interview, he gloats that there might yet be more victims to be found.
How did Sir Trevor feel listening to him talk so candidly?
“I mean, dirty,” he muses. “Somebody boasting about killing people like that and saying, ‘I may have killed even more’, it’s out of my mental range.
“I think shame is a very important part of the human condition; you must be ashamed, you must regret, you must have remorse,” he continues. “One or two o’clock in the morning, when he’s lying in his cell, what does he think?”
With a soft, bemused chuckle, he adds: “I thought he was very, very strange - and that’s using a very kind word.”
It seems there’s a real hunger for programmes about crimes and prisons, particularly American ones, in the UK.
Asked why, Sir Trevor, who has three grown-up children and lives with his wife in London, says: “There is, in all our lives, a normality to which we all aspire. A civilised, dignified kind of life where you get up and go to work and you make money, you go home, you see your kids.
“Some of these people are just off the scale, and I think we get fascinated by the lives of these people. And we keep trying to find out why, why, why do they do this?” Death Row 2018 With Trevor McDonald is on ITV on Thursday at 9pm.