Name: A journalist's journey: The death penalty in North Carolina
Uploaded: 2022-05-04T18:36:48-0400
Duration: 321131
Description: In his final month at WRAL News, David Crabtree is revisiting some of the issues that have impacted him most professionally and personally, to reflect and share where they stand now. In this installment, he revisits families and legal experts touched by the death penalty.

We’re also following the flight delays and tomorrow’s impacts after a plane crash at RDU. Plus, Only on WRAL, why a high school student is not allowed to participate in one of the most important events of his life.. and how he and his family are fighting for him to graduate. Watch WRAL-TV at 11 p.m., and search for these and other stories on WRAL.com.

On WRAL at 11: Cooler weather tomorrow morning but we’re about to warm up. When and where temperatures top 90 degrees

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In his final month at WRAL News, David Crabtree is revisiting some of the issues that have impacted him most professionally and personally, to reflect and share where they stand now. In this installment, he revisits families and legal experts touched by the death penalty.

COMING UP LATER IN SPORTS, >> DAVID CRABTREE HAS COVERED SOME SIGNIFICANT AND WIDE-REACHING STORIES DURING HIS 40 YEARS AS A JOURNALIST IN HIS FINAL MONTH HERE. WE'RE GOING BACK OVER HIS JOURNALISTS JOURNEY. DAVID. >> WE KNOW ONE OF THOSE STORIES IS THE DEATH PENALTY. NORTH CAROLINA HAS NOT CARRIED OUT A DEATH SENTENCE HERE AT CENTRAL PRISON SINCE AUGUST OF 2006 AT THAT TIME, THE INMATE'S NAME WAS SAMUEL FLIPPEN. I WAS THERE ONE OF 7 EXECUTIONS. I WITNESSED THE STATE IS NOW ONE OF 27 NATION WIDE WITH A PENALTY OF DEATH. I'VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON NORTH CAROLINA'S DEATH ROW. NOT ONLY REPORTING ON THE INMATES. I'VE ALSO SPENT HUNDREDS OF HOURS VISITING WITH THEM OVER THE PAST. 28 YEARS. MUCH HAS CHANGED FOR THOSE CONVICTED KILLERS AND FOR ME. >> THIS WAS MY FIRST EXPOSURE TO THE MONTHLY COMMUNION SERVICE. HE WAS FEBRUARY 1995, THE TURN WAS BORN TO MY CASE. IT'S WHERE I MET ERNEST BASTEN CONVICTED OF KILLING KINSTON BUSINESSMAN BILLY WIDE IN 1992. THE ATTORNEYS WILL ARGUE A FEW YEARS LATER BECAME THE SUBJECT OF THIS WRAL DOCUMENTARY. TIME TO DIE. ALL RIGHT. AT 02:19AM, EARNEST BAYS DONE BECAUSE DECEMBER 6, 2000 TO EXECUTED ERNEST PATIENTS. TIME RAN OUT. HIS WAS ONE OF 7 EXECUTIONS. I VERIFIED FOR AS A JOURNALIST 3 AS THE STAGE INDEPENDENT WITNESS COMPARED TO PREVIOUS EXECUTIONS I'VE WITNESSED. I WAS WITH THE CONDEMNED FOR THE LAST SEVERAL HOURS OF THEIR LIFE. >> IT'S BEEN I ALSO SPEND TIME WITH FAMILY MEMBERS OF THE VICTIMS LISTENING AND LEARNING OF PAIN FOR WHICH THERE IS NO RELIEF REPAIRED OR REPARATION NIGHT. EACH CASE LEFT ME MORE CONFUSED ABOUT PUNISHMENT AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT OUR SYSTEM AND OUR HUMANITY. THERE ARE TERRIBLE MISTAKES THAT GO ALONG WITH. >> THE TRIALS AND PROSECUTIONS OF PERSONS. >> FOR THE DEATH PENALTY, KEN ROSE WORKED FOR 35 YEARS TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY IN NORTH CAROLINA. ELIZABETH HAMBURGER THE PAST 18. THE FOLKS ON DEATH ROW ARE ARE EASY TARGETS EASY YET. NO ACTIVE TARGETS. THERE ARE MANY REASONS THERE HAVE BEEN NO EXECUTIONS IN 16 YEARS. WHY A SENTENCE OF LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE PROBLEMS WITH LETHAL CHEMICALS. FEW DOCTORS WILLING TO OVERSEE THE DEATH. >> AND ALSO, YOU KNOW, THAT WE THAT THE PERSON MIGHT NOT HAVE DONE THE CRIME AND THAT BEGINS TO CHANGE PEOPLE'S MINDS THAT THE PERSON MAY NOT HAVE DONE THE CRIME. >> WHEN YOU'RE THERE AS A WITNESS, YOU REALIZE AN EXECUTION DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE ABSTRACT. IT IS IN REAL TIME. SANITIZED. SO DOES THAT ENABLE DO YOU THINK THE PSYCHE TO SAY? THIS IS OKAY? ABSOLUTELY. I MEAN, IT'S INTENTIONALLY SANITIZE ITS BEHIND PRISON WALLS. >> THERE'S NOT A CROWD. THAT MAKES IT LOOK MORE AND ALSO JUST SORT OF HIDE IT FROM VIEW, RIGHT? SO PEOPLE DON'T SEE IT YET. WE FEEL IT. >> INCLUDING FAMILY MEMBERS OF THE VICTIMS. THERESA MURRAY WAS THE DAUGHTER OF BILLY WHITE. HER WORDS FROM THE DOCUMENTARY. 25 YEARS AGO I ATTENDED THEY A LICENSE. EXECUTION AND AGAIN, A FEW YEARS LATER BEFORE SHE DIED OF CANCER. >> BUT PEOPLE NEED TO KEEP IN MIND THE VICTIMS, THESE TRAGEDIES, TOO. WHAT WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH LIFE TONIGHT. THERE ARE 134 INMATES ON NORTH CAROLINA'S DEATH ROW. >> 2 ARE WOMEN. IS IT LIKELY? >> ANY OF THOSE 134 PEOPLE? WILL BE EXECUTED. >> WELL, I I DON'T THINK SO. I THINK THAT THE POLITICAL WILL FOR IT IS WANING. AND IT MIGHT BE THAT THAT SOME POLITICIANS WANT TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT. BUT THAT TAKING CARE OF THESE PEOPLE IS WHAT WILL MAKE US SAFER. WHAT WILL MAKE US WHOLE WHAT WILL SOLVE SOLVE EVERYTHING. FEAR IS A POWERFUL WEAPON IS AN ABSOLUTELY. >> BACK TO THE BASE. IN CASE I WAS WITH ERNEST BASED IN THE LAST FEW HOURS OF HIS LIFE AS HE HAD MANY TIMES BEFORE. ERNEST TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. YET HE NEVER CRIED. MAYBE HE HAD FORGOTTEN. HE HAD A VOICE. MY EXPERIENCE IS ON DEATH ROW ALWAYS TO BE ASKING MORE QUESTIONS. YOU CAN FIND ANSWERS TO SOME OF THEM IN THE DOCUMENTARY TIME TO DIE ALONG WITH OUR COVERAGE OF THE DEATH PENALTY DISPUTE IN THE STATE. WE HAVE EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS FROM A TOUR OF DEATH ROW IN 2013 IT'S ALL ON MY BLOG AT WRAL DOT COM. YOU CAN SEARCH CRABTREE QUITE AN EXPERIENCE TO BE THERE. I CAN'T IMAGINE THE EMOTIONAL TOLL THAT TAKES ON YOU TO WITNESS SOMEONE LOSING THEIR LIFE. BUT >> I WONDER WHAT HOW DID THEY SOUND? >> KNOWING THE FACT THAT THEY WOULD KNOW THE DATE AND THE TIME THAT THEY WOULD DIE. >> I LOVE THAT QUESTION BECAUSE THE NIGHT OF IN PARTICULAR ARTIST BASINS EXECUTION, HE SAID TO ME, DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY I AM? AND I SAID NO, ERNEST, I DON'T. I THOUGHT MAYBE HE WAS ABOUT TO SAY I'M GOING TO BE JESUS AND HE SAID I KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DIE MOST PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT THAT ALL THEIR LIVES. SO YOU CAN READ

David Crabtree

Keith Baker

A journalist's journey: The death penalty in North Carolina

A journalists journey: The death penalty in North Carolina

David Crabtree,behind the scenes,death penalty

WRAL-TV News Broadcasts: Watch each newscast live or watch the most recent newscast on demand.

WRAL Late News 

Get the latest WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast whenever you need it, including the DUALDoppler5000 and the 7-Day Forecast.

I'm meteorologist K Campbell in the wr a severe weather center. It's been a warm spring so far. In fact, when you look at the spring to date numbers, it's actually the second warmest on record at RDU running about 4.5 degrees above normal and for rainfall about an inch and a half below normal. And we really need some rain. You know, it's been a pretty dry April so far we've seen less than an inch inch of rain this month tomorrow. It's a nice dry day for us, but I, you know, at least it's gonna be a nice day, right? 72 in the Triangle, as well as Siler City in Wilson. 70 in Rocky Mount. 67 though in Roxboro and 67 for Roanoke Rapids, a little cooler to the north. 76 degrees in Fayetteville, 73 Goldsboro in Smithfield and 75 in Southern Pines. It is going to be a little bit cooler in the morning because cold front moved through 50 degrees for the low in the triangle, right around 7 a.m. by 10 a.m. We're in the upper fifties, lunchtime, mid sixties and then in the lower seventies during the afternoon, dinner time, temperatures dip back into the upper sixties. A cold front passed earlier this evening and behind it, we are going to be drying out but cooling down briefly. It's not a huge drop in temperatures, but we will see this dip in the jet stream delivering some cooler air. We start to see a reversal of the jet stream flow and that changes really on Sunday with a warming southwest wind at the surface and at the jet stream level, that's going to drive temperatures up to 80 beginning on Sunday and the eighties will last into next week with a strengthening ridge of high pressure. So we expect a big climb in temperatures just throughout the course of the weekend, 48 degrees Friday morning, but back up to 80 by Sunday afternoon and then much warmer weather is on the way for next week. We're looking at seventies for the next few days with mostly cloudy skies for the weekend days. The sun's back out though next Monday and with a warming wind, we're back in the upper eighties three days in a row all the way up to 89 on Tuesday. Tuesday might be the 1st 90 degree day of the year for parts of North Carolina.

WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast

Nightly N.C. Education Lottery drawings during the 11 p.m. News.

Good evening. I'm Gayle Hurd. Welcome to tonight's drawings for Wednesday, April 24th, 2024. Well, let's get started tonight with our Carolina pick three. Our first winning number is a seven. Our second number is six and the third number tonight is a nine and our pick three. Fireball number is six. Joining me for tonight's show is our auditor from mcconnell and Jones L LP. Now let's move to the Carolina pick four. Good luck. Everyone who's that first winning pick four number, it's zero. Our second number is a nine. Third number tonight is three and our fourth number is one in our pick for fireball number. There it is. It's three. Again, we're turning now to the Carolina cash five and no one was the top prize tonight. Tomorrow's top prize is estimated at $620,000. Good luck. Everyone here's their first win in cash five number. It's a 29. Our second number, it's 37 3rd number tonight. It's 34. Our fourth number is lucky 13 and the final number in our cash five this evening is 12. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education. Get your winning numbers right here every night on your exclusive station for the North Carolina Education lottery. Thanks for playing. Have a great night.

Evening Pick 3 Pick 4 and Cash 5

Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday Powerball drawings, as shown live on WRAL.

Ball. Good evening, Ruan, I Randy trainer. Tonight. We have another life changing jackpot. It's worth an estimated $130.2 million. So, get your tickets ready here. Come, tonight's winning numbers. Let's start things off this evening with the number 26. Right after that America. We have the number two and congratulations to Gina Magnum from North Carolina. She won $50,000 playing powerball. All right, the rest of your winning numbers tonight 20 47. And let's round it out tonight with the number 22 and tonight 20 powerball number, that's gonna be 21 and your power play multiplayer is four. Let's take another look at tonight's winning numbers. We'll see you back here on Saturday night. It's time to play America's favorite.

Powerball Drawing

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings are held at 3 p.m. daily. They can be seen as live or on-demand video.

Good afternoon. I'm Luis Fernandez. Welcome to this afternoon's drawings for Wednesday, April 24th, 2024. Let's get started with Carolina pick three. The first pick three number is two, second is eight and the third is eight and our pick three fireball number is five. Join me for this afternoon's drawing is our auditor for mcconnell LP. Now let's move to Carolina pick four. The first pick four, number is five. The second is one, the third is three and the fourth is zero and our pick four. Fireball number is five. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education and thanks for your support.

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 Drawing

Brian Shrader flies over the site of a plane crash at Raleigh-Durham International Airport approximately three hours after the accident.

Seen some activity just in the past 10 minutes or so. I want to take you outside Sky five right now for a live look at the scene. We saw a van being escorted to the runway there and someone got out and now there appears to be a really careful inspection of the debris going on. So we're working to confirm if that may be the NTSB investigation team arriving at the scene. Let's zoom out and give you some about where this is. There are two main runways at RDU International and this is in the grassy field next to the runway that mostly serves terminal one on the east side of the airport, that runway remains closed while this investigation continues at the top of your screen. That is the other main runway that serves terminal two, mostly that runway is open. So we have two things going on here that could affect your flights for the rest of the day and maybe even into tomorrow, the airport takeoff and landing capacity is roughly reduced by half because they are only working with one runway. And if you have a flight coming out of terminal one, maybe Southwest, you're going to have to take that crossover all the way out to that other runway. It's going to add a lot of extra time.

Sky 5 flies over RDU plane crash 3 hours later 

A UNC Health physician and pilot were taken to the hospital Wednesday after a small plane crashed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU).


Sky 5 flies over plane crash at RDU

RDU Airport Authority gives an update on a plane crash that sent a physician and pilot to the hospital. The crash occurred Wednesday morning on a flight that took off from Wilmington.

<p>Landguth first, I want to extend my thoughts to those affected by this morning's aircraft accident and thank our first responders for their quick action to respond. The airport authority and its mutual aid partners responded to an aircraft accident at RDU involving a general aviation aircraft. The accident occurred at approximately 10:10 a.m. in the grass next to runway five, right 23 left. The flight was arriving from Wilmington, North Carolina. The A the aircraft is owned by medical Air Inc and operated by UN C air operations. The aircraft had two people on board, one pilot and one passenger. Both were transported to area hospitals. The federal A Bush administration issued a ground stop that was lifted at approximately 1130 this morning. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have both been notified. The National Transportation Safety Board is en route and expected to arrive within the next hour at which time we will conduct an accident investigation. Rdu's runway five left 23 right reopened to departing and arriving aircraft around 11:30 a.m. this morning. Are you experiencing approximately 70 delays and several arriving flights were diverted to other airports? Until ground stock was lifted, travelers should contact their airline for the latest updates regarding the flight status. And of course questions about the identity and condition of the pilot and passenger should be directed to UN C health. And at this time I'll try to answer any questions. You may have, uh, the one, any other accidents in, in the past. I'm not familiar with any other accidents have occurred with that operation. I don't know, uh, that's the role of the National Transportation Safety Board. They'll actually come in and do the investigation. Uh, and at some point in the future, they write up a report and determine what the cause of the accident was. You know, that there was no notification to the airport authority or to the FAA uh about any type of emergency on board. Do we have a guy? We don't, all we know that we've got them out of the airplane and we've got them transported to local hospitals. We know situations like this and delays have a ripple effect on, you know, flights. Do you have any idea what type of impact we'll see here in our view and for not sure, but what we're going to encourage everybody to do is reach out to your airlines. We'll be able to give you real time information about the impact of your particular flight. Ok. I believe some of them went to Greensboro and I think a couple went to Charlotte as well. What, what to be impacted due to the NTSD. Say that one more time at this point in time, what we call the west side of our airport is now open the investigation they'll conduct will all be on the east side. So at this point, we are anticipating normal operations returning to normal operations from this point forward. I don't think that anything that they're doing regarding the investigation or where they would have to investigate would have any impact to the west side of the airport. No, the aircraft is still on the airfield itself. It's on the east side of the field. So terminal one that runways the east side of the field, that's where the debris field actually sits, the west side of the field is open and operational and safe to operate. Not that I'm aware of in operations for you throughout this event today. What was your main concern concerning the passengers that were in the internals? Right. I think our primary focus when, when that accident occurred were the two people sitting in that aircraft? Our primary mission is to make sure we can get to them and try to rescue them and try to make sure that we can get them in a safe condition as fast as we possibly can. Uh secondarily is trying to figure out then how we recover and get our operations back up and running. Mhm. How does that affect? What goes on term? Yeah, so great. Question. So the team has figured out a way to get all the aircraft they're gonna operate at terminal one. Your Southwest develops. Uh We've got a crossover taxi way that we can actually get them through our general aviation aircraft. We've got a crossover taxiway, we can get them to. But the rest of the uh accident scene is actually kind of isolated and closed and locked off. Yeah, you're terminal one at this point in time. Once they can get back on their schedule, it's going to be a normal operations. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Grab your phone, right.</p>

A journalist's journey: The death penalty in North Carolina

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