Meeting with a Killer
In Philadelphia, Hank Fahy's name is mud.
Convicted of the 1981 rape-slaying of a girl-child and subsequently sentenced to death, Fahy has dwelt in a virtual netherworld beneath the "usual" hell that is death row. Marked as a baby-rapist, he has had to withstand the loathing and contempt of the many who regard his crime as an act beneath contempt.
Fahy's odyssey into the underworld has not been an easy one: bouts of suicide attempts have alternated with periods of an almost manic evangelical fervor, a living pendulum swinging between visions of hell and heaven, both just beyond his grasp.
In late June, 1995, while under his second death warrant, and with a date to die in July, Hank would come face-to-face with the living personifications of his demons and his angel.
Even while under an active death warrant, with a date to die within two weeks, Fahy was transferred to a Philadelphia city prison (rather than the state prison at Graterford, as is customary).
When he arrived, he was placed in a cell, where the words "Jamie Fahy -- Rest in Peace" were scrawled across the wall: Jamie Fahy, a beautiful, troubled, love-starved young girl -- beaten, murdered, and allegedly raped -- Hank's eighteen-year-old daughter, who was barely four when he entered Hell.
There is more.
From impish whisperings of those around him, he learned an astonishing thing -- that the man charged with beating, killing, and raping his daughter was there -- not merely in the same prison -- but there -- on that very block!
As if inevitable, Hank met Mark (not his real name), and the hatred kindled over months melted into rare compassion.
"I hated him, Jamal," Fahy confided, "but when I saw this kid, eighteen years old, I realized what a hell he was in for; and also, I thought about the pain I would be causing his mother if I took something and stuck him."
In every prison in America, murder is no mystery. There are men on death row across the nation awaiting execution for killings committed in prison.
Hank had two weeks of life left. What did he have to lose?
"You know, Jamal, I looked at this eighteen-year-old kid, and I remembered the look on my mother's face when she was alive, when she came to visit me; the shame of seeing her son on death row; and I didn't have the heart to tell this kid, but I could see his mother lookin' at him the same way, and it hurt me, Jamal, it really did, man."
"What hurt you, Hank? Whatchu mean?"
"Well, it was two things. First, this was a set-up; I was 'sposed to kill this kid! Why else would they put us on the same block? Come on, man. Second, the same people that put me on death row are gonna put this kid on death row, but he don't know it yet."
"What did you tell Mark, man?"
"I told him 'I forgive ya, man', and I told him to let his lawyer know this, and anything I can do to help him and to keep him off death row, I'll do."
"How did you feel tellin' that boy that, Hank?"
"Ya know, Jamal, I felt good. I felt like the better man, 'cause the same system that plans to kill me, that plans to kill him, that same system that set us both up (for me to kill him and for him to get killed), can't do what I did -- forgive."
"I loved Jamie, Jamal. She was my heart. But me killin' that kid can't bring my daughter back, and ya know what else, Jamal?"
"What's dat, Hank?"
"I wouldn't wish this -- death row -- on my worstest enemy."