May 25, 1995. Jerry Kilgore is Secretary of Public Safety, a job that put him in charge of Virginia's prison system.Just before his execution by lethal injection, inmate Willie Lloyd Turner tells his attorney, "Look in the back of the typewriter when you get home. I didn't use it because of you.''
An hour later Walter Walvick did just that, in the company of several reporters and his family.
When Mr. Walvick pried open the typewriter, he made a stunning discovery.
Mr. Walvick found a gun, 12 bullets and a little note that said "smile."
So, what did Jerry Kilgore have to say about this huge lapse on his watch?
His first reaction: a cursorary probe into the matter ending with the announcement that it was a "probable hoax'' by Turner's lawyer. However, journalists who had witnessed the execution and the discovery of the gun quickly identified Kilgore's coverup attempt.
More to the point, the record showed that Kilgore knew that Willie Lloyd Turner had a record of keeping weapons in his cell.
"I'm not . . . suggesting or promising definite answers,'' Kilgore said six weeks later when summoned before the House of Delegates Crime Commission's corrections subcommitee.
"They're the ones that are politicizing this issue, they knew I would not be able to say anything definitive."
Because the investigation is continuing, Kilgore said, he and the other two officials could not answer many of the commission's questions. Their refusal clearly frustrated some members, who complained that the inquiry has taken too long, that it has become politicized and that "the fox was in charge of the henhouse."
Del. Howard E. Copeland put it plainly to Kilgore:
"You've got an institutional interest in exonerating the department. We may end up with the feds investigating this thing.''
Del. Chip Woodrum, chair of the State Crime Commission, said he was ?appalled? by the revelation, commented that the discovery presented a ?serious issue of credibility? for Kilgore.
The Kilgore campaign would like to portray Jerry Kilgore as the ?tough-on-crime? candidate, but his record as Secretary of Public Safety demonstrated only mismanagement, corruption and incompetence.
Under Kilgore's leadership, the VA Department of Correction went from a prison system nationally ranked for efficiency, to a point where almost every major manager and division serving under Kilgore came under investigation, either from the House of Delegates or the U.S. Department of Justice. A standing joke in Richmond was that Kilgore's prison improvements transformed it into the "Department of Corruption." With Governor Allen's administration winding down into Gilmore's election campaign, Kilgore's quiet departure was viewed as a close call for Republicans.
Though Kilgore is determined to bring his kind of management back to our state. Consider, then, as election day draws near, the Republican candidate...Do we want Kilgore to run our state in the future the way he ran Death Row?
Sources: The Washington Post, 7/20/95, The Virginian Pilot, 7/12/95, 7/27/95