Reporter
Ellie Lightfoot is currently a child welfare reporter with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Grad School of Journalism. I specialize in character-driven, investigative stories. My work has received a George Polk Award, and has been nominated for an Emmy, a Peabody and a duPont Award. Find work at ellielightfoot.com.
We anticipated this project would be difficult, emotionally. We knew that our relationships with these men had a fixed end date, and that the structure of the story meant that we would have to bear witness to death.
Inside Cell Double L, the last stop before execution in Oklahoma, we hear from inmates and loved ones on death watch row.
In 2004, Wade Lay and his 19-year-old son, Chris, attempted to rob a bank in Tulsa. Wade's daughter is still struggling with the fallout.
When we asked Bigler Stouffer, five days before his execution, if he’d chosen his last words, he didn’t hesitate: “Father, forgive them.” He meant his jailers.
