Failure™ Magazine

Well Executed?

A haunting new documentary examines the real-world implications of capital punishment.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, History

At one point, Pickett had the opportunity to connect with both Standley and Beseda, and neither of his parishioners was optimistic about their chances of surviving the ordeal. “I talked with Judy and she said, ‘This is what I want for my funeral.’ She knew she wasn’t going to make it out…. And then Yvonne got on the phone. And she told me what she wanted for her funeral,” he says in a quiet voice.

Deep down, Pickett knew Standley and Beseda were right. “No siege in America had ever gone on this long. It was just a question of how many were gonna die,” he states matter-of-factly, before noting that Carrasco & Co. had failed to conceive a realistic plan for extricating themselves from the situation. In fact, the escape strategy was formulated by Steven Robertson, one of the inmate hostages, who suggested that the trio leave the library in a Trojan Horse-like contraption, one capable of shielding its occupants from gunfire or any other directed attack.

After Carrasco approved the design of what would become known as the “Trojan Taco,” the inmate and civilian hostages—desperate to end the ordeal by any means possible—cobbled together the peculiar protective device, which in its final incarnation was six feet high, six feet long, three feet wide and an unwieldy 700 pounds. Fully aware that a shield made of rolling chalkboards, wood, pegboard and cardboard would provide precious little protection from bullets, “armor” was added in the form of two- and three-inch-thick law books, which were attached to the frame using yards and yards of book-binding tape.

For added personal security, Carrasco, Dominguez and Cuevas planned to wear bulletproof headgear during their escape attempt—equipment that the trio had demanded, and received, earlier in the siege. Authorities had no misgivings about providing the additional protective gear, as the steel helmets—modified welders helmets fused together back-to-back—weighed a neck-straining 30 pounds, had no ear holes and just a one-inch-high slit from which the wearer could peer out. A medieval knight might have found the helmets perfect for jousting, but they were wholly inappropriate for a life-and-death prison break.

***

For a while, it appeared the saga might drag on for weeks. But on August 2, a powerful thunderstorm rolled in to Huntsville and a “nearby lightning strike knocked out much of the power throughout the prison and short-circuited a relay fuse in the library,” recounts Harper in “Eleven Days in Hell.” Estelle took a calculated risk and delayed restoring the electricity, hoping that the lack of air-conditioning, coupled with the muggy, 100-degree weather, would drive Carrasco to distraction and force him “to make some moves he was not quite prepared to make,” writes Harper.

Estelle’s deliberate inaction had the intended effect, as the oppressive conditions prompted the trio to act, perhaps irrationally. Before long Carrasco announced that he and his partners-in-crime would exit the library inside the Trojan Taco, each hostage taker accompanied by a female human shield—Carrasco with Beseda, Dominguez with Standley and Cuevas with Novella Pollard, who was the principal of the prison school. Father Joseph O’Brien, the prison chaplain, would also be inside, charged with serving as “brakeman.” Meanwhile, eight additional hostages would be handcuffed to the outside of the Taco; their job would be to maneuver the apparatus down a ramp from the third floor to ground level, then over to the armored getaway van the hostage-takers had requisitioned.

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