..  ..Lesley Lee Gosch ...No 842 ...Ellis I Unit, Huntsville, Texas ...Year of Birth 1955 ...Marital Status single ...Children none ...Date of offense September 18, 1985 ...Sentenced to death September 4, 1986 ...Status Executed April 24, 1998 . Click on the image to view a larger version. Scroll below for an account of the session.

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Lesley Lee Gosch, a former Eagle Scout, was convicted of killing the wife of a San Antonio bank president in a botched extortion attempt. He shot Rebecca Jo Patton in the head 6 times with a handgun. The key evidence against Gosch came from his partner in crime, John Lawrence Rogers, who testified against him in exchange for a lighter sentence. Gosch's attorney later told the press that Rogers's testimony was given in retaliation for a statement Gosch made against Rogers in an earlier trial. Coke-bottle-thick lenses in prison-issue frames drew attention to his eyes, giving him a gnomish appearance. He had lost one eye & the tips of his fingers in an accident, when a chemical used to make blasting caps exploded. "My vision is so bad that my right eye is...I lost it in 1977 & my left one, they've taken the lens out. That's why I wear these cataract glasses. I take my glasses off & I'm legally blind." We joked about the lighter side of prison life. Gosch told a story about a practical joke that he played on one of the guards. "We had a new officer working the wing & ...I was feeling particularly frustrated that day, so I took my eye out & put it in the carrots on my food tray & called him back over & said, "Look, I want another tray. I don't know where the rest of him is, but I ain't eating this part of it." I've had a lot of fun with my prosthesis." Despite this sense of humor, Lesley is a loner. On death row, activity is a matter of choice. Some have a social life; others seek invisibility. Gosch has become something of an artist, teaching himself an intricate pointillist technique using pen & ink. Because of his failing eyesight, he works with his nose only an inch or two from the canvas. "I started drawing when I was in county jail....They gave us a few pencils & pens & tablets....The walls in my cell were made out of steel with enamel paint. You could draw on them with your pencils. So, I started drawing on the wall & went from there. And after I got down here, I got to where I could get a few art books & they allowed a whole-lot-greater variety of materials."

Trained as an electrical engineer at Texas A&M & the University of Texas at San Antonio, Gosch is a bright, well-educated man, with well-reasoned opinions on crime & punishment. Most interesting to me, though, were his ideas about art. "Art, for me, is a form of communication with a high path applied to it. Everybody communicates but the craftsmanship's in the communications-everybody can speak, but not everybody can speak in pictures...in some form of high craft. It's been said, over the years, that art is to the highest craftsman. And it's true." It must be difficult to come to art while in prison, to develop an aesthetic under such adverse conditions. Did Gosch take up the challenge or was it just a way of passing the time? Either way it must be an obsession, a kind of mental gymnastics that has the effect of keeping his mind off his surroundings & his ultimate fate. "I guess it's just the pressure of not knowing. The fear it generates. You don't know what the outcome is going to be & you're just in constant limbo." I don't know if the real man was hidden behind his large glasses, or if his aversion to the constant limbo of death row made him look harmeless. In his manner & his way of speaking I sensed only his confusion & despair. I have no doubt that the United States will untimately reject the death penalty, that future generations will look back & wonder, "Who were those executioners? How could our ancestors have tolerated such irrational behavior?" The change will not come easily; the issue is extraordinarily complex. Democracy is hard.