An Oklahoma death row inmate was executed this past week, and now his chilling last words before being executed have been revealed.
According to Fox News, Scott James Eizember was executed by lethal injection on Thursday after being convicted of the 2003 murder of an elderly couple.
On October 18, 2003, Eizember broke into the home of AJ and Patsy Cantrell in order to spy on his ex-girlfriend who lived across the street. When the Cantrells returned home, Eizember shot and killed Patsy before proceeding to bludgeon AJ to death with his gun. He then proceeded to attack his ex-girlfriend and her son before fleeing the scene.
He then spent several months on the run before being shot by a man in Texas who he had attempted to hold hostage. Eizember was then convicted of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
On Thursday at 10:01 am, the sentence was carried out and at 10:15, he was pronounced dead.
BREAKING: The state of Oklahoma has executed Scott Eizember. Eizember killed elderly couple AJ and Patsy Cantrell in 2003. He then led authorities on a 37-day manhunt, one of the longest in state history. pic.twitter.com/Ov8r44LHrs
— Jonathan Cooper (@JCooperTV) January 12, 2023
According to The Associated Press, before the execution began, Eizember said while strapped to a gurney, “I’m at peace. My conscience is clear, completely. I love my children.”
At one point during the execution, he lifted his head and mouthed “I love you” to his daughter and his attorneys. He was also seen chatting with his spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeffery Hood.
Yet although justice has been served for this horrific crime, some members of the victims’ family have voiced concern about how long it took for the sentence to be carried out, saying that the long wait between sentencing and execution only prolonged and exacerbated the family’s misery.
“After living this nightmare, I must say that 20 years is too long for justice to be served,” said the victims’ nephew Johnny Melton. “We want to get it right and we absolutely want to ensure that everyone’s rights are protected, but the process is much too slow.”
This does indeed raise a delicate question – how long is too long between the sentence and the execution?
On the one hand, we want to give the inmate enough time to make appeals in order to learn the facts of the case and decide definitively whether death is the right sentence. Given the severity that a death penalty carries, it’s crucial to make sure that enough time is given for all the facts to come to light.
On the other hand, the long wait time does have the tendency to drag out the suffering of the victim’s family, and with every new appeal, they are reliving the horrendous experience of the death of their loved ones. It also does much psychological harm to the condemned, who is forced to wait in agony year after year contemplating his final fate.
The left certainly doesn’t know the correct answer to this tough question. All the left has been telling us for years is that we need to show criminals compassion. To that end, many leftist governments have implemented insane policies, including giving all death row inmates an amnesty in some states.
But this is not compassionate for anyone.
It is certainly not compassionate to the families of the victims, who will forever feel like justice was never served, and it is not compassionate for the condemned, who will never face justice for his crimes and learn from his actions.
Leftist compassion seems to simply be allowing people to run amok and do whatever they want, regardless of the harm that it causes people.
The case of Scott James Eizember once again raises the question of what is true compassion with regard to crime. The long 20-year wait for his execution certainly does not seem compassionate to his victims and their memory.
For any society to function, we need to be willing to call out evil when we see it and dole out consequences. If we refuse to in the name of “compassion” we are not really being compassionate, but cruel.
CORRECTION, March 23, 2023: Scott James Eizember’s final words were revealed after he was executed. An earlier headline for this article said otherwise.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.