
Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald
Indiana State Prison holds twelve men condemned to die, and journalist Trevor McDonald spends two episodes talking to them face to face. Benjamin Ritchie, convicted of murdering a police officer, and John Stephenson, who killed three people on a gang boss's orders, describe the crimes that put them there, while James Harrison recounts avoiding execution by weeks after accepting a life sentence instead. McDonald tours the prison's 1950s-style barber shop, where convict Rick Pearish explains why inmates are trusted with straight razors, and later visits the room where executions are carried out. Fredrick Baer, on death row seven years for murdering a woman and her four-year-old daughter, talks about the childhood that preceded his crime. The series also shows the facility's more privileged dormitory wing, where John Serwatka, serving life for a paid double murder, lives in a cubicle rather than a cell. McDonald asks plain questions and lets the men's own accounts carry the weight.