A death row inmate had a chillingly calm response when asked about how he felt to know he’d be dead within two days.
Scott Dozier was handed the death penalty for the 2002 murder of 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller.
Dozier produced and sold meth and met Miller after he promised the 22-year-old that he could supply him with ephedrine - a chemical used in production of the drug.
However, when Miller arrived for the meet up with $12,000 in cash for the sale, Dozier killed him, sawed his body into pieces, placed it into a suitcase and then dumped the suitcase in western Las Vegas. He then went on a spending spree with the stolen $12,000.
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Dozier was also linked to another killing the year before - he allegedly shot and Jasen Greene at a trailer in Arizona, because Greene had threatened to expose Dozier's methamphetamine operation.
Dozier was given a 22-year sentence for the murder of Greene - and later was extradited to Nevada where he was given the death penalty for Miller’s murder.
In an interview with Vice two days prior to his scheduled execution, Dozier was told: “So, you’re going to be dead in two days.”
To which he calmly replied: “Yeah, I am.”
The interviewer then asked if he had processed that information, and he replied: “As much as a person can. It’s a heavy duty thing, isn’t it?”
Dozier also spoke matter-of-factly about midazolam, the drug he was set to be given to end his life.
Speaking about the ‘side effects of midazolam’, Dozier explained that he was going to tell his mum that any ‘thrashing’ she saw after he was administered the lethal injection was ‘not an indication he was having a bad time’.
However, despite Dozier seemingly unnervingly prepared for his execution - he didn’t die via lethal injection.
Instead he took his own life while still on death row at Ely State Prison, Nevada, in January 2019 - he was 48.
In a last message as per the Mirror, Dozier said: “I accept the unknown of death rather than the known of this life.
“I may just be walking myself into a s***storm, but I've always been one to walk toward things. I'm told there could be great things after death.
“Although I'm an atheist, I'm excited to discover what comes next. Probably nothing.
“I did everything possible to make sure the State of Nevada would kill me - but I did not like the way it proposed using dubious fatal drugs.
“Rather than be strapped to a gurney and injected, I'd far prefer to have been shot by a firing squad and be able to look the executioner right in the eye.
“A firing squad is definitive and it's cheap.”
Claire Reid