Plot Synopsis

Werner Herzog interviews five inmates awaiting their appointment with lethal injection in the Texas and Florida prison systems, trying to understand why people -- and the state -- kill. Herzog explores the emotions that these men and women go through as they possess the haunting knowledge of exactly when they are going to die. In each 60-minute episode, Herzog interviews one or two death-row inmates, including these criminals in Season 1: James Barnes, who was convicted of murder in 1998 after hiding his wife's corpse in the closet; Joseph Garcia & George Rivas, who are part of the "Texas Seven" that escaped prison walls, shot and killed a police officer, and given the death penalty; Hank Skinner, who had is alive because the Supreme Court stayed his execution -- just 23 minutes before it was scheduled; and Linda Anita Carty, who may become the first black British woman to be executed in more than a century.
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Season 2 debuted on Investigation Discovery on Tuesday, September 3, 2013 at 9pm ET/PT. In the show's second season, Herzog interviewed these four inmates in separate episodes: Robert Fratta, sentenced in 1996 for the murder of his wife, Farah, who was gunned down in the family garage in Texas; Darlie Routier, a once doting mother, who was convicted of murdering her two young sons in 1996; Blaine Milam, who was condemned for the brutal death of her infant daughter, during which postpartum psychosis, methamphetamines and Ouija boards played critical roles; and Douglas Feldman, a former financial analyst turned road-rage murderer, with whom Herzog spoke not long before Douglas was executed by lethal injection on July 31, 2013 in Texas.