I am sorry to report that my pen pal, Arthur Boyd was executed by lethal injection at 2:08 a.m. on Thursday, October 21, 1999. I have been writing to Arthur since March. He started answering my letters in June. He has written at least one letter per month since then.

Arthur was a person of faith whose deep religious convictions had convinced him that the murder he had committed was wrong. Yet he also wrote to the parents of his victim. He asked for their forgiveness. The father was the pastor of a church in Mt. Airy, NC. He and his wife both wrote to the governor asking that Arthur's death sentence be changed to life imprisonment.

Neither the governor, nor the court systems chose to honor the family's request.

Although he never took me up on my offer to visit him, Arthur wrote beautiful letters. In these letters, he expressed his faith in God, his belief that God had forgiven him, and his gratefulness for God's salvation. He also admitted to the crime. Although he said that he could not remember the details, he knew that had committed the crime and was willing to pay the price of his own life if necessary.

In his last letter he wrote:

Dear Thomas,

Hope this finds you in the best of health and in the very best of spirits…

This very well might be my last letter to you. You know that my execution date is October 21. I am going to give you a young man's name here:

Jerry Hill (address removed)

Jerry is about 25 years old. He has been here about 2½ years. His mother died here about 8 or 10 months ago. He needs someone to write to him, plus someone that could come and visit him from time to time, plus help him out with a little money also. He never has anything much….

Look, you take care of yourself. Just always remember that Jesus is everything. There is nothing other than Jesus. May our God meet all of your needs, Thomas. I will be waiting on you—just think, I will be with my Lord forever—Thank you God for saving me a sinner.

Dear God, please take care of Thomas.

Love in Christ,
Your Brother
Arthur Boyd

As you can see, he is not the same person who brutally stabbed his ex-girlfriend 37 times at a church car wash. I would like to continue in this letter writing ministry. I am prepared to go ahead and write to Jerry if that is alright. Please let me know if he already has a pen pal, or if you think that I would do better to take some time off or wait for your office to give me another assignment.

With love from your brother in Christ,
Thomas Hanks