You need 100 feet of rope to hang a man – a macabre detail former penitentiary captain Dick Morgan learned on the job. But crucial to know, because a misstep is too gruesome to describe.
“I was terrified that we’d screw it up,” Morgan said this week from Walla Walla, where he worked for decades, and where his father and grandfather worked before him.
Morgan participated in two executions at the penitentiary, and attended one in 2001. Ultimately, he would actively oppose government-sanctioned executions…