November 27, 2022 Dear Colleague. My name is Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood and I serve as the spiritual advisor to Scott Eizember, who has been condemned to be executed by the State of Oklahoma on January 12. In the coming weeks, I will be participating in a clemency process for Scott that will culminate in a public hearing on December 7. Scott was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2003 murders of an elderly couple in Depew, A.J. and... Read more
The rapidity with which these executions are taking place is stunning. In fact, these executions are becoming so routine that it’s easy for people to forget that actual humans are being executed. Such dehumanization has a variety of consequences…not the least of which is that we become comfortable killers. You see it takes a real human to kill and it takes a real human to be killed. The two are intrinsically connected. Thus, our dehumanization further has the consequences... Read more
Transcript of a sermon delivered on November 20, 2022. Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxZZVXITvzI Greetings. My name is Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood. I am coming to you today from a society that is in deep moral confusion. You see, every single day I wake up to stories of murder, to stories of killing, to stories of war, to stories of rumors of war. You see, we are a society that is experiencing a pandemic of violence, an epidemic of violence, and... Read more
“The Demonic Mailers”: The Weight of Benjamin Cole’s Stuff: Part 2 of 4 Truth be told, I didn’t know Benjamin Cole all that well. I’m not sure that anybody did. Most of the time, he wasn’t really there. Cole lived in a world of his own delusions. Of course, in such a world he was an oracle. If you wanted to have any interaction with Cole, you had no choice but to enter where he lived. I did. ... Read more
“The Actual Weight”: The Weight of Benjamin Cole’s Stuff (Part 1 of 4) Eyes ahead. Focus. Eyes ahead. Focus. Eyes ahead. Focus. I don’t know where it all ends. I just know that it ain’t stopped. I must keep going. When I got the first call, I didn’t know what to do. It’s Benjamin not Ben. Benjamin Cole was so very fragile. The Messianic delusions. The Bible verses. The shouts of God. They were incoherent…but…they were... Read more
The Prayer List (November 2022): Clergy United Against the Death Penalty’s Reports & Prayers on Upcoming Executions *In partnership with our friends at the For Whom the Bell Tolls Campaign. Learn more about how faith communities in particular can get involved in this effort at https://forwhomthebellstoll.org/ Tracy Beatty is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on November 9 in Texas. He was sentenced to death in 2004 for brutally murdering his mother, Callie Click. During his... Read more
An Open Letter to Debra Wyatt (daughter of AJ and Patsy Cantrell, who were victims of Scott Eizember in Oklahoma In my advocacy to stop the execution of Scott Eizember, I came across an article written by Josh Dulaney in The Oklahoman on October 5, 2020 entitled, “Death Row, Oklahoma: How long could you wait for your parents’ murderer to be executed?” The article contains an extended interaction with Ms. Debra Wyatt…who is the daughter of Eizember’s victims... Read more
*Transcript of a talk I gave on Thursday, November 3, 2022 to advocate for stopping the execution of Scott Eizember Good evening. My name is Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, and I am here to talk to you about a friend of mine. And yes, I did use that word, friend. This is someone who I am a spiritual advisor to, who I’ve gotten to know who truly has become a friend of mine, Scott Eizember. He is... Read more
“Forensic Files” : “Sands of Crime”: Season 13: Episode 13: Separating Fact and Fiction (On the Murder of Juli Busken & the Conviction of Anthony Sanchez in Oklahoma) From 1996 to 2011, a documentary-style television show called “Forensic Files” aired in 406 episodes on TLC (The Learning Channel). Since 2014, reruns of the original series can often be seen on CNN Headline News. Starting in 2020, a new iteration of the show called, “Forensic Files II” began to... Read more
Faces tell stories…and stories tell faces. Such is the juxtaposition from which I write. Sketch artists construct faces to reconstruct events…with the hope that the reconstruction of events will lead to capturing the faces that have perpetrated a crime. Unfortunately, sometimes stories are constructed based on the faces that are drawn…with the idea that the person suspected of a crime can be made to fit the face. Such is the case with Anthony Sanchez. You see, just over... Read more
