ABSTRACT

When I first met Brian Steckel, he was in shackles and handcuffs. Brian had finally agreed to meet with me three months after I started to visit the men on Delaware’s death row. Brian was among those who had initially refused to meet with me, yet he was later convinced by a fellow inmate to accept my visit. I was particularly anxious about meeting Brian after reading about his case. The nine inmates I had met before him were not the monsters that death row inmates are typically portrayed to be, yet the gruesome details of Brian’s crime led me to expect that this time I had finally found a death row inmate who fit the stereotype of the sociopath. Brian’s crime was arguably one of the most gruesome committed by the men on Delaware’s death row, at least in the way that it was portrayed by the media. I was familiar with the procedures for visiting death row inmates by that point, which are very secure, so I was not afraid for my safety. I was, however, nervous that I would have trouble maintaining a conversation with this man who, in print, had been painted as truly monstrous.