On Thanksgiving Day, during our family gathering, we pray you to have mercy on Antonio Pontoon …

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Pardon me for this resolution … I know that this will be a disgrace that I bring to my people, but I cannot help it. Love is the blame for it. I go in peace ... pray for me ... goodbye all.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories. “Focus Focus!” she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration. But her imagination was not far-fetched. My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It’s not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

¡Tape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, spirit malign (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!” The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la galling Caixa (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game. The Aquino lasted throughout the night. In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say goodbye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in. Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss. He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents. And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the body.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

The Porto Rivals at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one, and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors,” the Harvard students wrote. One of the student signatures on the letter was by Pedro Albion y Campos who would later become a Puerto Rican promoter of ideals for the island’s independence from the United States.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

There is always hope for a reprieve, my friend,” Steslow said. “You have to get the governor to pardon you if the courts fail on you. This is an unlikely thing, although possible. The last thing you hold on to ‘til the last second is hope. Hope is what keeps us dooms men sane, for the most part. A miracle.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic,” said Manuel. “They have swayed public opinion. I would not be surprised that the countries go into war, and we are caught in the middle.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with propose (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk. “Has spring started? I just saw the first flower!” Antonio whispered as he walked by a group of blushing young ladies, tipping off his white Panama hat as a silent ‘How do you do?’ He was never at a loss for words. “What are you doing out this morning? Don’t you know that stars only come out at night?” was one of his favorite lines. And he had many. On a good day.

— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini