Ms Magda Finnegan, who had been corresponding with Alan Bannister since November 1993, said he had been "unbelievably together" when she spoke to him on the telephone on Monday.
She telephoned the prison at 1.30 a.m. yesterday morning but they were not able to give her any news. She wanted to stay up all night but had to get up the following morning to collect her grandchild. She learned of Bannister's death early yesterday morning from a news flash on Sky News.
Ms Finnegan always felt the Missouri authorities "were going to get Alan" for political reasons, but his death still came as a shock. Even though she had worked for 6 1/2 years in a nursing home, an experience which had familiarised her with death, the bad news from Missouri still hit her hard.
Ms Finnegan feels Bannister was badly treated by the prison authorities. Though they corresponded every three weeks or so, a number of her letters to him never arrived. With the help of the Socialist Party, she had organised a demonstration outside the US embassy in Dublin, delivering a petition containing hundreds of signatures. It was she who contacted the Pat Kenny radio show with his story. As a result of the subsequent broadcasts, hundreds of Irish people faxed the governor of Missouri demanding that Bannister be shown clemency.
She feels Alan Bannister was well prepared for his fate. Another pen-friend of his from Gloucestershire, with whom she is in contact, spoke to Bannister on the phone an hour before his execution, when he had received his first "relaxation injection". "He was so calm, even making jokes," Ms Finnegan said. It is not the first time Ms Finnegan, who works as a personal assistant for the Irish Wheelchair Association, had lost a pen-friend. A previous correspondent of hers, Mr Robert West, was executed in July.
She is at present in contact with two other prisoners on Death Row. One, whom she can only name as Robert, is on Death Row in Florida. Robert is absolutely adamant that his case get no publicity, as he believes this would hasten his execution. He is more than 17 years on Death Row and has "one more appeal to go".
