The guards found nothing during a strip-search. The inmate resisted violently as the officers knew he would. Nevertheless, on this occasion no weapons were found. The inmate was dressed in special garments then lead down a hallway to a chamber. The correctional officers strapped Ponchai Wilkerson onto a gurney. On the other side of a soundproof glass were a dozen people; all of them present to witness the execution on March 14, 2000.

Ponchai was sentenced to death for killing a jewelry store employee during a month-long robbery-and-shooting spree. Before his sentencing the jury was told that Ponchai would be a "threat to the community" as long has be had life.

How could a man, incarcerated on death row at the Walls Unit prison in Huntsville, Texas, be a continued threat to the community?

Take a look. Around Thanksgiving of 1998, Ponchai and six other death row inmates escaped briefly. In February of this year Ponchai held a female correctional officer hostage for 13 hours. His weapon? A sharpened piece of metal taken from a typewriter. All of these events occurred while Ponchai was secured in a cell on death row.

Now Ponchai was about to die. Soon after the first injection, the condemned man’s body relaxed. His mouth opened, releasing a handcuff key which he’d managed to conceal even during violent wrestling with guards moments before. The warden was stunned to find a handcuff key in the possession of a prisoner inside the death house. The execution continued and moments later Ponchai Wilkerson was pronounced dead.

Less than two days later, all 122,000 convicts in 86 prisons in the State of Texas were locked down as correctional officers began cell-by-cell searches of the entire prison population. They were looking for any kind of weapon or contraband.

This massive search was triggered by a handcuff key that was spit out, at the moment of death, by one of the most violent men in Texas history.

Such a bizarre ending for a man who was the son of a retired deputy sheriff.