Methodical

Death is methodical. Not always. But for John Fenton Langley and Christopher Scott Emmett is was and will be.

According to Virginia Prosecutor William Fuller the night Christopher Scott Emmett killed John Fenton Langley he sat on the edge of his bed, watching his sleeping friend. He took a heavy brass lamp, one that would later be introduced into evidence in the trial.

He removed the lampshade.

He removed the light bulb - "So it wouldn't break and cut him," Fuller explained.

He then struck Langley five or six times in the head. He wasn't trying to knock him unconscious. He planned to kill him, Fuller said. With Langley dead Emmett was free to take the money he wanted to buy the crack cocaine he so desperately wanted. Within minutes he was dead.

On Wednesday Emmett will die in a methodical way. He will step through the door of the death room, walk across it to the table where he will die. He will climb up on it and lie down as a "tie-down" team straps his legs and body to the table. Another team will then insert needles into his arm in preparation for the drugs that will be administered. He will be allowed to speak his last words, if he has any. Then the warden will give a signal and the drugs will flow. Within minutes Emmett will be dead.

Methodical.