North Carolina Department of Correction news release

Execution Media Advisory

Monday, April 20, 1998

Death row inmate Wendell Flowers is scheduled for execution by lethal injection Friday, April 24, at 2 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh. Flowers pled guilty and was sentenced Oct. 6, 1994, in Rowan County for the murder of 35 year-old Rufus Coley Watson, Jr., a fellow inmate at Piedmont Correctional Institution.

Media who need to photograph the death watch area and the execution chamber in Central Prison may do so Monday, April 20. This will be the only time news media will be allowed into the execution chamber before the execution.

Television and radio reporters and photographers should be at Central Prison's visitor center at 10 a.m., and newspaper reporters and photographers at 11 a.m. Media should report promptly to the visitor center, and bring a photo I.D. and media identification. Each session will last one hour. Warden James B. French will explain execution procedures.

Reporters who plan to attend should call the Department of Correction Public Information Office at (919) 733-4926.

Wendell Flowers is among 180 inmates on death row. Flowers said he does not want media interviews.

-pmc-