Death row inmate "Sometimes I want it over with"

(Associated Posers) – LIVINGSTON, Texas - “You can't take your eyes off that door” death row inmate Cleve Foster says about the steel door that death row inmates typically walk through on the way to their executions. Twice though Foster has come within minutes of being escorted through that steel door, but was stopped by US Supreme Court interventions.

On Tuesday, Foster, 48, is scheduled for yet another trip to the death house for participating in the abduction and slaying of a 30-year-old Sudanese woman, Nyaneur Pal, a decade ago near Fort Worth.

Foster, a former Army recruiter known to his death row colleagues as "Sarge," denies his role in the murder. Prosecutors say DNA ties him to the killing and that he gave contradictory stories when questioned about Pal's death.

"I did not do it," he insisted recently from a tiny visiting cage outside death row. I don't want to sound vain, but I have confidence in my attorney and confidence in my God," he said. "I can win either way."

He says that he is getting a little tired of the waiting, “It gets really boring and after a few years you start getting thoughts that it'd be better to end it quickly.”

The place is old but well kept, he's become something of a death row history buff. "Going inside, it's a little spooky. You can tell it's been there a while," he said. "Everything's polished, but still it's real old. You look down the row. History just screams at you.”

He says that in a way he hopes it comes down to the wire once again, not that it matters to him one way or the other, except for that last 'last meal'.

"I've already told the chaplain: Take the phone off the hook before 4 o'clock," he said, anticipating his next trip Tuesday. "I want to get that last meal."