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Jerry Summers: Shufflin' Phil Douglas Friday, February 26, 2021 - by Jerry Summers Jerry Summers The adjoining states of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia have a connecting bond to a major league baseball pitcher from 1912-1922. Phil Brooks Douglas was born on July 17, 1890 in Cedartown, Georgia but moved to Cowan, Tennessee in Franklin County where he grew up. He would also move to Birmingham, Alabama during his life. At 6’3” and weighing 190 pounds, Phil was a big man for that era and began his professional baseball career in 1910 at the age of 20. His fastball pitch was impressive enough that he would be favorably compared to future Hall of Famer Walter “Big Train” Johnson, often considered the greatest right-hand pitcher of all time.
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of the people because of the prior robbery. >> they took money out of bank accounts, robbed another place, they had a couple of thousands dollars, a car, guns, why go into yet another house? >> i think it was so easy, they had had somewhat of a high from doing it the first time so they wanted to do it again. >> the county sheriff, the state police, the oklahoma bureau of investigations, the fbi, were all looking for ache and hatch. but the fugitives had at least a six-hour start. >> they were here, they were gone, yeah. >> meanwhile, back in an oklahoma city hospital, brooks and leslie douglas clung to life in an intensive care unit. and lawmen had a bad feeling. >> i really was afraid when i was on the scene that night, these people are likely to go out and commit one murder after another. because it was just so consolidate and without thought. without even necessity. >> coming up, were you frightened? terrified that they would come back and try to kill you? >> absolutely.
and -- >> by not only denying but calling you a liar basically. >> right. and was like -- i just could see where that poor 12-year-old girl could have thought that i did or this happened. and i was like -- there's no thought, it did. >> the clemency appeal was denied. and so on august 9, 1996, leslie and brooks douglass drove from oklahoma city to mccallister prison to witness stephen hatch's death. >> all of the filings at the supreme court have been denied. and we have a green light to proceed with the execution shortly after midnight. >> a brother and sister among the first family members ever to witness the execution of a murderer. that they could do so at all was because of additional victims rights legislation brooks helped pass that year. >> the night of the execution and they give them an option of making a last statement, he didn't even say anything. >> he knew you were there.
friends. >> it was in his second year in the senate when brooks found the cause close to his heart. >> victims rights was simply one of those things that nobody talked about. >> but of course that was the core experience of his life. did he know how the system treats victims of crime? oh, yes he did. so he introduced oklahoma's first victims right act. >> the jury never hears one word about the family or not considering how brutal that crime was. this person took another individual's life in these cases. >> the victims rights movement was in its infancy then. he met resistance from judges and prosecutors. >> there were judges, there were state senators who had championed the rights of the accused. and certainly the accused is entitled to basic rights. and -- but there's a long tradition of that. it's a relatively new phenomena
>> leslie's reaction was more muted. >> he had told me about meeting with ake. and him forgiving him and me having a hard time understanding it. >> is forgiving part of moving on like that? part of getting past it? >> i think it is. i mean, i feel like i've forgiven. you can forgive, but it just doesn't change the circumstances sometimes. >> but there is a difference between forgiveness and forgetting. the state of oklahoma along with brooks and leslie douglass had some unfinished business with stephen hatch. not the triggerman, no. but a murderer, yes. coming up -- >> i was afraid to sleep at night. i was afraid somebody was coming to get me. >> another legal confrontation. and another staggering surprise. a new part of the story. 8gg@ú
>> dad, mom's dead. >> they had to relive that night, and i know how hard that was for him, and he talked about it and how hard that was going to be, and that i was glad it was him going and not me because i couldn't have dealt with it. >> after a los angeles opening, heaven's rain was first released in oklahoma and texas and across the southwest. it then came out on dvd. glen ake, the trigger man, died of natural causes in april. brooks spends much of his time now promoting the movie, often speaking after group screenings. it's found its early audience among oklahoma churchgoers. >> you know, brooks, i'm not sure people can fully appreciate the power that the grace of god has had in your life in granting the forgiveness to the people
and murdered their parents. did you watch the children's testimony? >> yes. brooks was very strong in his testimony. leslie was, too. but it bothered her more than it did brooks to testify. >> it was like i had to pretend like i was somebody else just telling a story of what happened. and it's kind of like the night that happened and i have to remember all this, i is to remember all this. i was trying to almost forget about what was actually happening and just, okay, remember what their face looked like, what did their -- what happened here, what happened there. >> that's the remarkable thing, that even when it was going on you were conscious of the fact you would have to remember for the sake of what might happen. >> right, right. and i didn't know why: >> that promise that leslie douglass made to herself the night her parents were killed is what carried her through, she said. >> i didn't know why. i just -- i just knew that his
mom singing. ♪ i sing >> she did once every week at church. and at home where she sewed the outfits leslie wore to compete in miss teen oklahoma. >> i was the one that spent time with my mom, where it be singing or her making me a new dress for a pageant. >> so autumn, '79, 16-year-old brooks was an advanced football-playing senior in high school, making money breeding doberman dogs. leslie, a precociously pretty girl, and dad was busy, a chaplain at the state house, visitors of prisoners at mccallister penitentiary, even preaching a bit on early morning television. >> simply saying that death is not meaningless, that it's parent of the overall experience of life. >> and packing them in at putnam baptist. >> i may not match god's plan with my living, but he knows just exactly how long i'm going to live.
>> but of course brooks and leslie douglas were more than just victims, more than survivors even, they were crucial witnesses. >> i met them at the hospital. they were stable at that time. they would answer any question i asked directly. >> what was interesting to them about you --. >> how analytical, exact questions, what was going to happen, and that they were pretty intelligent kids and in control of their emotions. >> as you were lying in the hospital trying to recover, trying to understand what had happened to you, what was that like for you? >> yeah, it was really strange. part of it was i think nobody knew how to react. members of the church would come in and -- to console us and we would wind up consoling them and hugging -- hey, it's going to be okay. we're going to be okay. >> three weeks after the shooting, brooks and leslie were spirited out of the hospital and taken to a secure location still under police guard. it was halloween.