The Reverend Russ Ford, who served as the head chaplain on Virginia's death row for eighteen years, raged against the inequities of the death penalty-now outlawed in Virginia-while ministering to the men condemned to die in the 1980s and 1990s. Ford stood watch with twenty-eight men, sitting with them in the squalid death house during the final days and hours of their lives. In July 1990 he accidentally almost became the 245th person killed by Virginia's electric chair as he comforted Ricky Boggs in his last moments, a vivid episode that opens this haunting book. Many chaplains get to know the condemned men only in these final moments. Ford, however, spent years working with the men of Virginia's death row, forging close bonds with the condemned and developing a nuanced understanding of their crimes, their early struggles, and their challenges behind bars. His unusual ministry makes this memoir a unique and compelling read, a moving and unflinching portrait of Virginia's death row inmates. Revealing the cruelties of the state-sanctioned violence that has until recently prevailed in our backyard, Crossing the River Styx serves as a cautionary tale for those who still support capital punishment.
Russ Ford is a retired chaplain. Charles Peppers is an independent writer and educator. Todd C. Peppers is the Henry H. and Trudye H. Fowler Professor of Public Affairs at Roanoke College and a Visiting Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University.
Former prison chaplain Russ Ford offers the reader a harrowing looking inside Virginia's death row. Anyone who wants to understand the moral and spiritual carnage of capital punishment needs to read this book. From the first page of Russ Ford's Crossing the River Styx, you know you are reading something special. Ford draws on his years of experience as a prison chaplain to reflect on the spiritual lives of death row inmates, as well as his own spiritual growth and difficulties. The great Oscar Romero said, 'The word of God is like the light of the sun. It illuminates beautiful things, but also things which we would rather not see, ' and Ford, through his ministry, gives us a glimpse into the minds of murderers and the horrific conditions in Virginia's prisons, but also moments of grace and redemption. --Matthew Shadle, Marymount University, author of The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective Russ Ford's journey is soul-stirring. It moved me to tears. I assume that's what is hoped for in a Minister, but it too rarely works out that way. As a Death Row Chaplain, Ford's ministry is to the hopeless and the misbegotten, the condemned, those written off by the rest of us. Unlike some, Ford doesn't phone it in. He treats those in his care, "the worst of the worst," as our system would have it, with respect; he honors their humanity and grants them their dignity. And in the process, he ignites souls long dormant. In Crossing the River Styx, he opens the door to Hell and invites you in. I urge you to summon the courage to join him. --Mike Farrell (Captain BJ Hunnicutt), M*A*S*H television show, author of Just Call Me Mike; A Journey to Actorand Activist
