ANTI-DRUG FILM SPEAKS FROM THE GRAVE

FRANKFORT, Ky. - From his prison cell on death row, Harold McQueen Jr.
stares calmly into the camera and begs children for one last time to stay
away from alcohol and drugs.

"Drugs destroyed everything I ever had. And it destroyed everything I ever
wanted," he says bluntly.

"You don't have no future with drugs. I mean you don't have anything. You
don't care about your mother, your brother, whoever. You know you just
gotta get that high. And if you don't get it, you'll get it the best way
you can. If you don't have money, you'll steal, rob."

It's a powerful message that McQueen has repeated many times during his 16
years on death row. It's one that he would not repeat again.

Three days after the videotape was made, the convicted murderer was put to
death in the Kentucky electric chair. His was the first execution in
Kentucky in 35 years.

The videotape, made under the supervision of the Catholic Conference of
Kentucky, is being distributed to churches, youth organizations and other
groups in hopes that McQueen's anti-drug message will resonate with
teen-agers and keep them from heading down the same tragic path.

"Clearly, the message is that when one begins to abuse substances - alcohol
and other forms of drugs - you no longer have control over your behavior,"
said Jane Chiles, the Catholic conference's executive director.

The 19-minute video, titled "It Could Happen To You," was made public just
last week, but the response already has been overwhelming.

A circuit judge plans to show the tape to alcohol abusers who appear in his
courtroom. Parents have asked for copies to show to their children.

The video, now in its second printing, was filmed at the Kentucky State
Penitentiary in Eddyville, just a few feet from the execution chamber where
McQueen was put to death last July.

McQueen, who became a devout Catholic while on death row, agreed to make
the tape after it became obvious that he would not be granted a pardon and
his life would not be spared, Chiles said.

Crusading after death

McQueen had spoken frequently to youths about the dangers of drug and
alcohol abuse. He saw the videotape as a way to continue spreading his
anti-drug message long after he was gone.

John Mallery, substance abuse treatment supervisor for Catholic Social
Services of Northern Kentucky, said McQueen's message remains powerful even
on videotape.

"I think he's very clear in saying you need to start looking at what you're
doing as a teen-ager, before it gets worse," said Mallery, who served as a
consultant during the production and editing of the video.

On the tape, McQueen sits calmly in a chair, hands folded in his lap, his
bushy hair pulled back in a ponytail. He's dressed in his red prison
uniform. The bars of his prison cell are clearly visible in the background.

McQueen talks candidly about how his life began to fall apart after he took
his first drink of alcohol at age 10. By high school, he was drinking
heavily.

Things turn sour

"My grades started going down," he said. ``I started not even wanting to go
to school. I just wanted to lay around and drink and hang out with the
older kids, the ones that were already out of school.

"They all wanted me to go with them. We just partied all together. Alcohol
cut my school all the way out."

At 19, he joined the Army, where he got hooked on heroin. His wife
eventually left him. One cold winter night, he sank into deep despair.

"My stomach was burning, felt like every muscle in me was straining and
ripping apart. . . . You know, it was just I didn't think I was wanting to
go through that anymore."

He put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun snapped, but
misfired.

McQueen's life had been spared. But he was unable to shake his deep,
gnawing hunger for drugs.

McQueen had taken more than 150 milligrams of Valium and had been drinking
whiskey and smoking marijuana the night he and his half-brother, William
Keith Burnell, pulled into a Mini Mart store in Richmond, Ky. on Jan. 17,
1980.

Brother accused

Rebecca O'Hearn, a 22-year-old clerk, was filling in for a co-worker.

Though he would later claim that his brother was the triggerman, McQueen
was convicted of shooting O'Hearn once in the cheek and then putting the
gun to the back of her head and pulling the trigger.

McQueen, who already had an extensive record that included breaking and
entering, shoplifting, burglary, disorderly conduct, hit and run, and
desertion from the Army, was sentenced to death for the murder of O'Hearn
in April 1981.

McQueen doesn't talk directly about the murder on the videotape and makes
only a passing reference to his upcoming execution.

He does mention that he regrets the things he did wrong. And he talks at
length about the anguish and the hopelessness of life on death row.

McQueen makes it clear that anybody on drugs could end up like him.

Load up, lose out

"All you gotta do is just, uh, load your blood system up with drugs,
alcohol, and you don't know what you're doing. You could easily be talked
into doing anything."

He urges teens to find a substitute for drugs and alcohol.

"If you're not into church, find something else," he said. "There's a
better high out there than drugs and alcohol. Life is a high. And when you
come in here, you've lost that."