George Villanueva’s orders. Jasper, the white supremacist who had killed his grandmother, remained motionless in the large mechanized bed. He was attached to monitors that showed his heartbeat and blood oxygen levels. A hose from Jasper’s mouth led to a large ventilator on the other side of his bed. The machine exhaled with a loud whoosh every few seconds, causing Jasper’s torso to rise. A monitor registered a tone each time the ventilator breathed for Jasper. The goal was fourteen breaths a minute, with a tidal volume of seven hundred. Other than the machine, there was none of the usual activity that surrounded a patient in an ICU.A police officer dozed on a chair in the corner of the room. Until Jasper was pronounced dead, he was officially wanted for first-degree murder. The officer was not supposed to leave Jasper’s side, but deeming him a low flight risk, he had spent much of his time, when he wasn’t sleeping, at the nurses’ station and the cafeteria. The peach cobbler, he found, was excellent.Nurses on the ward had greeted Jasper’s arrival early that morning with a mixture of chagrin and disbelief.
