Strangely, only one thing kept going through my head as first one, then two, and finally four hours ticked past his scheduled 7pm execution, delayed by last minute US Supreme Court arguments for a reprieve.
I wondered if Davis had to stay strapped onto that gurney for four hours, across from the victim's family and his own, looking at each other while they waited to watch him die.
Three other times in years past, justice tried to kill him. Three other times he spent the day with his family saying goodbye before last minute reprieves. Davis would live in limbo on death row for two decades, beating the average in America of 14 years.
Maybe he was guilty. But eventually, seven of nine witnesses would recant their testimony that he killed a cop in a Burger King parking lot. Of the remaining two, growing evidence suggests one may himself be the gunman. No gun was ever found. No forensic evidence ties Davis to the murder.
He was ultimately denied a lie detector test. Georgia justice finally sputtered out to an eye for an eye.
This is what modern murder looks like from the other side of the world: One follower tweeted, "The Troy Davis case is like watching someone being murdered in slow motion with no real way to intervene."
While conservative commentator Ann Coulter tweeted in stomach-churning caps, echoing old Burger King commercials, "HOLD THE PICKLE, HOLD THE LETTUCE, FRYING KILLERS WON'T UPSET US" and "ONE TROY DAVIS FLAME-BROILED PLEASE".
Word came, literally at the 11th hour. Davis was killed at 11:08pm.
Hacktivist group Anonymous dished their own perverted justice, cyber revenge. They tweeted, "We are going silent for one hour in honour of #TroyDavis. The State of George you better f******* expect us."
A few days later, the New York Times will publish, "The Fraying of A Nation's Decency".
I find an article about terrible working conditions in book giant Amazon's warehouses.
Commentator Anand Giridharadas writes, "What is creeping into the culture is simple dehumanisation, a failure to imagine the lives others lead. Fellow citizens become caricatures. People retreat into their own safe realms. And decency, that great American virtue, falls away." That was about the human cost of shopping.
In an irony too perfect for fiction, another man will be executed the same day in Texas. I won't care. Not because I don't know his story, but because I am a hypocrite.
White supremacist Lawrence Brewer will die by lethal injection too. He and two others were convicted of tying a black man to a chain and dragging him behind his truck so brutally, police at first think the decapitated corpse is road kill.
In Texas, Brewer will order his last meal: two chicken-fried steaks, a bacon cheeseburger, a pound of barbecue, okra, fajitas, ice cream, a pizza and fudge. He doesn't eat any of it.
In Georgia, Davis will ask for the same meal other prisoners eat that night, as he did in 2008 when he was granted a reprieve. It was to be his last act of hope.
Davis wrote, "As I look at my mail from across the globe ... I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing joy ... It compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail ... I can't wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing, I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!"
I finish these notes waiting in the car for my son. I look up and notice I am parked across from a Burger King. This week Texas announced it will no longer allow death row prisoners to choose their last meal.
Some days irony beats you up. Because I can't bring myself to believe anyone will really remember last week's news.
www.traceybarnett.co.nz or Twitter @TraceyBarnett
