5:30 a.m. In three and a half hours, she’d be dead. The metallic sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway as Warden James Craford approached her cell. His weathered face bore the weight of 28 years in the prison system, but there was something different about his eyes today. “Sara,” he said softly, pausing before the steel bars. “Do you need anything before Sara?” He looked up, his brown eyes empty but determined. “There’s one thing, Warden Craowford.
I know it sounds crazy, but I need to see Max one more time.” Crawford frowned. “Max, my dog,” Sara whispered, her voice slightly cracking. “He’s a German Shepherd. My sister Rebecca has been taking care of him since I’ve been here. I know the rules, but please, he’s all I have left. He’s the only one who still believes I’m innocent.” The warden shifted uncomfortably. In all his years, he’d never received a request like this. Animals weren’t allowed in maximum security, let alone on execution day.
Sara, do you know I can’t? Please,” she interrupted, standing up and gripping the bars. “I raised him from a puppy. I found him abandoned and dying on a country road. We saved each other. He visits me every week, and I can see it in his eyes. He knows I didn’t kill my husband. He knows it.” Crawford studied her face. Despite all the evidence against her, despite the jury’s verdict, there was something in Sara’s desperation that seemed genuine.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she finally said. Sara’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted, just to say goodbye to the one person who never doubted me.” As Crawford walked away, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this simple request might be more important than anyone imagined. Four years earlier, Sara Mitchell’s life seemed perfect from the outside. She was a successful human rights lawyer with her own firm in downtown Houston.
Her husband, David Mitchell, owned one of the largest construction companies in Texas, and their mansion sat on a two-acre lot in a prime area. But perfection was just a mask. Sara met David in 2013 at a charity dinner. He was charming, wealthy, and persistent. They married in 2014 in a ceremony that made the gossip pages. For the first year, David was the perfect husband. He brought her flowers, took her on expensive vacations, and supported her work as a lawyer.
Everything changed in 2015. David started drinking more. He criticized Sara’s work, calling it sentimental nonsense. When she defended her clients, he exploded with rage. The first time he hit her was during an argument over a case she was handling for an immigrant family. “Do you care more about strangers than your own husband?” he yelled before punching her in the face. Sara was in shock. David immediately apologized, crying and begging for forgiveness.
He promised it wouldn’t happen again, but it happened again and again. The abuse worsened over the next two years. David controlled her money, monitored her phone calls, and isolated her from her friends. Sara was trapped, too ashamed to tell anyone what was happening behind closed doors. On September 15, 2017, David was found dead in his home office with three gunshot wounds to the chest. Sara discovered his body when she returned from a client meeting.
She called the police, but the police immediately suspected her. The evidence was overwhelming. Sara’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Gunpowder residue was found on her hands. Neighbors testified that they heard them constantly arguing. Her lawyer tried to argue that it was self-defense, but the prosecution painted her as a cold-blooded killer who had planned her husband’s murder. The jury deliberated only four hours before finding her guilty of first-degree murder.
The judge sentenced her to death. Now, 18 months later, Sara sat in her cell awaiting death for a crime she swore she hadn’t committed. The only one who believed her was a dog named Max. It was a cold February morning in 2016 when Sara first saw Max. She was driving home from a difficult court case when she saw something lying on the side of Highway 6. At first, she thought it was just debris, but as she got closer, she realized it was a dog.
