‘I Am Ready, Warden’ follows a man facing execution and two sons who lost their fathers

In 2004, Pablo Castro was killed during a robbery at a convenience store in Corpus Christi where he worked. John Henry Ramirez, a former Marine, was convicted of the crime, and sentenced to death.

Ramirez was executed by Texas in 2022. He had fled to Mexico after the crime, but ultimately was returned to Texas and acknowledged his guilt. He became a devout Christian during his time in prison.

A new film, “I Am Ready, Warden,” follows Ramirez during the last weeks of his life. 

The film is also the story of two sons – Aaron, whose father died violently at Ramirez’ hands, and Izzy, whose father had spent most of his son’s life on death row.

The film was directed by Smriti Mundhra, and produced by Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Keri Blakinger, who says Ramirez sought her out near the time of his death. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: I understand you’ve been affected by these wildfires in Los Angeles, but fortunately, your house is intact. Where are you now? Are you back in Texas? 

Kari Blakinger: No, I am in L.A. It’s been a chaotic week and there are red flag warnings. So I think we’re in for a potentially chaotic next week, as well.

Well, I’m glad to hear that, so far, things are all right for you. But I know so many people have been affected and I wish you continued success in trying to deal with this situation. 

Congratulations on the film. It’s very powerful. Can you talk about how you became involved in this project?

So this was a kind of unusual situation. The way that I first became aware of this case was when John Ramirez asked if I could be the reporter who would witness his execution.

I’ve witnessed executions before as a reporter, but I never had somebody request it like that. And given how Texas prison system rules work out, that didn’t end up being possible because I wasn’t local to the crime.

But I was so intrigued by that unusual request that I immediately put in a request to interview him and just sort of talk to him and see what stories were there. And then the stories that came out of that interested me.

What made this story an interesting and important one to tell? I mean, this is not the story of a person who might be innocent of a crime, which is sort of a classic narrative arc in a death penalty story – or you have a mishandling of a trial or something like that. John Henry Ramirez committed the murder he was accused of. 

I think that’s actually what made it so interesting and so powerful as a film, because there’s a lot of stories in reporting that explore narratives of people who are innocent and wrongfully convicted. And it’s easier to get sympathy for them and get readers and viewers to care.

But I think this gave us a chance to explore ideas of redemption that you can’t explore the same way with someone who’s not admitting guilt.

I mentioned Aaron Castro, Pablo’s son, who we meet in the film. Where is he when it comes to John Henry Ramirez, his father’s killer?

I think he’s a very empathetic guy. And I think you can see in the film that he sort of has his emotions right under the surface and seems to want to forgive him and tends towards forgiveness, but also has the sort of deep hurt and this sense that there should be some justice.

So I think he’s kind of conflicted. But you see him work through it in the film, and I don’t want to sort of ruin too much, but I think watching him work through it is really what ended up making the film.

What about Izzy, Ramirez’ son? What did you learn about him and what was his relationship with his father? 

That was a really heartbreaking connection to make – to be talking to his son in the days leading up to, and on the day of, the execution.

One of the things that John told us several times was that he was so grateful that his son didn’t turn out anything like him. And he described him as a square. And there’s one point at which he said that he was glad, in some ways, that he hadn’t been able to be around to influence him negatively at all.

But yeah, I mean, I think the story of two sons ended up being particularly heartbreaking.

What you’re just talking about speaks to Ramirez’s own… What would you say? “Transformation” while on death row?

Yeah, I think so. I think some of the transformation may have already begun to occur between the time of the crime and the sentencing. Over the years that he’d been on the row, he’d become particularly devout. He had always been religious. And I think he dove into religion a lot more. 

And one of the things that really struck me about him and his case was a little bit of audio that I’d heard early on when he had given some of the other men on the row a little speech before he had an execution date that got called off. And it gave me this really rare opportunity to hear how a death row prisoner will speak to other people when there’s not a reporter in the room.

Because normally I don’t get to hear all the men speak amongst themselves and hearing the sincerity and the remorse in what he was saying when there was no one from the outside listening was, I think to me, really moving, because that’s not a window I get to see very often. 

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People may remember Ramirez’s name because this case got a lot of attention for a couple of reasons. One of them was I recall he had asked his pastor to lay hands on him at the time of his execution. Could you tell us about what happened there?

Yeah, I think that was the the main thing that had this case in the spotlight in recent years, because, again, like I said, he had become very devout and religious. And he wanted to be able to have his pastor lay hands on him as he was dying.

The Texas prison system said that that wasn’t possible. So Ramirez started litigating that ended up going up to the Supreme Court. And eventually the Supreme Court’s decision ended up meaning that the pastor could lay hands on him, which meant that he won that. But because that had been resolved, it opened up the door to setting another execution date. 

The other thing, of course, that ended up, I think, putting this case on some people’s radar was that the district attorney at the time had wanted to recall the execution date because he decided he no longer believed in the death penalty. And so he tried to have the date called off – to the Corpus Christi D.A., which was then Mark Gonzales – and was not successful in that legal battle, also got a decent amount of press. 

Ultimately, as you followed all of these players in this tragedy, do you feel like this affected you in any way? I mean, was there something that you took away from this experience? 

I feel like almost every person we followed in this had absolutely heartbreaking stories and moments. I mean, it was difficult following Izzy and it was difficult following some of the other people that supported John that we didn’t even end up putting in the film. And then I think obviously the moments that we captured on camera with Aaron [Castro] were all pretty heartbreaking as well.

I think, for me, watching John Ramirez lose hope… And it seems in some ways like I was watching him possibly lose faith in the final months. And that was particularly heartbreaking to me.

I’m not a religious person, but watching him go from someone who had this very elaborate view of the afterlife to someone who eventually just became sort of so worn out with the years of solitary and the years of litigation that he said he hoped for nothingness after his death… That, to me, seemed like a really heartbreaking and dark transition to witness. 

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