A local newspaper reporter and a state senator are watching their back after receiving a death threat from a death row inmate.

They are being targeted because they were the first to publicize the fact that inmates in Texas prisons are being smuggled cell phones.

Both Senator John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Austin American-Statesman reporter Mike Ward say they’re taking the threat seriously and now, they’re much more aware of their surroundings.

“If you're doing your job right as a reporter, you're probably going to have some people upset with you from time to time,” said Ward.

When you’ve written about prisons for 30-years like Ward has, threats are nothing new.  But even this seasoned reporter was taken aback by the letter he received in the mail on Thursday.

“These folks have proven that they can kill people,” he said.  “My question would be, is who are they talking to on the cell phone and what are they asking them to do?”

Richard Tabler, on death row for killing two people, contacted Ward and Senator Whitmire in October by cell phone, complaining about conditions on death row.

On Thursday, he sent Senator Whitmire and Ward the same profanity-laced letter, which says in part, “Mark my words, you don’t shoot with me, I’ll have both of you bastards executed in your homes.”

I'm not altering my life-patterns here that much, I'm thinking about the possibilities more,” said Ward.

Ward says Tabler was upset about the crackdown on cell phones on death row after the word got out in October.  The state put all of its 112 prisons on lockdown; 132 smuggled cell phones were found in one month, 14 of those on death row.

Now, every person coming in and out of Texas prisons are patted down, including visitors and guards.  But the phones are still getting in.

On Wednesday, convicted murderer and death row inmate Mark Stroman was caught with a cell phone.  On Friday, death row inmate Hank Skinner, a convicted triple murderer, was discovered with a cell phone hidden in his rectum.

“If we got cell phones on death row and the authorities are in their making busts and stuff, my job is to put it in the newspaper and to let the public know that if there are problems they can get fixed,” said Ward

Death row inmates caught with a cell phone have some of their privileges taken away.  For example, instead of getting visitors once a week, they can only have visitors once a month.