Strapped to a gurney, about to be given a lethal injection of drugs,
a convicted killer is not a happy man at all. Not because of his impending doom,
but because he didn’t get what he’d asked for. In his last words, he made that clear,
saying, “I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti! I want the press to know this.”
And if you think that’s bizarre, by the time this show has ended, you’ll have scratched your head so
much there will be a bald spot. We’re not finished with the
SpaghettiOs guy just yet. His name was Thomas J. Grasso.
On Christmas Eve, 1990, he entered an 87-year old woman’s house and strangled her,
taking eight bucks from her purse and picking up coins which got him
another four bucks. He also took her old TV. After being convicted and sentenced to death,
he made quite a big deal about his upcoming date with a cocktail of life-ending drugs,
once saying philosophically, “What we call the beginning is often the end,
and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
He wasn’t done. Just three hours before his execution, he submitted a poem to anyone
interested. It was titled “A Visit with Mystery.” Here are a few lines from it:
“The warden will read my last creed, And the deadly brew will flow.
As the poison drips into my veins, And from my body life does drain.”
Not only did he lay it on heavy regarding his life’s end, but he also made a meal out of his
last meal. He ordered 24 steamed mussels, 24 steamed clams, and with lemon wedges, too,
of course. For the main course, he asked for a Burger King double cheeseburger, a stack of
BBQ ribs, pumpkin pie with strawberries, all washed down with two strawberry milkshakes.
He also asked for those SpaghettiOs. As you know, Mr. Grasso left his
life feeling rather let down. This next man got what he wanted,
although what a small and strange request it was. His name was Victor Harry Feguer.
In 1960, he was sitting in his rundown room in Iowa when he took out the Yellow
Pages and started going down the list of local physicians. The first doctor that answered the
phone was Dr. Edward Bartels. He was later found in a
cornfield with a bullet hole in his head. It’s believed Feguer wanted the doctor’s drugs.
On March 15, 1963, he had one last request before being hanged. All he wanted was a solitary olive,
but importantly, he wanted it with the pip left in. After he was hanged,
that olive was inside the pocket of the new suit that had been bought for him. Apparently,
Feguer had said that he wanted the olive to grow into an olive tree, which was a sign of peace.
This next person had a last request that was also symbolic, but rather than ask for peace,
he wanted something out of this world. His name was James Edward Smith.
On March 7, 1983, he walked into the Union Life Insurance Company in Houston
wearing a mask. He demanded money from a clerk, but after she got scared, one of the executives
at the company, Larry D. Rohus, talked to Smith. He actually handed over the money to Smith,
but even though he was pleading for his life, Smith shot and killed him.
After being tackled by a number of bystanders, Smith didn’t even get as far as the street.
His final request was for a piece of dirt, but he wanted a special kind of dirt,
what he called “rhaeakunda dirt.” That’s because he practiced voodoo,
and he believed if he marked his body with this special dirt, he could move on to the next life.
He once said in an interview, “I don’t understand all this clinging to life.
Life is a temporary situation. The spirit moves on. Death is like eating a prune in
the morning. It’s a natural function.” He didn’t get his dirt in the end and
instead had to make do with a pot of yogurt. We doubt he smothered his body with it.
This next person wasn’t interested in the afterlife, but he sure wanted to enjoy his
last moments in the life he had. His name was Ronnie Lee Gardner.
In 1984, he shot and killed a man during a robbery in Salt Lake City. A year later,
he tried to escape while being taken to a court hearing, and during that escape, he shot and
killed another guy. He was Michael Burdell, who’d been doing pro bono work for a local church.
Gardner was a crazy guy indeed. One time he smashed the glass during visiting hours and then
barricaded the door. He made love to his visitor while some other inmates watched and shouted for
joy. Another time, he stabbed an inmate. During that visit to the courthouse,
he somehow managed to get a gun passed to him. Also found later in the courthouse was
a pair of socks with a note attached to them. It read, “Here's the gun and wallet taken from
the guard at the hospital. I don't want to hurt no one else. I just want to be free.”
He wanted to be shot himself, saying he preferred to go via a firing squad. He explained,
“I like the firing squad. It's so much easier, and there's no mistakes.” He wasn’t wrong.
Prior to his death, Gardener had a few requests in line with his crazy life. First, he asked if he
could watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. After that, he asked to be able to fast for 48 hours.
He said the fasting was related to his spirituality and beliefs regarding the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For the final meal, he had steak, lobster,
some apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and a can of 7-Up. When asked if he
had any final words, he replied, “I do not.” He was strapped to a metal chair and had a hood
placed over his head. Sandbags were placed all around him in case the bullets flew off someplace.
Five police officers had volunteered to do the job. They all aimed their rifles at a white piece
of paper placed over Gardener’s heart. Standing about 25 feet (7.6 meters) away,
they opened fire. One of those guns was actually loaded with a non-lethal bullet,
so the officers wouldn’t know who fired the lethal shot. The authorities do this so no man has to
live with being the killer of the condemned. After the shots rang out, Gardener’s head
went limp, although it was hard to see the blood under his dark prison attire.
A medical examiner then lifted the hood, checked his vital signs, and he was pronounced dead.
This next man ordered the nicest last meal you could possibly ask for.
He might also have deserved to live. His name was Philip Workman.
In 1981, he was 28, and had a young child to look after. He was also afflicted with
a bad cocaine habit. That led to his big mistake, walking into a Wendy’s restaurant
with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. He ordered the staff to get down on the ground,
but then one of the staff said she had a cramp in her leg and needed to stand.
Workman told her she could get up, but this was all a ruse because that’s when she hit an alarm.
The cops came, and in the end, one of them was shot and killed in the car park. But was
it Workman’s gun that fired the fatal shot? One expert testified, “It is my professional
opinion, based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the gunshot wound to [Lt.] Ronald
D. Oliver is not consistent with the type of ammunition used by Mr. Philip R. Workman. I
do not believe that it was Mr. Workman's gun that fired the shot that fatally wounded [Lt.] Oliver.”
Looking at new evidence, some of the jurors who convicted him later renounced their decision.
Workman always said he was innocent, right up until the end. It seems there is a very
good chance he was indeed innocent, and the officer was killed by friendly fire.
Nonetheless, despite appeals, and protests from the public, the day came when he was asked if
he had a request for a last meal. He said he didn’t actually want anything, but could a
vegetarian pizza be given to a homeless person. This request was denied, so Workman said he
wanted nothing. A bit of encouraging news to the sad tale is that when some members of the public
heard about this, they donated thousands of dollars worth of pizza to the homeless.
Workman was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied,
“I've prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ not to lay charge of my death to any man.”
The injections were given, and just after two minutes, he managed to get out the words,
“I commend my spirit into your hands, Lord Jesus Christ.”
And that was it, he was out for the count, forever.
Now for perhaps the biggest last meal ever ordered, and as you’ll see,
it became something that went down in US history. The man’s name was Lawrence Russel Brewer.
Brewer was a white supremacist who with two other men executed an African American man
in 1998. The awful crime reminded people of atrocities committed by the Klu Klux Klan.
It seems Brewer was not at all remorseful, saying just days before his death,
“As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. No, I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth.”
His request for a final meal beggars’ belief. In total, he asked for a large meat lover’s pizza,
two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions, a bowl of BBQ meat, a triple cheeseburger,
an omelet containing beef, peppers, onion, tomatoes, and jalapenos,
three fajitas with plenty of filling, fried okra with ketchup, half a loaf of white bread, some
Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts, and a load of root beer.
Given that states don’t usually have a large budget for last meals,
it is surprising that he was granted his request. Then when it arrived,
he said he wasn’t hungry anymore and didn’t eat one morsel of the calorie-heavy feast.
When asked if he had any last words, he said, “No. I have no final statement.”
Some people were disgusted over Brewer’s messing the state around with his meal,
and after that, the state of Texas didn’t ever offer a last meal to death row inmates again.
We wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people we’ve talked about so far you have never heard of,
so here are a few last meals of people who don’t need an introduction.
The serial killer, Ted Bundy, declined a last bite, but the state gave him something anyway.
That was a plate of steak and eggs, some hash browns and a cup of coffee.
He ate none of it and left the coffee alone. The killer clown we’ve talked about many times
at the Infographics Show, John Wayne Gacy, did have a final meal request.
He asked for 12 fried shrimp and a pound of strawberries. He also wanted a bucket of
original recipe KFC with some French fries. If you didn’t know, Gacy had once managed a KFC outlet.
Aileen Wuornos, the first female on this list and the killer made even more notorious by the movie,
“Monster”, declined a last meal but did at the end have a cup of coffee.
Now for another woman who makes the list just because her final meal was quite special.
Kelly Gissendaner didn’t actually commit a murder,
but she was behind the killing of her husband in 1997.
Apparently, it was all over a life insurance policy. Just before she was executed
with a lethal injection of drugs, she sang the song “Amazing Grace”
and said she was sorry for what she had done. Prior to that, she’d wolfed down a plate of
nachos with meat filling, some cheese dip with chips, and some diet lemonade. We doubt she
was watching her weight, though, because the first time she was supposed to be executed,
she’d ordered another big meal. Her execution was stayed this time,
but it came so close she got to make the order. That consisted of two whoppers from Burger King,
two large fries, some cornbread, a large salad with eggs, cheese, and veg,
all covered with a generous helping of Paul Newman buttermilk dressing. For dessert, she
asked for popcorn and cherry vanilla ice cream. The last woman on this list is Velma Barfield.
Over a period of years, folks around this woman would mysteriously fall gravely ill and later drop
dead. Some of her victims included her fiance, two people she cared for, and even her mother.
Little did they know that when they fell sick, it was because she’d been poisoning them.
So, what do you think would be a fitting last meal for a woman who
spiked other people’s meals with rat poison? When she was asked what she wanted in 1984,
she didn’t go for anything fancy, but we think her selection is quite apt. Her choice couldn’t
be tampered with. That was a big bag of Cheetos and a Coke. Some sources say she asked for a bag
of Cheez Doodles, but we are sure if that was the case, they were still air-sealed.
It would seem unfair only to have Americans on this list, but there
aren’t many countries left that execute people. As The New York Times wrote, having a choice of a
last meal is a “peculiarly American fascination” and it does seem that when the government
makes you bite the dust in countries such as China, you don’t get to choose what you eat.
That article talked about a person who’d studied US-based last meals, and he said
the average number of calories in the meals was 2,756, although some were over 7,000.
It’s not that way in China apparently, with some reports saying condemned Chinese prisoners got
a measly bit of steamed bread that they ate with the men who were about to shoot them.
Another guy received “a large bowl of meat dumplings”, according to The Washington Post.
That wasn’t his choice, though. It seems in Europe back in the day,
some prisoners might have had a choice. In the UK in 1879, a convicted killer got a
plate of eggs and salty bacon. We imagine the German outlaw rebel, Mathias Kneißl,
had a choice. That’s because before his head was chopped off in 1902, he drank six glasses of beer.
We can also tell you that it is a fact that in the Middle Ages in Germany,
before a person was beheaded or broken on the wheel, they were offered copious amounts of
booze. An executioner named Franz Schmidt kept a diary of his many executions and wrote that a
drunk prisoner was often easier to handle. It’s said that before Saddam Hussein was
hanged in Iraq, he was offered some smokes but turned them down. He might also have
turned his nose up at a plate of chicken and shawarma rice, although these are just rumors.
It seems when it comes to last meals, the US is the only place really worth talking about.
Now you need to watch “Man So Violent Even Other Prisoners Fear Him.” Or,
see why this man never had a choice “How They Actually Caught Jeffrey Dahmer.”