Though it isn't allowed everywhere, it's long been traditional for prisoners facing
execution to choose any food they want for their last meal. To say the least,
the practice has led to some odd choices: sugar bombs, symbolic gestures, even a lump of dirt.
Convicted of a 1975 robbery and murder at age 17,
Charles Rumbaugh spent nearly a decade in prison before facing execution. He
was a troubled young man. As Yale Law professor Stephen B. Bright explained,
"He was profoundly depressed. He suffered from schizophrenia,
paranoid schizophrenia. He had auditory hallucinations."
But his final dinner order was surprisingly straightforward. Rumbaugh chose to eat a
single flour tortilla before his execution. The intentionally bland taste of a flour
tortilla means people rarely eat them alone. However, the only thing Rumbaugh
enjoyed with his tortilla was a glass of water, the plainest drink imaginable.
Researcher David Tomsovic explained to Deseret News that Rumbaugh's seemingly
strange but simple choice accurately reflected the young man's desires at the time. He didn't
feel the need for an extravagant meal, so he chose not to have one. Tomsovic chalks this
decision up to the prisoner's philosophical nature, which is a sound theory. After all,
Rumbaugh likely had much bigger things on his mind than food in his final days.
Kenneth Wayne Morris' 38th birthday was definitely his worst, given that it happened to coincide with
his execution date. Morris was a career criminal with a long history of burglaries that sometimes
escalated to violence. His final crime was a home invasion that ended in the senseless
murder of one of the homeowners. Although his two accomplices received lighter sentences,
Morris received the maximum penalty. He spent approximately 15 years in prison
before exhausting all his options, attempting to appeal all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
When it came time to choose his last meal, Morris decided on something unusual but fitting:
birthday cake. Specifically, Morris asked for a white cake with lemon icing to celebrate the
occasion. Along with his birthday dessert, Morris ate fried chicken and fried okra.
Although inmates sometimes eat their last meals the night before their execution, the
Texas prison served Morris his lunch and birthday cake midday and executed him early that evening.
In 1992, police apprehended Stacey Lawton and his two accomplices after a high-speed chase
in a stolen pickup truck. Lawton was sentenced to death for shooting a man outside his home in the
middle of a robbery. Although Lawton claimed he wasn't the shooter, courts denied all his
appeals throughout his seven years on death row. He was one of many inmates executed in
Texas in the year 2000, but his last meal is arguably the most memorable of all of them.
In one sense, Lawton's last meal wasn't that strange at all. It consisted of a
traditional cheeseburger and fries, which is a common final meal request. But he
topped off the order with an entire jar of dill pickles. Although dill pickles' salty,
sour flavor makes them a great accompaniment to burgers and other fast food items,
most people would likely struggle to eat a whole jar in one sitting. However,
Lawton clearly felt that his last meal wouldn't be complete without a massive helping of them.
Most people probably wouldn't think of raiding a vending machine as a
satisfactory option for their final dinner on Earth, but that's precisely what Velma
Barfield wanted to do before her 1984 execution. Barfield was sentenced to
death after being convicted of poisoning at least four people, including her boyfriend.
Although she made attempts to appeal her conviction, those appeals ultimately failed.
"I wish that I could take every bit of hurt on myself."
When she died, she became the first woman executed in the
U.S. since 1962 and the first female prisoner to die by lethal injection.
Even though she could have opted for something more filling,
Barfield elected to have a single can of Coca-Cola and a bag of Cheez Doodles
before her death by lethal injection. Her reasons for this choice are unclear,
but the North Carolina prison in which she served her sentence honored the request.
The inmate — who was 52 at the time — enjoyed her final snack shortly before her execution.
Gerald Lee Mitchell was only 17 when he murdered three people with a shotgun. He
openly admitted to his crimes, and he was sentenced to death for them. Although his
lawyer appealed his conviction based on his age, Texas didn't have any rules at
the time against sentencing a 17-year-old to be executed. Mitchell spent nearly half
his life on death row before being executed when he was 33 years old.
For his last meal, Mitchell chose to be presented with an entire bag of assorted
Jolly Rancher candies. Although this hard candy has maintained a loyal following
since it hit shelves in 1949, it's not a choice even its biggest fans would
likely make for their last meal. It's not known whether he finished the whole bag.
Victor Feguer faced execution in 1960s Iowa for kidnapping and murdering a local
doctor. He remained free for only 11 days before police tracked him down,
after which he readily confessed to his crimes. Feguer has the unique distinction of being
the last criminal ever executed in Iowa, which officially abolished capital punishment in 1965.
When the time came to select his last meal, Feguer made a strange request: one solitary olive
with the pit intact. Olives — or at least olive branches — are often taken as a sign of peace,
which largely influenced Feguer's choice. Reports indicate that Feguer specifically asked for an
olive with its pit because he hoped an olive tree would grow from his grave. The prison staff
granted his simple request, and officials later found the olive's pit in Feguer's burial suit.
His spiritually driven last meal still fascinates many who study the habits of condemned prisoners.
John William Elliot died by lethal injection in 2003, almost 20 years after his original
conviction. A Texas jury sentenced him to death for senselessly beating a young woman to death in
the late 1980s after his two accomplices testified against him. Elliot had dual
British-American citizenship and only accepted interviews from British media outlets during
his incarceration. He had grown up on a U.S. military base in the U.K. Despite local support
for his execution in Texas, the British public mostly opposed Elliot's conviction and sentence.
When it came time to request his last meal, Elliot made a seeming nod to the land of his childhood.
He ordered a cup of hot tea, stipulating that prison officials make it from tea bags. Then,
Elliot asked for six chocolate chip cookies to go with his drink. So it wasn't exactly tea and
crumpets or biscuits, but it was maybe as English as he could get deep in the heart of Texas.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was one of the most notorious criminals of the early
20th Century. He was convicted for the March 1932 kidnapping and murder
of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh's 20-month-old son. The kidnapper demanded
$50,000 in ransom, the equivalent of more than $1 million today. That number eventually went up
to $70,000. The child's body was found, dead and partially buried, two months
after the kidnapping. Authorities arrested Hauptmann, a German immigrant, in September
1934. He was convicted and sentenced to death the following year. He maintained until his death by
electrocution in 1936 that he was innocent, and appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Among Hauptmann's selections for his last meal were French fries and chicken. Not
too odd. But he also asked for cherries, olives, buttered peas, and plain celery.
Not typically sides that go with fried chicken, nor each other, for that matter. Hauptmann kept
things much simpler for dessert, though, as he asked for a single piece of cake.
Timothy McVeigh was one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century. In 1995,
McVeigh gained enduring infamy when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. At the time, his crime
was the most deadly act of domestic terrorism ever committed in the U.S.
"Well, am I pure evil? Am I the face of terror sitting here in front of you?"
Everything about McVeigh became news after he was named as the prime suspect in the bombing.
That included what he requested as his last meal before his 2001 execution. Rather than
a full meal, McVeigh simply asked for two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream,
a dinner you might expect an 8-year-old to request, not a 33-year-old domestic terrorist.
After eating his all-dessert dinner,
McVeigh spent the rest of his last night alive watching television and
trying to sleep. He died by lethal injection a little after 7:00 a.m. the following day.
Peter J. Miniel violently murdered an acquaintance in 1986 and turned
down a plea deal in favor of a jury trial. Ultimately, that gamble cost him his life.
After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made his death sentence official in 1992,
Miniel spent another decade on death row. When the time came to decide what his last meal would be,
Miniel took full advantage of his right to choose whatever he wanted to eat.
The inmate's order was among the largest in history and included 14 different foods. Among the
items on the menu were 20 tacos, two kinds of ice cream, 20 enchiladas, two double cheeseburgers,
fried chicken, pizza, and — perhaps the weirdest of all — a fruit cake. More likely than not,
this list reflected all of Miniel's favorite things from his life before prison. He also
requested four beverages: orange juice, root beer, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola. Yes,
both Pepsi and Coke. Although reports don't indicate whether or not the prisoner
could finish this massive feast, one thing is certain: he probably died with a full stomach.
Philip Ray Workman received a death sentence in Tennessee after shooting a police officer during a
robbery in 1981. Although he expressed remorse for his crime and also raised doubts about his guilt,
Workman remained in prison for two and a half decades before exhausting all of his appeals.
By the time of his 2007 execution, Workman opted to make his last meal as an act of
redemption. He ordered a vegetarian pizza with one unusual stipulation:
he wanted it delivered to a random homeless person in the local area.
Unfortunately, prison officials denied his request, so Workman chose not to have a
final meal at all. However, other Tennesseans took action when they learned of the inmate's
surprisingly selfless choice. Multiple people raised money or ordered pizzas for homeless
shelters around Nashville, feeding hundreds of people on the same day Workman died. One
local woman, Donna Spangler, told CNN that she convinced friends to help her purchase
$1,200 worth of pizza for Nashville's Rescue Mission.
Lawrence Russell Brewer was sentenced to death for his participation in a truly
heinous crime. He was one of three men behind the 1998 hate-crime murder of James Byrd Jr.,
in which Byrd was severely beaten and dragged behind a pickup truck.
Brewer managed to create even further outrage with his last meal request,
of all things. His elaborate order included a triple bacon cheeseburger, a meat lovers' pizza,
three root beers, peanut butter fudge, ice cream, an omelet, fried okra, a pound of barbecue,
and a double order of chicken fried steak. This last meal made headlines across the
country not for Brewer's choices, but for his actions after it was delivered to him:
He refused to eat a single bite, claiming that he wasn't hungry.
Brewer's behavior resulted in a ton of wasted food and outraged Texas state Senator John Whitmire,
who helped end the longstanding practice of allowing Texas inmates to request last meals.
"Why didn't someone use some judgment and put that to a stop?"
Thanks to Brewer, death row inmates in the
state haven't had the privilege of choosing their last meal since 2011.
James Edward Smith was a self-proclaimed voodoo priest who worked in New Orleans as
a tarot card reader before moving to Houston. After killing an insurance district manager
in an attempted armed robbery in 1983, he was sentenced to the death penalty.
When his execution finally occurred in 1990, Smith made a truly original last meal request. Instead
of food, Smith wanted a lump of rhaeakunda dirt to use in a ritual that he believed would help
his spirit pass on after death. Unsurprisingly, prison officials denied his request on the basis
that the dirt he wanted was not food. So Smith instead settled for a single cup of pre-packaged
yogurt as his final meal. Even though he opted for an alternative, Smith wanted to be sure the
prison officials would regret turning down his initial last meal request. Right before his death,
he reportedly warned guards that his spirit would haunt the prison for 300 years.