These Last Meals Are From The Most Notorious Death Row Inmates in History

Peter Kürten

He called for a fried veal, known as Wiener schnitzel, for his last dinner. The meal is usually eaten with capers and sardines in the northern parts of his home country. Yet the killer preferred the typical Austrian potato mix, followed by a certain volume of white wine. He consumed the entire dish and then ordered seconds, and the guards duly obliged.

Wiener Schnitzel

John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy killed over 30 men in his Illinois hometown from 1972 to 1978. Thanks to his charitable work, the newspapers called him “Pogo the Clown” and “Killer Clown,” a name he allegedly gained through his crimes. He was eventually executed in 1994, despite being sentenced to death in 1980.

John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy

Gacy managed several KFC franchises in the late 1960s. His final meal order then contained a bucket of the original chicken recipe, plus fried shrimp, and fresh strawberries. He shared all this with his family, who were holding a private picnic with him in prison.

Fried Shrimp and French Fries

Lawrence Russell Brewer

Lawrence Russell Brewer, under strict surveillance, was freed from prison in 1997. Yet he entered a white nationalist group after his detention for drug trafficking. A year later, African-American James Byrd, Jr, and two other men killed viciously at the age of 49. The death sentence was then imposed on Brewer on 21 September 2011.

Lawrence Russell Brewer

Lawrence Russell Brewer

As per other death row prisoners, Brewer’s last meal order seemed superfluous. Indeed, a  pizza, a pair of chicken-fried steaks, three fajitas, a cheese omelette, a pound of barbecue, a bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, peanut butter fudge, ice cream, and root beer were included. Interestingly, the guards provided his request, but the murderer touched none of it. Thus, the Texas state agreed to remove the last meal demands.

Lawrence Russell Brewer Last Meal

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy is one of America’s most notorious serial killers. He used his innate beauty and charisma to kill dozens of women. Although the total number of his victims remains a mystery to this very day, in the 1970s, he admitted murdering more than 30 women over five years. In 1989, Bundy was executed.

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy

As Bundy expected the electric chair, food was perhaps not his concern. You see, he refused to ask for his last meal. Prison workers were prepared to do it, however. The infamous killer had only medium-rare steak, hatch browns, eggs, toast, juice, and milk, standard meal.

Ted Bundy Last Meal

Timothy McVeigh

The Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest terrorist act ever committed in the U.S. before the September 11 attack. A record of 168 deaths and hundreds of injured. Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death in 1997 because he orchestrated the heinous attack and tried to spark a rebellion against the American government.

Timothy McVeigh

Timothy McVeigh

MacVeigh’s appeal for his final feast wasn’t so much a dinner as a simple dessert. Indeed, the 33-year-old requested just two pints of ice cream from correctional authorities.  Particularly mint choc chip ice cream. All accounts granted his unusual demand. He was then executed by lethal injection on 11 June 2001.

Ice Cream

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Philip Workman

Philip Workman, 28, had a wife, child, criminal record, and cocaine addiction in the summer of 1981. He was taken to Tennessee by these circumstances. At that time, he holds up a Wendy’s restaurant using a .45 caliber pistol. Once the police came to the scene, Workman attempted to escape, shot a cop in the ensuing chaos. Through his acts, he was convicted of execution.

Philip Workman

Philip Workman

His final request was shockingly selfless, despite Workman’s condition. He asked guards to give every homeless person a pizza outside his Tennessee prison. But the staff refused his bid. People across the country responded by sending hundreds of pizzas to state-wide homeless shelters to honor the convicted man’s last wishes.

Pizza

Marion Albert Pruett

Georgian prison murderer Marion Albert Pruett’s 1979 testimony was used in the Witness Protection Program. Two years later, along with a cross-assault, he killed his wife. Pruett killed a total of five men, including three workers, and reportedly was responsible for the 1979 murder.  For his actions in 1999, he was executed.

Marion Albert Pruett

Marion Albert Pruett

He wanted a roast duck for his last dinner. Yet since the request was rejected, he called for a wide number of items to share with a fellow inmate. Four Burger King Whoppers, a stuffed crust pizza, French fries, pecan pie, and six liters of Pepsi, alongside fried okra, squash, and eggplant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the murderer didn’t finish the meal.

Marion Albert Pruett Last Meal

Fritz Haarmann

Around 1918 and 1924, German serial killer Fritz Haarmann murdered at least 24 juveniles and teenagers. He was so embarrassed by his behavior that he was dubbed “Hanover’s Butcher.” He was finally executed in December 1924 and deprived of his German citizenship. Five months on, he headed to the guillotine.

Fritz Haarmann

Fritz Haarmann

Haarmann learned his execution, as common in Germany, just the night before it was to be enforced. While this wasn’t a traditional meal, he still put it in the last request. The convicted killer simply asked for Brazilian coffee and costly cigar to be consumed and smoked in his cell.

Brazilian coffee and an expensive cigar

Ronnie Lee Gardner

The first person to be executed in 2010, after more than a decade, was Ronnie Lee Gardner in the U.S. The perpetrator, claiming his Mormon background, called for the procedure. Nearly 25 years earlier, he won the death sentence for a prosecutor’s murder and became associated with the Utah court system. Gardner’s decision eventually prompted the government to restrict the number of convicts seeking capital cases.

Ronnie Lee Gardner

Ronnie Lee Gardner

Gardner’s last meal arrived with an unexpected order. He asked if he could watch a movie, Lord of the Rings while eating lobster tail and steak, vanilla ice cream, apple pie, and 7UP though he decided to go fasting for 36 hours a day and a half before execution.

Ronnie Lee Gardner Last Meal

Odell Barnes

In 1989, Odell Barnes, a convicted thief and rapist, obtained a death sentence for Helen Bass’s murder. But he preserved his innocence until his last breath, and in the first trial, a second defense team found several issues. He received worldwide recognition from France’s anti-death penalty campaigners, earning $16,000 to finance his defense.  However, court judges refused to consider new evidence, and Barnes was executed by lethal injection in 2000.

Odell Barnes

Odell Barnes

Barnes’ final appeal was “justice, equality, world peace.” rather than food and drink.“I’d like to send great love to all my family members, my supporters, my attorneys. They have all supported me throughout this. I thank you for proving my innocence, although it has not been acknowledged by the courts. May you continue in the struggle, and may you change all that’s being done here today and in the past,” he proclaimed in his last statement.

Justice, Equality an World Peace

Cleve Foster

In 2002, Nyaneur “Mary” Pal met Cleve Foster and Sheldon Wall at the Fort Worth, Texas bar. She was declared dead hours later. And the two suspects were on death row for raping and killing the 30-year-old. Nevertheless, Foster was denied his final destiny on three separate occasions. The fourth time the U.S. was criticized. The Supreme Court denied his lawyers’ appeal and was sentenced to death in September 2012.

Cleve Foster

Cleve Foster

Thanks to Foster’s various services, the convicted killer had to order his last meal. He asked for French fries, two fried chickens, and one five-gallon bucket filled with peaches. But eventually, the standard final meal was what he got as Texas ended unusual demands a year before his execution.

Cleve Foster Final Meal

Victor Feguer

Victor Feguer’s acts are considered cruel enough to be forced to be prosecuted by the U.S. highest institution. President John F. Kennedy declined his counsel’s appeal for clemency. In 1960, Feguer kidnapped and murdered a seemingly random doctor in an attempt to steal drugs. He is still mostly remembered as Iowa’s last executed resident and for his unusual request for his last meal.

Victor Feguer

Victor Feguer

Feguer didn’t ask for a proper meal. He asked for a single olive, complete with his pit, instead of a luxurious feast. The executed man wished to cultivate an olive tree as a sign of goodwill from his last resting spot. Photographer Henry Hargreaves, capturing prisoners’ last meals, described his CBS News question as “simple, beautiful, and kind of final… Like a full stop at the end of his life.”

Single Olive

Jonathan Nobles

Although on death row, Jonathan Nobles sought faith for double murder — and in turn, remorse. He was executed in 1998 for killing Kelly Farquhar(24) and Mitzi Nalley(21). But, after turning to Catholicism during his imprisonment, only before the lethal injection, he lamented. “I don’t think I’m the monster who perpetrated these terrible acts,” he added. “Nothing I can do for 1,000 years can relieve me of my responsibility.”

Jonathan Nobles

Jonathan Nobles

The conversion of the death row of Nobles later told his last appeal.   You see, the once electrician chose to consume the Eucharist – or Holy Communion.  The killer consumed one last time, before he was executed, Christ’s metaphorical body and blood or bread and wine.

Holy Communion

Reginald Lenard Reeves

Reginald Lenard Reeves was just 19 years old and faced a death sentence for raping and murdering Jenny Weeks, a 14-year-old child. Whereas Reeves had bragged to his friends his heinous crime, his punishment was frequently demanded. The evidence, however, linked him conclusively to the murder and affirmed the decision by the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals. It was executed nine years after the death of the teenager in September 2002.

Reginald Lenard Reeves

Reginald Lenard Reeves

Jonathan Kambouris, a photographer who compiled a project on death row prisoner’s final meal, told CBS News, “The last meal is the last choice one can make before being put to death… [It’s] unarguably honest and true.”The 28-year-old asked for two cokes and four pieces of fried chicken.

Reginald Lenard Reeves Last Meal

Bruno Richard Hauptmann

The first solo flight across the Atlantic was in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh, which altered the face of aviation. His son was abducted and murdered five years later and dubbed as a “Crime of the Century” At last, Bruno Hauptmann was linked by police to the murder, while the German carpenter was sentenced to death. He met his end in April 1936.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann

Bruno Richard Hauptmann

He came to the electric chair and proclaimed himself an innocent man, an action accepted by a large portion of the American public. And though he knew he’d spare him a tragic end, he refused to acknowledge the crime. Nevertheless, he demanded chicken, buttered peas, French fries, olives, celery, cake, and cherries were also requested by the condemned man.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann Last Meal

Charles Rumbaugh

For killing a jeweler during an armed robbery, Charles Rumbaugh was put on death row, but his sentence proved controversial. That is because when he committed his crime Rumbaugh was just 17 years old, and Amnesty International claimed that his execution violated international agreements. He underwent a lethal injection in 1985, at the age of 28. However, his sentence was upheld.

Charles Rumbaugh

Charles Rumbaugh

Rumbaugh had been high-spirited in the hours before his execution, according to Sarah Grisham, a Texas correctional spokeswoman. He supposedly “made jokes and laughed” with family and friends. Nevertheless, his last order of food was simpler, consisting of a glass of water and single tortilla flour.

Charles Rumbaugh Last Meal

Charles Peace

Charles Peace, who spent years running from police, was a notorious Victorian cat thief and murderer. He began his criminal life at a young age, actively evading his identity. He was captured in London by 1878 and sentenced to death the next year. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who mentioned Peace during Sherlock Holmes ‘ adventure, has been captivated by his story ever since.

Charles Peace

Charles Peace

In the morning before his execution, Peace ate his last meal asking for a hearty breakfast of salty bacon and eggs. He went to the gallows with the prison chaplain who read aloud passages describing hell. The criminal said, “Even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it … just to save a soul from the eternal hell like that!” The criminal reportedly cried.

Salty Bacon and Eggs

Ricky Ray Rector

Ricky Ray Provost tricked a police officer he had known since childhood into believing he was going to give up when he shot a man at a restaurant in 1981. He shot and killed the cop instead, and turned the gun to his head. The Rector survived the attempted suicide but lobotomized himself successfully. A judge, however, deemed him fit for trial, sentencing him to death on two counts of murder.  

Ricky Ray Rector

Ricky Ray Rector

The indictment and execution of Rector in 1992 caused controversy, mainly due to his psychological shortcomings. He wanted to save the pecan pie he asked for “for later,” and perhaps his last meal was an unfortunate example of this. However, this condemned man ate a fried chicken, steak, and Kool-Aid cherry he had asked for.

Ricky Ray Rector Last Meal

Allen Lee Davis

Nancy Weiler, who was then pregnant and her two girls in Florida, were fatally murdered in 1982 by Allen Lee Davis. He committed the assaults on parole and was previously convicted of armed robbery. The death penalty for his crimes was then imposed on Davis. During the execution of the electric chair, he suffered severe bleeding and sparked a national debate.  

Allen Lee Davis

Allen Lee Davis

Before his execution, Davis took medication that might have caused bleeding in his body. The murderer’s weighing 350 pounds could, however, also play a role. And his last meal in that area didn’t help. A huge plate of fried shrimp, lobster tail, fried clams, garlic bread, fried potatoes, and root beer.

Allen Lee Davis Last Meal

Ronnie Threadgill

Ronnie Threadgill murdered 17-year-old Dexter MacDonald in April 2001 in an idling car in Navarro, Texas. He climbed into the car and drove away and left the boy. Threadgill was jailed for multiple wrongdoings most of his adult life and finally got a death penalty for killing MacDonald. 

Ronnie Threadgill

Ronnie Threadgill

On 22 July 2002, Threadgill was sentenced to death. Nevertheless, Texas had refused the last food requests by the time his execution was scheduled. His demand was therefore unfulfilled for baked chicken, vegetables, mashed potatoes, bread, sweet peas, punch, water, and tea. Alternatively, the convicted man received the same final meal for all inmates in the death row. 

Ronnie Threadgill Final Meal