Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

Bloody Angola Podcast by Woody Overton & Jim Chapman

The last meals of convicts, what would you choose if you were facing execution?

Woody Overton and Jim Chapman bring you another episode of Bloody Angola: A Prison Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman where the topic is some of the most infamous of those executed and what they choose to eat just before they ride the lightning or get the needle!

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Bloody Angola is produced by Envision Podcast Studios

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman (LAST MEALS)

Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The complete story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim: I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: And last meals, Woody Overton, are on our mind today.

Woody: I've always just been totally fascinated by the condemned and what they ask for their last meals.

Jim: That's a big decision. I mean, people don't really think about it, but this is the last meal you'll ever eat and I'm sure these death row inmates, like all of us-- people ask y'all the time, "What is your favorite food?" And sometimes people can't decide on that.

Woody: I know Angola, back in my time, during corrections, they actually had an inmate that all he did was prepare the last meals for the condemned.

Jim: Yeah. And I'm sure considered it like quite an honor.

Woody: I think they even did a cookbook of it. I'm going to have to look that up. We have to do an episode on that cookbook.

Jim: We might have to do a cookbook.

[laughter]

Jim: The Bloody Angola-- look, and I guarantee you some people going to message us down and say, "I'm a buyer, I want a cookbook."

Woody: We told y'all it would always be different. Today, we're not going to talk about Angola, we're going to talk about some really fascinating last meals from across the country.

Jim: Yeah. And last meals of death row inmates, they've been around a long time. Actually, they date back to the 20s in the United States, but in the UK, Europe, they were prevalent even in the 1800s.

Woody: Yeah, but they were killing a lot more people back then.

Jim: [laughs]

Woody: "Off with your head," and shit.

Jim: Yeah. I don't know how many people actually got to this side.

Woody: I think the [crosstalk] the public executions in England [unintelligible [00:03:20] were used until the early 20th century.

Jim: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. And last meals of any sort-- and we're going to stick to the United States here, especially in the United States, when they were first invented or became in vogue or whatever, they were looked at as an act of mercy on the prisoners, kind of humanize them in the eyes of the general public.

Woody: "We'll feed you before we kill you."

Jim: Yeah. "He likes pizza and I like pizza. We got something in common," that kind of thing, I'm sure. It has become in vogue since the 20s. Usually, there's a certain time period in which these inmates have, it's not necessarily their last meal, it might be two days earlier that they get that special meal.

Woody: Yeah. In Louisiana, it is on the day of execution, but it varies by state to state.

Jim: Is every inmate entitled to a last meal?

Woody: No, they're not. Like I said, it varies state to state, including some states, you don't get your request for a last meal.

Jim: No last meal at all. You just eat whatever they got.

Woody: Texas was the first state to introduce last meals to death throw inmates in 1924. It was quickly shared among other states. And after death row inmates, Lawrence R. Brewer's extravagant large and expensive last meal that he did not eat. Texas said, "We're not doing this shit anymore," but this dude didn't even eat, like, his last FU to the state of Texas. "You spent that money on me, and I'm not even going to eat it."

Jim: In Arizona, state procedures on executions state that an inmate can request the last meal by completing a form 14 days before their execution. So, they can't wait till the last minute. They got to give them at least two weeks' notice just like when you're hired and fired from a job or whatever.

Woody: I can see that wouldn't be unreasonable to think that if you've been on death row probably for 20 years, you probably already know what you want probably way ahead of time. We're the state, right? We got red tape. Give us a form to sign.

Jim: That's right. Florida, just another reason for me to like Florida, other than the sunshine and the sand and all that sort of thing, Florida believes in local, and so when you have a last meal, it's got to be local.

Woody: And it's a $40 budget. Hey, it could be local, but you better not order a grass fed.

Jim: If you order a T-bone, you ain't getting a potato.

Woody: Yeah. $40.

Jim: So, that's interesting. Now in Louisiana, right here at home, the warden will join you.

Woody: Yes. Burl Kane was very instrumental in that, and I think he tried to show compassions to the inmates and that the state is really not their enemy. We're going to sit down. Actually, Warden Kane would eat the meals with him. Whatever they're eating, he would sit down and break bread with them right before he killed him.

[laughter]

Jim: Seems kind of bizarre, doesn't it? I'll tell you what, it's a show of respect, I think, more than anything else. Warden Kane actually started that program at Angola, and it continues today.

Woody: Remember, the Department of Corrections' job is not to punish the inmates, don't beat them every day for the murders they committed or whatever. You're simply to house them and stop them from escaping and hurting other people. So, even though you're going to kill them in a couple of hours, you can sit down and with their family members, usually, and break bread with them.

Jim: Yeah, right. If you thought $40 was wow, how can I make that stretch? I know what y'all are doing right now. You're sitting there and you're thinking, "For $40, could I get my favorite last meal?" Well, guess what? Be glad you don't live in Oklahoma, if you're not an Oklahoma listener right now, because in Oklahoma, you only get $25.

Woody: They say that a reasonable effort shall be made to accommodate the request, but the budget shall not be exceeded. [crosstalk]

Jim: You can't get a Happy Meal for $25.

Woody: Right. But in Maryland, they don't even offer a final meal selection. They say the death row inmate will eat the same as any other inmate in the prison.

Jim: That's right. States that maybe don't have the amount, I think of Vermont right off the top of my head, don't have the amount of executions. They'll let you go a little bit more crazy. They'll give you more personal choices of meal and things like that. That's just because their budget, it allows for that. They don't put a whole lot of people to death. Maybe they're just a small state, like a Vermont.

Woody: Right. Well, it's typically assumed that inmates sentenced to death can ask for anything they want for the last meal. It does, like we told y'all vary from state to state. Some states have budgets, and some have rules on locations of where the meals can come from, like Florida being local but some states don't allow last meals at all.

Jim: Yeah. Not only that, this is going to surprise y'all, no state allows cigarettes.

Woody: That's crazy. Back in the day, cigarettes were everything in the prison. According to the Department of Corrections, no states allow cigarettes. Under an order by former Texas Governor George W. Bush, who would become the president later on, cigarettes were banned for health reasons.

[laughter]

[crosstalk]

Woody: We won't let you have that last cigarette before we let you ride Ol' Sparky, right?

Jim: That's actually pretty good. Now, in 1997, there was an inmate by the name of Larry Wayne White. He requested a meal of liver fried onions, tomatoes, cottage cheese, and a cigarette. He got everything but his final smoke. How about that? I don't know if I'm picking liver as my last meal number one.

Woody: [crosstalk] -cottage cheese, livers, fried onions, maybe. Yeah, I probably like to have that cigarette but he didn't get it.

Jim: Now, you may wonder, well, they can't smoke, but can they drink? Actually, alcohol is not allowed.

Woody: But it's frequently requested. In the earlier years, alcohol was allowed, and it sometimes still is, but it depends on who it is and where it's being requested.

Jim: Now, they've even had inmates, and I could see some out there doing it. They have actually requested Dom Pérignon.

Woody: Dom Pérignon.

Jim: One death row inmate actually requested but they denied him.

Woody: Denied.

Jim: [crosstalk]

Woody: He didn’t even get a pink champagne either.

Jim: MD 20/20, baby. [chuckles]

Woody: But unorthodox or unavailable requests are replaced with similar substitutes, and it was not unusual for an inmate's final choices to reveal something about them.

Jim: That's what I find so interesting about this, and we're going to get into specific inmates and what they requested, and it does. It kind of reveals something about the inmate that you may pick up on by what they request for the last meal. Now, some decline a last meal in order to basically demonstrate contempt for the prison authorities. "I'm not going to give you the pleasure of giving me a last meal," or they're just so dadgum scared of going to the electric chair or getting a dose of the good ol' shot that they are unable to eat. Stomach's just in knots. They're not hungry. They're about to get the chair or get the needle, one of the two.

Woody: They might have a little upset tummy from the nervousness, right?

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: But some inmates ordered things they had never tried before out of curiosity. Of course, some ordered their favorite foods to remind them of happier times. [unintelligible [00:11:43] thing, other kids had McDonald's in the neighborhood--

Jim: Ice cream. Oh, yeah.

Woody: [crosstalk] -Mama's soggy burger-- [crosstalk] [laughs]

Jim: [unintelligible [00:11:52] dough. Dough and a piece of meat.

Woody: Yeah, but [crosstalk] and later on in years of life, he'd love to have had that soggy burger, right?

Jim: Yeah, that's right.

Woody: Or piece of gourmet cheese.

Jim: Maybe you had a memory, you were at a circus or something and you wanted cotton candy as your last meal because you remember eating that when you were a kid at the circus. Who knows?

Woody: Yeah. But there are still 27 states that continue to authorize capital punishment. Well, y'all, that being the death penalty. The top 10 last meal requests in these 27 states, now, I don't know who's keeping these stats, y'all, but somebody did it. One of them is KFC.

Jim: Number one. The number one.

Woody: Number one is KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Jim: That don't surprise me.

Woody: Yeah.

Jim: Woody Overton told me his favorite meal at Angola was the fried chicken.

Woody: I like that better than I like KFC.

[chuckles]

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Give me some Popeye's or something.

Jim: Yeah, man, I'm telling you.

Woody: KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know what? That may have been all the parents could afford to feed them when they were a kid. The Colonel, right?

Jim: That’s right.

Woody: -[crosstalk] -like bucket.

Jim: That's right. And pie is number two. Don't surprise me. It doesn't specify whether it's pumpkin or whatever, but--

Woody: Blueberry.

Jim: Blueberry, pecan.

Woody: Rhubarb if you're a Yankee.

Jim: Yeah.

[laughter]

Woody: Another one, y'all, is ice cream.

Jim: That's number three on the list.

Woody: I mean, I guess takes you back to your kid days or whatever. I'm not really a sweet tooth here, but the next one--

Jim: That don't surprise me. Number four, a steak. Of course.

Woody: I'd be down with a steak.

Jim: Yeah. Number five, pizza.

Woody: Who doesn't like pizza? Right?

Jim: That's right.

Woody: They could be the 99 cent Tony's Frozen Pizza my 12-year-old still likes to eat or--

Jim: Number six.

Woody: Boy, I was going to say, most pizzas nowadays will bust a $40 limit.

Jim: Oh, yeah, you're right.

Woody: But how about this one? A lobster.

Jim: That's number six on the list. That would be my wife's last meal choice. There's no doubt about it. Wendy loves her some lobster--[crosstalk]

Woody: And how about this one? I guess you've never had steak. A hamburger.

Jim: Yeah, I [unintelligible [00:14:04]. I'd go with the steak personally but--

Woody: [crosstalk] -give me quarter pound cheese please, before you stab me with that needle.

[laughter]

Jim: Spaghetti, number eight on the list.

Woody: Spaghetti.

Jim: I can see that.

Woody: Unless they bust them out of can, but spaghetti in the list.

Jim: Yeah, Chef Boyardee. I wouldn’t want none of that. It better be homemade.

Woody: Here's one that Jim Chapman would probably choose. Sushi.

Jim: I could go with some sushi. Yes, indeed.

Woody: Take all you want, eat all you take.

Jim: That's right.

Woody: [crosstalk]

Jim: Number 10 on that list is crab potatoes or crab cakes, as we call it down here in Louisiana.

Woody: Is that what it is? Because I was thinking like, potatoes from a crab bowl, but I didn't really get that. But crab cakes, I get it. I mean, you got a lot of people that have crabs, I guess.

Jim: That's right. Can't beat a little crab cake every now and then. Now, we're going to get into some peoples that these are infamous inmates you may or may not have heard of, but their last meals, we knew you'd find this interesting. The first one on our list is a guy by the name of Bruno Hauptmann. You might be saying, "Well, who the hell is that?" Well, you've heard of the next person I'm going to mention, which is Chaz Lindbergh. Of course, that was Charles Lindbergh's son, the 20-month-old who was basically kidnapped for ransom.

Woody: Crime of the Century, that’s what they called it back then.

Jim: The Crime of the Century, that's right. Eventually Bruno Hauptmann, and I'm sure I'm mispronouncing his name, was convicted of that. He died by electric chair.

Woody: Electric chair. Ol' Sparky, but his last meal was celery, olives, chicken, French fries, buttered peas, cherries, and a slice of chocolate cake. Now, the celery, the olives, the chicken could all be put in a Bloody Mary is what I'm thinking.

[chuckles]

Jim: [crosstalk]

Woody: Fries, I like French fries, butter peas and the cherries. Actually, I like all that. I don't really care about the chocolate cake. But he got it and then they fried him. If the French fries weren't fried enough, they fried his ass and they fried them in his belly.

Jim: That's right. The next person we're going to get to is Victor-- Man, these names.

Woody: Feguer.

Jim: Feguer.

Woody: F-E-G-U-E-R.

Jim: He was from the SS or something.

Woody: But he died by hanging.

Jim: Yeah, he did.

Woody: He was convicted for kidnapping and murdering of a doctor because he wanted drugs. Basically, what he did, y'all, that’s when they had the Yellow Pages and doctors made house calls, he called all these doctors saying his wife or whoever needed some medicine and Dr. Bartels ended up going there and Feguer kidnapped and killed him. And then later found his body in a cornfield with a single gunshot went to the head. FEGUER was convicted. His last meal was, I love this one, he requested a single olive with its pit still in it. After his hang, the olive pit was found in one of his pockets. He had told the guards he wanted an olive tree to grow from his body.

Jim: Yeah, he was crazy, obviously. He wants an olive tree to grow out his body. Now, in 1977, gentleman by the name of Gary Gilmore who got death by firing squad. Now, he was convicted of two murders that were committed during armed robberies. His two victims cooperated with him, but he still shot and killed him and demanded execution for his crimes after the reinstatement of the death penalty by the Supreme Court in 1976. He basically fought for the right to be executed after a 10-year moratorium. During that time, he was wanting to die. Probably jail wasn't for him. So, he's ready to go ahead and get the needle or ride the lightning or whatever it was he was going to do, but ended up, he did get executed. His last meal was a baked potato, a couple of cups of coffee, hard-boiled eggs, a hamburger, and three shots of whiskey.

[chuckles]

Woody: Got to have a whiskey.

Jim: Hell, yeah.

Woody: I want to talk about him real quick. So, his execution was by firing squad.

Jim: And this was in 1976, y'all.

Woody: Right. Actually, I think Utah still has an option. You have like three different options, and one of them is firing squad. The firing squad is made up of volunteers and then put them behind a wooden wall with holes cut into it from the sheet through. The volunteers then picked loaded shotguns. Gilmore was strapped to a chair that looked like Gruesome Gertie that Angola used, and his head was covered by a hood. What they don't tell you in this is the volunteers, some of the shotguns had blank rounds in it, so the shotgun still went off, but you never know who actually killed it so that volunteers wouldn't feel guilty later on for killing this asshole.

Jim: That's right. In 1994, and we're to a female here, y'all, Margie Barfield, died by lethal injection.

Woody: Stuck her up.

Jim: She was known as the Caretaker Murderer. She was the only woman in North Carolina to be executed by lethal injection. She was a convicted serial killer who was convicted of one murder but eventually confessed to six in total. She killed her own mother, whom she had poisoned with arsenic. Now, after autopsies, it was confirmed that she had killed others she had been taken care of, including her second husband. She was North Carolina's Black Widow to Louisiana's Black Widow, Lynette Kirby. Look for some episodes maybe on our Bloody Angola Boss Bitches coming up at you in our companion episodes. Her last meal was cheese noodles and Coke.

Woody: I don't even know what that is. I know what Cokes are.

Jim: Cheese noodles is probably like macaroni and cheese or something, I guess. I'm taking a guess.

Woody: Real quick on her, they went back, and when they examined these other people that she confessed to, they tested them for arsenic, and a lot of them had it in there. So, she was slowly poisoning her victims, and I think it's appropriate that she got the needle and got some poison of her own.

Jim: Yeah. Now, 1989, someone I know a good bit about. I've been researching this guy since I was a kid. Ted Bundy.

Woody: I met one of his survivors.

Jim: Died in the electric chair. Now, he kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s, and they suspect possibly earlier. He typically strangled or bludgeoned his victims and even mutilated them after death. He would prolong the events, but return to the corpses at their dump sites, or even take them home in order to gain further sexual gratification. Somewhat not unsimilar to an episode we did on-

Woody: Sean Vincent Gillis.

Jim: Sean Vincent Gillis. That's right. He'd go as far as to sleep with the corpses until putrefaction became unbearable. And what's putrefaction?

Woody: The stink. Stunk.

Jim: That's right.

Woody: [crosstalk]

Jim: He just couldn't take it anymore, the smell.

Woody: Everybody knows pretty much about Bundy, but his last meal, he declined a special meal, but he was given the works. The standard death row meal of a medium rare steak, eggs over easy, hash brown, toast, milk, coffee and juice, butter and jelly. He did not eat a single bite. When asked why, his response was that he didn't choose it, talking about the meal.

Jim: And he was given a chance. Order whatever he wanted.

Woody: Even though he was given a chance and declined.

Jim: That's right. So, an asshole to the end.

Woody: Probably some of the trustee had a good meal that night.

Jim: Yeah, no doubt about it. I ain't wasting his food. [laughs] 1994 [crosstalk] another famous serial killer by the name of John Wayne Gacy, who's also known as the Killer Clown, died of lethal injection. He was a serial killer who raped, tortured, and murdered 33 young men and boys. Of course, he buried them in a crawlspace. Now, his last meal, 12 deep fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC original recipe chicken. He didn't want spicy.

Woody: That’s the number one.

Jim: Only original, and French fries and a pound of strawberries. That sucker put down a meal. He wasn't nervous to go.

Woody: He wasn't worried about-- [crosstalk]

Jim: No. He's like, "I can eat. I ain't worried about it."

Woody: All right, y'all, 1998, Jonathan Nobles from Texas died, they killed him by lethal injection. He was convicted of a double murder/stabbing of two women at their rented home in Austin, Texas, after consuming alcohol and drugs. Ironically, he had been employed by the Central Texas Crime Prevention Association of Round Rock. Y'all, Round Rock is just above Austin. After 12 years, he was executed. But during that time, he claimed that he had converted to Catholicism on death row, eventually becoming a lay preacher. People said he had no remorse and hadn't changed. His last meal, he requested the Holy Eucharist or communion for his last meal because he had found God. He had asked for seconds, but didn't receive them.

Jim: Asked for seconds.

[chuckles]

Jim: "I want two crackers."

[laughter]

Woody: "Two wafers please."

Jim: Yeah. Wow.

Woody: That's crazy.

Jim: Okay, so in 2001, another very infamous inmate, Timothy McVeigh--

Woody: I remember when it happened.

Jim: I do too. Oklahoma City bombing died of lethal injection. Now, he was convicted of domestic terrorism and, of course, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, where he killed 168 people. 680 others were injured, and it destroyed half of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building.

Woody: Y'all, in case you don't remember this, I actually watched this live on TV when they were doing recoveries. In that federal building, they had a daycare where you could bring your children if you worked in the building. So, 19 of his 168 victims were kids. In his last meal, he had two pints of mint chocolate ice cream.

Jim: That's it. Man.

Woody: [crosstalk] -that cools you off when you went to hell.

Jim: Yeah. In 2007, Philip Ray Workman died of lethal injection. He was convicted for a 1982 murder of a police officer following a robbery at a Wendy's restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, and was sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2012. For his last meal, Workman didn't have a last meal request for himself. Instead, he asked for a large vegetarian pizza to be given to a homeless person. They denied that request, and Workman said, "Well, if you ain't going to do that, then I don't want anything. I'm going on a hunger strike."

Jim: He's going to show them.

Woody: Yeah, he's going to show them. "I ain't going to eat nothing." That led to his outside followers to give away vegetarian pizzas to homeless like all over the place in Memphis, Tennessee.

Woody: That’s crazy. Hunger strike before you kill me by lethal injection.

Jim: I don't think they cared.

Woody: In 2009, John Allen Mohammed from Baton Rouge, aka the DC Sniper died by lethal-- he didn't die. They killed him by lethal injection. State-sanctioned killing. Mohammed and a 17-year-old accomplice-- we all know that his stepson, accomplice gunned down 13 people in Washington DC and were responsible for another seven murders across the United States. His last meal was chicken and red sauce. I don't think I've ever had that combination, Jim.

Jim: I don't either.

Woody: And red sauce?

Jim: I don't either.

Woody: I don't get it.

Jim: Interesting, John Allen. In 2011, Lawrence Russell Brewer from Texas, who was a white supremacist, was one of three suspects convicted in the Jasper dragging death of a 49-year-old handicapped man by the name of James Byrd until he was decapitated. They actually drug him until he was decapitated.

Woody: Until ripped his head off.

Jim: Disgusting. Brewer is one of three men charged in one of the most gruesome racial crimes of the post-Civil Rights era. In the early morning in 1998, him and some folks basically picked up a black guy and drug him on a chain around his ankles for three miles until his head was torn off by the jagged edge of the roadside concrete culvert.

Woody: [crosstalk] Like they were going to turn or something, his body went off, and the-- I watched the special. The culvert literally chopped his head off.

Jim: Here is the reason that Texas no longer allows special death row meals to be requested. His last meal, two chicken fried steaks with gravy and onions; one triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; an omelet with cheese, ground beef, tomatoes and onions, bell peppers and jalapenos; fried okra with ketchup and a pound of barbecue meat with a half loaf of white bread; three fajitas with all the fixings; a meat lover's pizza; a pint of Blue Bell ice cream and peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers. I kid y'all not.

So, Texas said, "Screw that. We're changing the law."

Woody: Right. I think he's the one that ordered that big extravagant meal and was like, "Fuck it, I'm not eating. The joke is on you."

Jim: That's right. So, get this. He ordered all of it and said, "I ain't eating none of it." That was the whole thing.

Woody: He just was trying to spend some of that Texas tax-

Jim: That's right.

Woody: -payer money. Crazy. All right. In 2019, John Bill King was executed by lethal injection. It was John who started this gruesome chain of events. He offered Mr. Byrd a ride home, knowing he was a handicapped man since he had known him all of his life. Little did he know that it would be the last ride he ever took. King had just gotten out of prison where he said he had been repeatedly gangraped by black inmates, and that was his motive. He was convicted in the death of Byrd by beating him with a bat and then dragging him behind the pickup truck. King met Brewer anywhere else but a maximum-security prison where he was there for stealing. His last words were cryptic and more hurtful to BR. Whitmer called the post execution letter insensitive and perhaps even harmful to the family of Byrd. This man," talking about King, "was treated a lot better during his 20 years in prison than Mr. Byrd was," Whitmer said. Lawrence Brewer was executed in 2011 for his part in the killing. And the third man, Shawn Allen Berry, longtime friend of King, was sentenced to life in prison. So, y'all, we're all talking about Jasper, Texas, and the horrible case when they drug Mr. Byrd to his death.

Jim: In 2012, Gary the Butcher died of legal lethal injection, so he got convicted of rape and murder and decapitation of his victims. His last meal, he became quite gluttonous. He requested a pizza, Super Supreme Deep Dish, double portion with mushroom, onions, jalapenos and pepperoni. Another pizza with three different cheeses in it. Ten 8-ounce packs of parmesan cheese, ten 8-ounce packs of ranch dressing, a family-sized bag of Doritos. I mean, this dude went crazy. He got a super-size order of McDonald's fries.

Woody: Eight-ounce jalapenos, nachos, cheese.

Jim: Two 20-ounce Cokes. Yeah, he went--

Woody: [crosstalk] -ounces of sliced jalapenos, two large strawberry shakes, two 20-ounce Cherry Cokes, one super-size McDonald's fries.

Jim: He would not--

Woody: Hey, I do like my McDonald's fries. With extra ketchup of mayonnaise and two pints of strawberry ice cream. His calories for that feast were 28,974. He ate one half of the ranch dressing and one half of Parmesan cheese.

Jim: There you go.

Woody: All right.

Jim: 2018, Edmund Zagorski died by electric chair. Zagorski requested the electric chair over death row. He was convicted for the murders of two men during a drug deal in 1983. He lured men into a wooded area under the pretense of selling them 100 pounds of weed before shooting them and slitting their throats.

Woody: This guy had a really refined-- what do you call that, a taste bud or a really refined palate.

Jim: Yeah, he really did. His last meal was a jar of pickled pig feet and a pickled pigtail.

Woody: [laughs]

Jim: Thomas Grasso, in 1995, was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma. Now, his last meal was two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, a half dozen barbecue spare ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, a half pumpkin pie with whipped cream with diced strawberries and a 16-ounce can of a spaghetti and meatballs served at room temperature. So, don't heat it up for him. Don't burn his mouth now.

Woody: That's spaghetti and meatballs in a can. Nothing says last meal like spaghetti-

Jim: [crosstalk] That's right.

Woody: -and meatballs in a can. They probably went to Dollar General Store and got the no-name brand.

Jim: Yeah. Now, he strangled an elderly woman using her own Christmas lights, stole $8 from her purse, $4 from around the house, and sold her television for $125. He then murdered an elderly man and stole his Social Security check.

Woody: You know what? Fucking--[crosstalk]

Jim: I wouldn't have given him all that food. He sounds like a bitch, mean--

Woody: I definitely wouldn't have given him a Chef Boyardee [unintelligible [00:32:24] or whatever.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: So, Dennis Bagwell, his last meal with steak, fried chicken, barbecue ribs, fries, onion rings, bacon, a dozen scrambled eggs with onions, fried taters. That's their spelling, y'all, not mine. Fried taters with onions, sliced tomatoes, a salad with ranch dressing, two hamburgers with everything, peach pie, milk and coffee, and iced tea with real sugar. Now, Bagwell had invaded the home in Texas of Ronald Boone, who returned home to find the bodies of his wife, Leona, his daughter, Libby, and his granddaughters, Reba and Tassy. According to reports, McBee and Tassy had been beaten and strangled, necks broken, and Tassy was raped. Libby was shot in the head, and Reba's skull was crushed with a hammer and a metal exercise bar. Bagwell was linked to the crime by a bloody shoeprint found underneath Tassy Boone's body. Bagwell denied any involvement in the crime. His lawyers implicated Tassy's mother is the killer, but she established that she was in California at the time of the crime. He was linked to another murder two weeks prior. He threatened law enforcement, and he was arrested claiming innocence, then tried to buy drugs. He was addicted to cocaine.

Jim: Imagine that.

Woody: Oh, Dennis.

Jim: In 1999, Allen Lee Davis was executed in a botched execution by electrocution, [chuckles] crime of pedophilia, rape, and robbery. He was convicted for the murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three months pregnant in Jacksonville, Florida. She was beaten beyond recognition with a. 357 Magnum and hit more than 25 times about the face and head. He was additionally convicted of killing her two daughters who were nine years old and shot in the face, and Katherine, who was five years old, who was shot as she tried to run away. So, he's a piece of shit, basically.

He was executed by electrocution. His execution was considered botched with witnesses reporting that Davis was still alive after the powered Old Sparky was switched off. Blood had also leaked from his nose during the execution, although prison officials claim this was caused by a nosebleed. Controversy, regarding the nosebleed, he was on blood thinners for his health. Because of the controversy, Davis remains the last person executed by electric chair in Florida. Basically, there was a bunch of people up in arms around that and so they made him the last inmate until they worked that out.

Woody: They swapped over to lethal injection and Florida has carried out all of them by lethal injection, although inmates can still choose to be executed by electric chair. Karma is a bitch.

Jim: It is a bitch. Davis had prior convictions for armed robbery. He was just a piece of shit. Now, for his last meal, Davis requested and received a dinner consisting of one lobster tail, fried potatoes, a half a pound of fried shrimp, 6 ounces of fried clams, a half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 ounce of A&W root beer.

Woody: Crazy, bro.

Jim: Yeah. First of all, I want to thank someone who helped us research this and that is-

Woody: Leah Marie.

Jim: The Leah Marie. Thank you very much.

Woody: We love you, Leah. You are awesome.

Jim: You are awesome. We appreciate you.

Woody: Super, super cool. Very interesting. We're going to do more on these in future. I think this being presented the way Leah helped us do it is fascinating. You get to hear the crimes. We're making jokes about the meals, and of course our hearts go out to the victims of these crimes and we're not making light of that. I find these last meals fascinating.

Jim: Yeah, I do too. We hope y'all enjoyed that just a little bit, constantly giving you different stuff around here and this is just a little bit different that. We hope y'all enjoyed. Now, we got a live event and you're getting this on Thursday. So, it's tomorrow.

Woody: Two live events.

Jim: Two live events. Yeah, a live weekend.

Woody: Friday and Saturday night.

Jim: Friday and Saturday night. Sold out. Sold out.

Woody: Sold it your way.

Jim: I cannot tell you the amount of people who have messaged me wanting tickets and I posted it a million times on Facebook that it was about to sell out. So, thanks all of y'all who purchased tickets. And all y'all who were interested, I'm sorry that there was none left, but I do appreciate everybody who's coming out to the Southeastern Livingston Center to see Bloody Angola Live, brought to you by Sporting Center.

Woody: That's going to be heck of a story. We'll do more lives in the future, y'all. This is inaugural.

Jim: Yeah, the inaugural. We do want to mention that there'll be food and drink on site. So, if you're coming, they'll have some of the best-- I saw the menu yesterday and it is absolute fire. Tommy over at Sombrero is going to have a massive food truck out there. We've got an awesome lady who's going to be throwing drinks left and right at people with a food truck, complete with beer, wine, mimosas, you name it. MajestiK Mimosa.

Woody: Of course, we're going to have Bloody Angle swag.

Jim: Oh, yeah. Got three different styles of t-shirts going to be available. We've got some of the event posters that we're signing and putting up for sale. We're even going to have some scripts that we've signed that we're going to-- original scripts now, that would be some great little collectible items for you.

Woody: Right. Don't forget about the Bloody Angola wine.

Jim: Wine. [laughs]

Woody: It's good stuff, bro.

Jim: Yeah, it's good stuff.

Woody: $25 a bottle and we could sign it for you if you want.

Jim: And this ain't no cheap crap, y'all. This is good wine.

Woody: Yes. Everybody sends me pictures of the empty bottles of wine. They're saying, "Now, I need to get some more. Will you sign it for us?" We're like, "Hell, yeah. We'll sign it for you."

Jim: That's right.

Woody: And then, we signed it all day long and twice on Sunday. But the bottle, whatever type of wine--

Jim: Well, I'm going to tell you. You got a Fusion Red, which is-- what a Fusion Red is, it's a mixture between red and white zinfandel. You got that, so good. You've got a white wine and you also have what I would call a Rose.

Woody: Right.

Jim: Some people call it Blush.

Woody: And all delicious, but it has the Bloody Angola logo on it. We will be happy to sign them for you. $25 a bottle. But if you're a Patreon member, don't forget, one of the many perks we can give you is you get $5 off. Now, if it sounds like we're selling, well, we are.

[laughter]

Woody: We had to buy this stuff--[crosstalk]

Jim: Woody Everton is looking at me like, "We better not have nothing left." [laughs]

Woody: The $5 off. Hell, if you drink two bottles wine a month, you're-

Jim: Yeah. That's right.

Woody: -paying for your tasting--[crosstalk]

Jim: Get that wine for $20 nowhere else in the world. So, yeah, just come on down to Bloody Angola Live. Obviously, you'll be there. You got tickets and we're going to meet with you after sign anything you want us to sign. We're going to have some great swag there. We even got some lighters, y'all, with Bloody Angola on them because Woody constantly says, "It's fire," after everything. So, we've got the first inaugural "It's fire" lighters that he'll be glad to sign for you if you'd like him to, or me or both of us.

Woody: If you don't get to make it to the event and you're interested in the swag or the merchandise, just hit us up. Especially the wine or even the shirts, things that we can order. You see people posting the pictures and you want it, hit us up.

Jim: Yeah. And then also, Patreon, first of all, thank you to all our Patreon teams.

Woody: Thank you.

Jim: We have four or five teams now. We've got a Tie Down team, we've got a Chase team, we've got a Warden team, we've got a CERT team, and we're offering all kinds of new things on those, depending on which team you're on. I can tell you there's teams that have transcripts available. These transcripts are fire. It's like reading our episodes out of a book. These are full transcripts. Of course, there's an extreme cost to getting things transcribed properly, and I'm talking human transcription, y'all. You can't transcribe Woody's voice into an automatic transmission machine because it never comes out right. This is humans that are actually retyping this stuff. You bump up $5 a tier, you get that information. We're even giving quarterly swag out to our Warden tiers. Every quarter, you'll get a piece of swag that is-- I ain't just talking a bumper sticker or something like that. Some of this stuff is real good stuff.

Woody: Good stuff. Y'all, this show is not free for us to produce or have our time and the research and everything else.

Jim: [crosstalk]

Woody: Absolutely, Patreon members, thank you so much for your support. It really goes a long ways. If you can't be a Patreon member, we get it. If you like the show, please like it and subscribe and leave us a review.

Jim: And share it.

Woody: Yeah. Share it.

Jim: Every one of you.

Woody: Our growth is phenomenal. We're on the third season and we're blessed every day.

Jim: Absolutely.

Woody: And we're blessed because of y'all. We love and appreciate each, every one of y'all.

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola-

Jim: A podcast 142 years in a making.

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Woody and Jim: Peace.

Jim: [chuckles]

Woody: Great one.

Jim: Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433 with vocals by Thomas Cain. Created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody Overton.

[Bloody Angola theme playing]

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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