The tradition of a final meal before execution dates back centuries, allowing prisoners to choose their last spread. Choices have ranged from gluttonous feasts to defiant statements, with some of the most iconic requests now part of criminal lore.
A single olive and a hope for rebirth
In the summer of 1960, Iowa resident Victor Feguer called a local doctor claiming a woman needed medical attention. When the GP arrived, there was no woman – Feguer inexplicably shot the health professional in the head.
Feguer ordered a single green olive for his last meal, believing that by keeping the olive's pit in his suit pocket when buried, an olive tree would sprout from his grave.
Whiskey and coffee before the firing squad
Gary Gilmore managed to knock back some whiskey before his execution. He got his uncle Vern to smuggle in shots of contraband Jack Daniel's whiskey.
The night before he was executed in January 1977, lifetime criminal Gilmore requested a final sitdown with family. He ordered one hamburger, hard-boiled eggs and one baked potato, washed down with several cups of coffee with milk. According to reports and what his family said afterwards, Gilmore didn't touch the food and instead just necked the coffee and waited for sunlight when he was killed by firing squad.
A gluttonous feast for The Clown Killer
Infamous John Wayne Gacy tortured and killed at least 33 young boys and men between 1972 and 1978 in Illinois. His heinous crimes and the fact he liked to dress up as a clown named “Pogo” earnt him the moniker of The Clown Killer.
The sick murderer never showed remorse for the murders, with his last words being: “Kiss my ass”. News that he had tucked into a gluttonous final feast of a dozen deep-fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC's original recipe chicken, French fries, a pound of strawberries, and a bottle of diet Coke, was perhaps ill-received by the families of Gacy’s victims.
Spaghetti-Os drama and a defiant coffee
Thomas J. Grasso was executed by the state of Oklahoma in 1995 – but not before tucking into one of the largest last meals recorded. The killer – convicted of strangling two elderly women – requested 24 mussels, 24 clams, a cheeseburger, six ribs, two milkshakes, a pie, strawberries and the then-popular Spaghetti-Os.
Unfortunately for Grasso, due to a kitchen balls-up the murderer was served up spaghetti rather than Spaghetti-Os (hoops of pasta served in a can). Grouchy Grasso’s last words were: “I did not get my Spaghetti-Os, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”
Between 1989 and 1990, Florida-based sex worker Aileen Wuornos shot, robbed and murdered seven men, becoming one of the most notorious female serial killers in history. Wuornos would lure her lonely victims by waiting next to motorways and flagging down middle-aged men with expensive cars.
Before she was executed by lethal injection in October 2002, Wuornos was offered a last meal valuing $20. Defiantly, she declined and instead chose a black coffee. Throughout the days leading up to her execution, Wuornos exhibited signs of severe mental instability, claiming she was going to be with her god and return with a “mothership”.
