Last Suppers

Time has run out, and it is your last meal on this earth. What do you choose? Inmates on Death Row in America have the right to ask for anything to be served, and must do so a couple of days before the Big Day; whether they get what they ask for is another matter. Rather morbidly, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice published these requests online until it was removed after complaints.

Most ask for cheeseburgers or fillet steak, others for enchiladas or French toast. Your last supper isn’t necessarily what you want: Pedro Muniz asked for shrimp and salad, but shrimp wasn’t available so instead he was served a cheeseburger, French fries and cola. Cigarettes and alcohol are banned, and the chef, usually himself a prisoner, will try to accommodate all requests.

Some are gluttonous: Jeffery Dillingham was executed on the first of November, 2000, for being hired by a couple’s daughter for $1 million to murder them, hitting them with a steel bar and slitting their throats. He requested 1 Cheeseburger with American, Cheddar and Mozzarella Cheese, without mayonnaise, mustard or onions, large French fries, a bowl of Macaroni and Cheese, lasagna with 2 slices of Garlic Bread, 4 oz. of Nacho Cheese, 3 Large Cinnamon Rolls, 5 Scrambled Eggs and 8 pints of Chocolate Milk.

Others ask for nothing, like Jeffery Henry Caldwell, who murdered his mother, father and sister by stabbing them and hitting them with a hammer. He then proceeded to hide the bodies in the family motor home that was parked on the driveway.

Stacey Lawton, a 24-year-old from Dallas, who shot and killed a man in a botched robbery, asked only for a jar of dill pickles.

Charles William Bass, who killed a police officer, asked for a cheese sandwich and said ‘I deserve this. Tell everyone I said goodbye.’