(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. This post originally appeared on the Last Words blog. Fans of this here site are highly likely to enjoy following Elder’s own pithy, almanac-style collection of last words on the scaffold. -ed.)
“Tell my family and friends I love them, tell the governor he just lost my vote. Y’all hurry this along, I’m dying to get out of here.”
— Christopher Scott Emmett, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Virginia.
Executed July 24, 2008
The Washington Post reported: “Emmett fatally beat his roofing company co-worker, John F. Langley, with a brass lamp in a Danville, Va., motel room in 2001. He then stole Langley’s money to buy crack.” He later lost an appeal in Virginia claiming that the state’s lethal injection protocol constituted “cruel and unusual” punishment.
On this day..
- 2003: Allen Wayne Janecka, hit man
- 1833: Anastasio Aquino, Nonualco rebel
- 1951: Arno Esch, liberal
- 2010: Michel Germaneau, AQIM hostage
- 1653: Six beheaded and one hanged for the Swiss Peasant War
- 1722: Marie-Jeanne Roger, "la Grande-Jeanneton"
- 1471: Dmitry Isakevich Boretsky, son of Marfa Boretskaya
- 1735: Patience Boston, converted
- 1588: Nicholas Garlick, Robert Ludlam, and Richard Simpson
- 1892: Ruggles brothers lynched
- 1942: Joan Peiro i Belis, Catalan anarchist
- 1794: Not Thomas Paine
Why a toaster? “He wouldn’t eat the poison mushrooms.”
Beaten to death with a lamp. That reminds me of a gentleman I know of whose ex-wife beat him to death with a toaster. The news specified it was a “two-slice” toaster.