14 Notorious Death Row Inmates And Their Last Meal Requests

Death row is where the worst of the worst of the worst go to live out their last days. The people here are some of the most sinister, disgusting, evil people to walk the earth. There have been over 1,500 inmates who have been put to death and over 8,700 people who have been put on death row. Inmates on death row have worse living conditions than other inmates and are often in solitary confinement.

One of the “perks” of being on death row is that before you die, you have the opportunity to have a last meal. This can be whatever the person wants and is a way to make their last night on earth a good one. I’ve compiled a list of the most famous inmates on death row and what their last meal requests were.

1. John Wayne Gacy

We’ll start off with the names that everyone is familiar with, like John Wayne Gacy. He was convicted of raping and murdering 33 young men and boys in Chicago, Illinois. He was most famous for being the clown killer because his job was being a clown. This is one of the many reasons why people are so scared of clowns. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994, 14 years after being on death row.

For his last meal, he had a bucket of KFC chicken, 12 fried prawns, a pound of strawberries, French fries, and a Diet Coke. He chose KFC because he managed three KFC restaurants at one point in his life. For a last hurrah, I would say that this was a pretty good choice on his part.

2. Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy is another name that everyone knows. He was convicted of the raping and death of up to 30 men and women (it could be more, but this was all that he confessed to or remembered). He only confessed this right before he was executed and was on death row for more than a decade. Ted was executed in 1989 by the electric chair.

His last meal was steak cooked medium-rare, eggs over easy, hash browns, toast with butter and jelly, milk, and juice. This is just the standard meal they give all people being executed if they don’t have any specific recommendations. Boring.

3. Timothy McVeigh

This man was the terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. The reason he did this was because he was a Gulf War veteran who hated the US government and everything that it stood for. He blew up the Murrah Federal Building with a forty-eight-hundred-pound ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb that blew up a large chunk of the building and much of the surrounding area. He was executed in 2001 by lethal injection.

His last meal was two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Leave it to a mass murderer to have terrible taste in ice cream.

4. Carlton Gary

Carlton Gary murdered four elderly women and is suspected of killing at least four others as well. He was known as “The Stalking Strangler” because he would stalk his victims and then murder and r*pe them. In 1978, he got a 21-year prison sentence for armed robbery but escaped in 1983 and was caught a year later. After he was recaptured, evidence that connected him to the killings that occurred five years before he got his first prison sentence was brought to light. After this, he was re-tried for murder and received the death penalty, but wasn’t executed until 2018 by lethal injection.

He denied a last meal and was given a grilled hamburger, hot dog, white beans, coleslaw, and grape soda by default. He probably regretted not asking for a specific meal after they gave him this.

5. Gary Gilmore

He might be the only person in the history of death row to ask to be executed for the crimes that he committed. Gary killed two people in Utah in 1976 during two separate armed robberies. The two men that he killed were cooperative, but after he robbed them, he commanded them to lie down on the ground and shot them both in the head. He was executed in 1977 by firing squad.

For his last meal, he had a hamburger, baked potato, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee. It’s also said that his uncle snuck in a few shots of Jack Daniels to wash it all down. I don’t know how a person would sneak Jack Daniels into a prison, but I guess if you’re about to be executed, maybe they’re a little more lenient with what they’ll allow in.

6. Albert Fish

This man is as evil as they come. He was a r*pist, serial killer, child molester, and cannibal. I don’t know how it gets worse than that. He was convicted of three accounts of the murder of children, but at one point said that he had killed over 100. He committed the murders from 1924 to 1928 and was executed on January 16, 1936, by electric chair.

His last meal was a roast chicken that had to be deboned because of a suicide attempt when he took the bone of his T-Bone steak and tried to slit his wrists at a previous last meal.

7. Aileen Wuornos

Aileen was a prostitute along the highways of Florida who shot and robbed seven of her clients. She did this all in the span of one year, from 1989 to 1990. She tried to claim that the murders were in self-defense but was sentenced to death. After spending 10 years on death row, she was executed in 2002 by lethal injection.

Her last meal was a cup of black coffee. It seems like the opposite of what you would want when you’re about to be executed. Wouldn’t you want to be sleepy and tired so that it would be less painful?

8. Barbra Graham

Barbra was a prostitute who, in 1953, married a bartender named Henry Graham. He was a drug addict and was a low-level criminal. He had two friends named Jack and Emmett (she was having an affair with Emmett) who roped Barbra into robbing an old widow named Mabel Monohan. Barbra was used as a pawn by the two friends to knock on the door and tell Mabel that she was having car problems and to ask if she could come in and use her phone.

She and her accomplices entered the house, and it’s said that Barbra was the one to beat her to death. They stole about $15,000 ($156,000 in today’s money) of jewels from the home and were caught 17 days later and sentenced to death by gas chamber.

Her last dinner was a chocolate milkshake and in the morning she had a chocolate sundae before her execution. I feel like this is a very 1950s last meal, don’t you?

9. Bruno Hauptmann

Bruno Hauptmann committed “The Crime of the Century” back in 1932 when he kidnapped Charles Lindbergh Jr. and asked for $50,000 in a ransom for the child to be returned. The ransom was paid, but the child was never returned. 11 days later, the child’s body was found in the woods four miles from the house he was kidnapped from. Two years later he was caught and sentenced to execution by an electric chair.

His last meal was chicken, fries, buttered peas, celery, olives, cherries, and a slice of cake. A very classic meal, if I do say so myself.

10. Allen Lee Davis

This was a truly bad guy. He was convicted for the murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three months pregnant, who he beat beyond recognition. When he was done murdering the mom, he moved on to the two daughters who were also in the house and shot one and beat the other to death. He said that he initially planned to r*pe and kill the daughter and then kill the mom and other daughter, but ended up just killing them all.

His last meal was one lobster tail, fried potatoes, a half pound of fried shrimp, six ounces of fried clams, half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 US fluid ounces of A&W Root Beer. It disgusts me that he was able to have such a gourmet and delicious meal for his last night on earth. What a waste of excellent food.

11. Dustin Higgs

This is one that’s a little controversial. Dustin didn’t actually kill anyone. He was just the getaway driver for the man who killed three people. The person who committed the murders was Willis Mark Haynes, who only received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. It’s said that Dustin handed the g*n to Hayes and told him to kill the three women, but he didn’t actually do any of the killing himself.

His last meal was pizza, a strawberry milkshake, and jelly-filled donuts. This is probably the closest to what my last meal would be. Bad guy, but good taste.

12. Velma Barfield

This lady is known as the “Evil Grandma” because she poisoned and killed six people in her family. She killed them so that she could steal their money and use it to buy drugs for her back pain. When she was on death row, she was a 52-year-old grandma which gave her the name “Evil Grandma”. She was the first woman in the US to be executed by lethal injection.

Her last meal was Cheese Doodles (which are basically Cheetos) and a Coca-Cola. Doesn’t seem like this would fill you up very much for your last meal ever.

13. James Edwards Smith

In 1983, James robbed a Union National Life Insurance Company in Houston, Texas. The manager, Rohus, was compliant and did everything that James asked of him. He took a bag and filled it with cash and as he handed it to James, he asked James to please not shoot him. After doing this, James sh*t him and ran out of the building. He was caught a couple of blocks away and was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

For his last meal, he requested a lump of dirt. This was supposedly part of a voodoo ritual that he was trying to complete before he was executed. The state refused his request and gave him yogurt instead. I would have gladly given him the dirt.

14. Gary Carl Simmons, Jr.

For the last sicko on the list, we have Gary. Gary owed a lot of money to a drug dealer and when the dealer came to collect, he didn’t have the drugs or the money. An argument ensued and Gary ended up shooting the drug dealer and kidnapping and r*ping his girlfriend, who came with the drug dealer to collect the money. After he r*p*d her, he dismembered the body of the drug dealer and spread his corpse around the bayou behind his house. While he was doing this, the girlfriend escaped to a neighbor’s house and called the cops. He was executed in 2012 by lethal injection.

His last meal was pretty epic. He had one Pizza Hut medium Super Supreme Deep-Dish pizza, a three cheese pizza from Pizza Hut, one family-size bag of Doritos, 8 oz. jalapeno nacho cheese, 2 large strawberry shakes, two cherry Cokes, one super-size order of McDonald’s fries, and two pints of strawberry ice cream. Now that’s what I call going out with a bang!

What do you think?

Who was your least favorite murderer on this list? Do you think that a last meal should be granted to people facing execution? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading!