Death row inmate suffered 'excruciating' execution after making brutal 'mistake' with last meal
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Kansas Department of Corrections
A man who had been on death row since 2004 ended up suffering an 'excruciating' execution after making a brutal 'mistake' with his last meal.
Wesley Ira Purkey was found guilty of raping and murdering 16-year-old Jennifer Long back in 1998.
The victim was last seen at East High School in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 22 of that year as concerns heightened once the teen was nowhere to be seen in class.
Long had been lured into Purkey’s car before he took her back to his home; where he reportedly stabbed her to death and dismembered her body with a chainsaw.
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The killer is then said to have burned her body in a fireplace and placed her remains in a septic pond in Clearwater, Kansas.
But to this day, the teen's remains are yet to be found.
Purkey also killed Mary Bales, 80, after beating her with a claw hammer. But justice was served after neighbors saw him attempting to burn her body.
He was arrested before being found guilty of the double murder and placed on death row in January 2004.
When he was executed in 2020, Purkey was 68 years old and suffering from dementia.
Due to suffering from the disease, it is not clear whether he understood what was going to happen to due to how he treated his final meal.
He had requested pecan pie as his last meal but asked to save it for later, seemingly unaware there would not be a later for him.
When it came to his execution, Dr Gail Van Norman, a medical expert has said Purkey likely experienced an ‘excruciating’ death rather than the intended painless death.
The autopsy of Purkey revealed that he had suffered ‘severe bilateral acute pulmonary oedema' and 'frothy pulmonary oedema in trachea and main stem bronchi’, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Van Norman said this would cause a near drowning experience that would likely be ‘among the most excruciating feelings known to man', and the filling of Purkey's lungs could only have happened while he was still alive.
He added: "It is a virtual medical certainty, that most, if not all, prisoners will experience excruciating suffering, including sensations of drowning and suffocation from [the lethal injection drug] pentobarbital."
Before his execution took place in July 2020, Purkey appeared to show remorse for his actions.
His final words were reportedly: “I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much. This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever."