Death row inmates in Texas no longer get a last meal because of one man's very specific request
Harley Young
Featured Image Credit: Associated Press / Andrey Maslakov / Alamy Stock Photo
For years, 'last meals' have been commonplace for death row inmates as a customary ritual before they are sentenced to death.
Some death row prisoners' final meals have been pretty standard like Ted Bundy's request for steak and eggs, while others have been a little wilder, like Victor Feguer asking for a single pitted olive.
However, death row prisoners in Texas can kiss their last meal goodbye as none of them are allowed to receive a special meal before execution anymore.
And that is all down to one inmate.
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Lawrence Russell Brewer, a white supremacist, was jailed along with three other men for murdering James Byrd Jr., who they brutally dragged for three miles along a road after tying him to a pick-up truck.
Brewer and his accomplice, John King, were the first white men to receive the death penalty for killing a black man in modern Texas.
This caused the state to introduce new laws around hate crimes, and another man, Shawn Berry, was also given a life sentence for his involvement in the crime.
Before Brewer was put to death, prison guards asked what he would like have for his last meal.
According to a report from the Houston Chronicle, Brewer asked for a pretty wild concoction of foods, including chicken steaks, fried okra with ketchup, and a cheese omelette with ground beef, jalapenos and bell peppers.
But his request didn't stop there.
He also requested a 'triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, three fajitas, one pound of barbecue and a half loaf of white bread, pizza meat lover's special, one pint of 'homemade vanilla' Blue Bell ice cream, one slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers'.
And the guards did their best to source the meal he wanted but, when Brewer was presented with it, he refused to eat a single mouthful, saying that he wasn't hungry.
Brewer's refusal resulted in Texas senator John Whitmire ending the 87-year-old tradition, meaning from that day forward nobody on death row in Texas would get a 'special meal'.
Prior to this, it wasn't uncommon for a death row inmate to be denied their last meal request or be given a substitute - often if they'd asked for something too crazy or inedible, like James Edward Smith who requested a lump of dirt.
He was later given yogurt instead - a much more pleasant taste in the mouth, I imagine.