Death row inmate's cryptic final words 'Potato potato potato' hid a secret message for his family
A prisoner on death row had a weird final message to his family prior to being executed.
Robert Charles Towery was executed in Arizona back in 2012 after being convicted of the 1991 murder of Mark Jones.
Towery had worked as a mechanic, and he had killed Jones at his home in Scottsdale while attempting to rob him, with his accomplice being jailed but spared death row for his involvement in the crime.
Jones had known his killer as his mechanic, and had even lent him money prior to his tragic death, and after spending years in prison exhausting the appeals process, Towery was eventually executed decades after his crime.
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In his last words, Towery, 47, expressed regret for killing, and apologized both to his own family and that of the victim.
"I would like to apologize to Mark's family and friends for what I did to them. I would like to apologize to my family," he said, appearing to cry prior to his execution.
"So many times in my life I went left when I should have gone right and I went right when I should have gone left. It was mistake after mistake after mistake."
He added: "I love my family."
And in a strange final string of words, Towery was heard to say: "Potato, potato, potato."
This was a way to send a message to his family, in particular his nephew who had been present at the execution along with his sister and a friend, and which the family's lawyer confirmed.
The killer had had used the word 'potato' to describe the sound of a Harley Davidson engine idling, as the bikes have a very distinctive low and gravelly sound.
As this was an in-joke between the pair Towery may have been trying to reassure his nephew with these final words.
In the attack, Towery and his accomplice had gone to the home of the victim, where they had pulled out a gun and began loading valuables into a car.
They then injected the victim with battery acid, before Towery strangled him to death with plastic ties.
Towery was executed by lethal injection, with the process taking around nine minutes in total.
He was injected in both his arm and the femoral artery, located in the thigh, and it's not clear which of the injection sites led to his death.
Roman Catholic deacon Ed Sheffer witnessed the execution, saying that Towery had been remorseful and praying prior to his death.
"He was trying to find peace," Sheffer said. "Life, in the end, is all sacred. To teach that killing is wrong by killing - that is impossible to reconcile."
Kit Roberts