Featured Image Credit: Utah Department of Corrections
Topics: Food and Drink, US News, Crime, True crime, Death Row, Texas
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Food and Drink, US News, Crime, True crime, Death Row, Texas
Warning: This article contains discussion of rape and murder which some readers may find distressing.
A death row inmate executed earlier this month was denied a last meal because of another prisoner's behavior.
Texas death row inmate Arthur Lee Burton received the death sentence for strangling a woman to death with her own shoelaces.
On July 29, 1997, 48-year-old Nancy Adleman was jogging in Houston, Texas, when she was attacked by Burton.
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Burton proceeded to 'force' her into a wooded area nearby and 'attempted to rape her,' Texas Department of Criminal Justice states. The then-27-year-old strangled the mom-of-three with her own shoelace and fled.
He later confessed to the killing according to CBS News, saying: "She asked me why was I doing it and that I didn't have to do it."
However, the Independent reports he later went back on his confession during his trial.
Burton was ultimately convicted of Nancy's murder in 1998 and sentenced to death.
He spent the next 26 years on Texas death row and despite his lawyers claiming he had an intellectual disability - the Supreme Court banning the execution of intellectually disabled people in 2002 - the appeal was rejected by the US Supreme Court and Burton was executed at the age of 54 earlier this month on August 7.
Despite it being known that many death row inmates are able to request a final meal before being executed, Burton wasn't allowed to and it was all because of an inmate who came before him.
Up until 2011, death row inmates in Texas were allowed to request a final meal before being executed.
However, in that year, Lawrence Russell Brewer - a white supremacist who was one of three people who lynched James Byrd Jr - requested a more than extravagant final meal before his date with the lethal injection.
Brewer didn't hold back in his demands for his final meal, asking for two chicken-fried steaks with sliced onions and gravy, a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger, alongside a cheese omelet with some added ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers oh and jalapeños of course.
And if that wasn't enough already, The New York Times reports he also asked for three fajitas, a bowl of fried okra and ketchup, a pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread and a meaty pizza.
If you thought that was it, think again, because who could forget dessert? Brewer demanding peanut-butter fudge and a pint of ice cream with three root beers to wash it all down.
The real question is, how did he even begin to eat it all?
Well, when it was served up to him, he reportedly didn't touch a single morsel.
State Senator and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee John Whitmire was left outraged, questioning: "He never gave his victim an opportunity for a last meal. Why in the world are you going to treat him like a celebrity two hours before you execute him?
"It’s wrong to treat a vicious murderer in this fashion. Let him eat the same meal on the chow line as the others."
The fact Brewer didn't even touch the meal added even more salt to the wound and so it was resolved from then on, no Texas death row inmate would be offered the option to request a final meal again.