FILLING THE ARCHIVES...

We found a few last meals from early 2002 that we did not have in the archive. We will add them post-haste

MISSOURI LAST MEAL
MICHAEL OWSLEY
February 6, 2002

"Catatonic"....

Last Meal: steak, jumbo shrimp and cheesecake.

The skinny: Owsley was executed for the shotgun killing of a teen-ager.

Last Words and such: "I hope for salvation. I hope that the mercy and forgiveness that I have asked for will suffice. Praise Allah."

Pre-show... In interviews, Owsley insisted the shotgun blast that killed the victim came accidentally while Owsley was "catatonic" on gin and PCP. Owsley's clemency petition cast his court-appointed trial attorney as a bumbler. "This case needs to be reviewed because Missouri's death-row situation is a situation that has been used repeatedly on people like me -- poor, black and unable to defend ourselves," Owsley said before his execution. "I'm nothing to Missouri, I'm nothing to the United States -- instead of a poor Negro they could do anything to. As they see it, I'm still chattel property." In the clemency petition Owsley also faulted his troubled upbringing dating to even before he was born, claiming that his then-alcoholic mother's repeated "home remedies" meant to abort him during pregnancy included hours over a bucket filled with turpentine and hot water.

Factoids: Owsley was Missouri's 55th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989.