VIRGINIA LAST MEAL
JAMES EDWARD REID
September 9, 2004

...with a can of condensed milk...

Last Meal: Mr. Reid has no final special meal request.

The skinny: Reid was executed for killing an elderly woman with a metal can and a pair of scissors in a drunken attack. The woman was stabbed 22 times with the scissors and struck in the head with a can of condensed milk. Reid went to the home to do some handyman work.

Reid, an alcoholic, was seen leaving the area of the woman's home with blood on his jacket. A witness said he smelled like a "brewery." He was convicted in 1997 of capital murder, attempted rape and attempted robbery.

More skinny: According to court records, Reid was in an automobile accident in 1968 and suffered a serious head injury. He was in a coma for at least five days. Afterward he suffered from a seizure disorder. In addition to the brain injury and seizures, Reid was also affected by alcoholism, noted an opinion from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Reid was a spree drinker who drank to excess once a month when he received his disability check.

About the victim: "She was feisty." Though elderly, she sometimes cut her own firewood. She went to church every Sunday, never married and had lived all her life in the house in which she died .

Last words and such: "I forgive you for what you are doing, but I don't forgive you for what you think or what you feel or what you say or what you do," Reid said when asked if he had a final statement. "I forgive you because God has forgiven me."

The intravenous line carrying the lethal dose of drugs was placed in Reid's upper groin because veins in his arms, where IV lines are usually placed, apparently had deteriorated from years of drinking.

It took medical technicians 12 minutes, three times longer than usual, to place the IV lines.

Factoids: Only Texas, with 325 executions, has put more people to death than Virginia since 1976.

Reid was the....

43rd murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
928th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
5th murderer executed in Virginia in 2004
94th murderer executed in Virginia since 1976