ALABAMA LAST MEAL
DAVID KEVIN HOCKER
September 30, 2004

...dumping bodies in Headland...

Last Meal: Hooker requested a last meal of frankfurters, french fries, American cheese, mustard and chocolate cake with chocolate icing, but he refused to eat when the meal was presented to him.

The skinny: Hocker, 33, was put to death for the 1998 stabbing death of his boss. He refused to file appeals of his conviction, saying he was guilty and wanted to die for his crime.

More skinny: Hocker was living in a motel and did not have a car, and asked his boss to drive him to run an errand. Hocker stabbed and beat the man to death with a knife and dumped the body. He used the victim's bank card to get cash to purchase $400 worth of crack cocaine and later turned himself in at the Mobile County Sheriff's Department. Following the arrest, Hocker led investigators to the body in a wooded area in Headland.

Death row convert: Hocker's sister said that her brother was looking forward to dying. She said he had adopted a form of Christianity that's led him to believe he'll be a leader in the afterlife. She said this belief led her brother to castrate himself in his death-row cell to control sexual urges.

Leading up to...Hocker left his mother and stepfather assorted food items and a check for 87 cents, the amount of money he had left in an account prisoners use to buy snacks and other items. Hocker also gave a radio and headset and food items to death row inmate Rayford Hagood.

Last words and such: <>"I swear by you, Lord Jesus Christ my savior that my time should be no longer. The mystery of life shall be finished. Amen," Hocker said when Holman prison warden Grantt Culliver asked if he had any final words.

Aftermath: Hocker's mother did not talk to reporters after the execution, but released a statement saying her son had found peace on death row after a troubled life of mental problems and drug abuse. "Once Kevin started reading the Bible his anger just disappeared. He became positive about his life."

Factoids: Hocker was the sixth Alabama inmate executed since the state switched its primary method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection in 2002.

Hocker was the....

45th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
930th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
2nd murderer executed in Alabama in 2004
30th murderer executed in Alabama since 1976