TEXAS LAST MEAL
KENNETH BRUCE
January 14, 2004

...$10 and some costume jewelry...

Last Meal: Double Meat cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and mayo, french fries, orange juice and pecan pie.

The skinny: Bruce, 32, was executed for fatally shooting a woman after robbing her and her husband of inexpensive jewelry and less than $10.

Bruce, a 19-year-old high school student at the time working as a pizza delivery driver, left work early. Later that evening, Bruce and two others appeared at the home of the victim and her husband, claiming to have car trouble and looking for jumper cables. They eventually forced their way into the home at gunpoint, ransacked the home, and ordered them to lay face down on a mattress in the bedroom. Both were then shot. The attackers then left the house with several jewelry boxes and most of the phones that were in the house.

"They stole some jewelry and small things like that. Within an hour, they had discarded the items on the side of the road," said a former assistant district attorney.

Upon arrest, Bruce initially gave an oral statement and a videotaped statement in which he denied participating in any of the shootings, although he admitted he was present when they occurred. The police later found property of the victims in the front seat of Bruce’s car. Bruce then admitted shooting the victim during the second round of shooting; however, he claimed he aimed for her leg or the lower part of her body. Accomplice Eric Lynn Moore also received a death sentence. Accomplices Sam Andrews and Anthony Quinn Bruce received a life sentences.

Legal tidbit: Under state law, winning a capital murder conviction did not require prosecutors to prove that Mr. Bruce fired the fatal shot. Instead, jurors had to find only that he participated in the crime while knowing that someone could be killed.

Last words and such: In the death chamber, Bruce first addressed the family of his victim and then spoke to his family. "To the family of Mrs. Ayers, I would like to apologize for all the pain and suffering and that God gives you closure. And I pray that he blesses you," he said. Bruce then told his family, "I may not be with you in the physical but by grace my heart will be with you all and I know God loves every one of you all." Bruce's mother wept loudly and was allowed to sit in a wheelchair when she was unable to stand on her own.

Factoids: Bruce declined to speak to reporters from death row. On a Web site where prisoners seek pen pals, he described himself as a song writer and poet interested in sports, reading and music.

Bruce was the....

6th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
891st murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
2nd murderer executed in Texas in 2004
315th murderer executed in Texas since 1976

OHIO LAST MEAL
LEWIS WILLIAMS, JR.
January 14, 2004

Fighting until the end...

Last Meal: Williams declined to select a last meal, referred to as a "special meal" by prison officials. When asked what he wanted on two separate occasions, he replied, "God's word."

As a result, he was served what the other inmates were eating for dinner...smoked sausage, rice with black-eyed peas, collard greens, grape Kool-Aid, vanilla pudding and bread, she said.

The skinny: Williams, 45, struggling and yelling "please God, help me," had to be carried into the execution chamber by six guards before being put to death for the 1983 murder of an elderly woman.

The dreaded "jailhouse confession." Throughout his two decades on death row, Williams claimed innocence, arguing prosecutors used trumped-up evidence and coerced witnesses, including testimony from two inmates who testified he confessed while in jail awaiting trial.

Evidence: Witnesses testified Williams was at the victim's home the night she was shot, and police found gunshot residue on his clothing and his shoe print on the hem of her dress. A trail of coins and the woman's empty pay envelopes were found nearby.

Williams claimed he had left the victim's house before she was killed.

The long walk: Williams' peaceful mood while reading the Bible and talking with his lawyer in the hours before his death disappeared when the execution process began at 9:51 a.m.

An execution timeline:

-- 9:51 a.m. Movement detected around the preparation table in a room next to the death chamber, as seen through two video monitors. It is the first time in nine executions that the preparation process was viewed by witnesses.

-- 9:52 a.m. Members of the 12-person execution team forcibly lift Williams from his knees and pry his hand off the edge of the preparation table. Williams' mother sobs as she watches from a witness room. There were no witnesses for the victim.

-- 9:54 a.m. At least nine members of the team work to restrain a struggling Williams with a series of straps. Williams, yelling and shaking his head, repeatedly strains to lift himself up.

-- 9:56 a.m. Williams continues to struggle and shout. One guard standing by his head alternately restrains him and pats his right shoulder to comfort him.

-- 10:02 a.m. The shunts are successfully placed on the inside of Williams' forearms above the elbow. Williams has stopped shouting but continues to speak, often in a type of chant, that is not audible.

-- 10:03 a.m. The straps are taken off and Williams, his body drooping, is carried into the execution chamber by four guards. He yells, "I'm not guilty, I'm not guilty, God, please help me," as seven guards strap him down.

-- 10:06 a.m. A member of the execution team enters the chamber and attaches the tubes carrying the lethal chemicals to the shunts in Williams' arms.

-- 10:07 a.m. Williams is asked for a last statement. "God, please help me, God, please hear my cry," he said. James Haviland, warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, gives a signal not visible to witnesses to start the flow of chemicals.

-- 10:08 a.m. After continuing to cry out and yell, Williams abruptly stops speaking as the chemicals apparently take effect. The sobbing of his mother grows much louder.

-- 10:14 a.m. Haviland orders the curtains drawn between the chamber and the witness room.

-- 10:15 a.m. Haviland reopens the curtains and declares the time of death as 10:15 a.m.


Factoids:

His scheduled June 2002 execution was stayed by a judge to evaluate whether Williams was retarded, which would have commuted his death sentence. Experts hired by his attorneys determined he was not retarded and Williams fired his lawyers.

Williams was the....
5th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
890th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Ohio in 2004
9th murderer executed in Ohio since 1976

OKLAHOMA LAST MEAL
TYRONE DARKS
January 13, 2004

...jelly beans AND red licorice...2004, year of the candy?

Last meal: six extra crispy chicken breasts, six rolls, one bag of jelly beans, a bag of red licorice, six lemon-glazed doughnuts and six cream sodas.

The skinny: Darks, 39, was executed for the murder of his wife. Her death ended a violent relationship between the couple, whose marriage soured after only six months.

Oklahoma City police responded to more than a dozen domestic calls from the couple during their brief marriage and both sought and were granted protective orders against each other.

Just before 3 p.m. on the day of her death, the wife placed a frantic 911 call to police, saying Darks had run her car off the road and had taken their son, then 2.

Officers had arranged to meet the wife at Darks' residence but she never showed up.

A man summoned police after finding Goodlow slumped over in the front seat of her Ford Mustang in high brush. She had been shot six times, suffering wounds to the arm, chest and head.

The child was later found unharmed.

Legal Machinations: Only hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, had vacated a stay of execution granted last week by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Darks’ attorney, Leslie Delk, had argued that Oklahoma’s use of lethal injection was barred under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as cruel and unusual punishment.

Before the last words...With the appointed time of execution only minutes away, Darks’ mother arrived in rapturous distress, her anguished cries echoing up and down the halls of H-Unit: “Glory, glory, glory. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Bless you God. Thank you for the mountains, thank you for the valleys. Nobody can take my joy. I love you, God. Rejoice when a saint comes home, when a sinner leaves. I just magnify God. Glory.”

Last words and such: The 39-year-old told his family he loved them and urged them to take care of themselves but didn't acknowledge his in-laws.

"I'll see y'all later. This is it. It's over," he said as his mother, yelled "Praise the Lord! Praise God!" "Do what y'all can for Scott and Darrell. Time to go home," he said. Scott is his 11-year-old son. "I'll see y'all later. This is it. It's over." he said as his mother cried, unconsolable.

After the last words: After Darks was pronounced dead and the curtain lowered, his mother walked to the window separating them, raised her hands and yelled, "I love you baby, I love you.

"You (God) let me see him come into the world and you let me see him go.

"He will not burn in hell for a sin he did not commit."

Factoids: Darks also was sentenced to a year in federal prison after trying to defraud a compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said his wife died in the World Trade Center collapse.

He also wrote a fake letter made to look like a sworn affidavit from an executed inmate, claiming that inmate had been the real killer of Darks' wife.

Darks was the....

4th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
889th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Oklahoma in 2004
70th murderer executed in Oklahoma since 1976

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The final meal request of Kenneth Bruce, Texas January 14, 2004.

Double Meat cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and mayo, french fries, orange juice and pecan pie.

A complete summary will follow shortly.

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The final meal request of Lewis Williams, Jr. , Ohio, January 14, 2004.

Williams chose the prison's regular dinner of smoked sausage, rice with black-eyed peas, collard greens, grape Kool-Aid, vanilla pudding and bread.

A complete summary will follow shortly.

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The final meal request of Tyrone Darks, Oklahoma, January 13, 2004.

Six extra crispy chicken breasts, six rolls, one bag of jelly beans, a bag of red licorice, six lemon-glazed doughnuts and six cream sodas.

A complete summary will follow shortly.