DEADMANEATING.COM recently found a cache of last meals from 2002 that were not listed on the site (we started in Oct 2oo2). We will use this slow period to try and update a few missing ones.

First...

OHIO LAST MEAL
JOHN W. BYRD JR.
February 19, 2oo2

Last Meal: Byrd chose a T-bone steak with steak sauce, a chef salad with bleu cheese dressing and grape soda for his "special" meal, which he was to eat in the afternoon. It's not called his last meal because he would be allowed to eat later if he were hungry.

He awoke about 5:13 a.m., shaved and showered but did not eat his pancake and grits breakfast, instead drinking grape soda and smoking Newport cigarettes.

The skinny: John W. Byrd Jr. died by injection on Tuesday, the first inmate executed since Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1981 to claim he was innocent.

Shortly before his death, Byrd told his family that he loved them and to "stay strong."

"The corruption of the state will fall," he said. "Governor Taft, you will not be re-elected. The rest of you, you know where you can go."

More skinny: Byrd was executed across the chamber from the electric chair he had chosen as his method of death to protest what he said was the brutality of capital punishment.

Byrd's choice of execution was removed in November when Gov. Bob Taft signed a bill that banned the use of the electric chair. The Legislature's decision to retire the chair stemmed in part from Byrd's request. The chair had not been used for an Ohio execution since 1963 and has yet to be removed from the prison.

Byrd, 38, was sentenced to die for the murder of a man, who was working in a suburban Cincinnati convenience store in 1983 to save money for his daughter's education.

Byrd maintained he was innocent and that an accomplice, John Brewer, confessed to stabbing the man during a robbery. Prosecutors and Attorney General Betty Montgomery argued that since Brewer already was serving a life sentence and could not be tried again, he was lying to protect Byrd.

Byrd claimed that he did not remember the events of the night of the slaying because he had passed out as a result of drinking and taking drugs.

More than a dozen protesters stood outside the prison Tuesday morning.

Byrd's execution was only the third in Ohio since 1963. All have taken place in the past three years.

DEATH FROM AROUND THE GLOBE
Dateline: China

Police officer gets death penalty for bribery, bigamy

China executed a police officer for taking bribes and practicing bigamy Friday in Anshan, a city in northeastern province of Liaoning, according to the local public security bureau.

Lin Fujiu, 54, was sentenced to death on July 27 by the higher court of Liaoning Province for bigamy and amassing a personal fortune of more than 58.8 million yuan (about 7.08 million US dollars) in grafts and bribes.

According to the local public security bureau, Lin, though married, lived with another woman and had a son with her.

Lin, as former head of Neibao division affiliated to Anshan public security bureau, was nicknamed the "money bag policeman" for his huge amount of graft.

A ODD CHOICE OF TACTICS...WE MUST KILL TO STOP THE KILLING...

Anti-death penalty group kills 28 in Honduras bus attack

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Assailants claiming to be members of a revolutionary group opposed to the death penalty ambushed a bus filled with people bringing home Christmas gifts and killed at least 28 people, including six children, in an escalation of the battle between gangs and Honduras’ government.

The bus with more than 50 people aboard, most of them women and children, was driving through a heavily populated neighborhood in the northern city of Chamelecon yesterday evening when a car of gunmen cut in front of it and forced it to stop, police spokesman Deputy Commissioner Wilmer Torres said.

The assailants jumped out of the car and began shooting, while attackers in a second car fired from behind and then alongside the bus, he said.

Sixteen of the victims were killed aboard the bus while 12 others, including two children and 10 women, died after being taken to a public hospital in the nearby city of San Pedro Sula, Torres said. More than a dozen others were injured. Many of the passengers were coming home with bags filled with gifts and food for Christmas, Torres said.

The assailants left a large piece of paper taped to the windshield of the bus with a message saying they represented a revolutionary group that opposes the death penalty. The message contained "vulgar words" against President Ricardo Maduro, Congress President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and Security Minister Oscar Alvarez, Torres said.

DEATH, UH, NON-DEATH FROM AROUND THE GLOBE...
Dateline: Iran

Some highlights...

Stoning of adulterous woman put on hold

Iranian authorities have temporarily stayed the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery while her case is studied by the judiciary pardons commission, the press reported Thursday.

Hajieh Esmailvand, whose plight has been taken up by rights group Amnesty International, was originally sentenced by a court in the northwestern town of Jolfa to be flogged 100 times, jailed for five years and then hanged.

According to the press report, her lover, identified only as Ruhollah G., who was 17 years old at the time of the affair, has been sentenced to hang and is still awaiting execution.

In its report, reformist daily Tosseh said the two had murdered Esmailvand's husband in 2000.

The Supreme Court later changed Esmailvand's sentence to stoning because of the adultery, as is permitted under Islamic law.

But an unnamed judiciary official said the "stoning has been stayed pending a decision by the pardons commission."

There was no indication of when that might be expected.

Right group Amnesty International has called on its members to appeal to the Iranian authorities for the stoning to be stopped.

According to Amnesty, Iran's penal code is very specific about the manner of execution and types of stones that should be used.

It states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. However, those who manage to free themselves are spared.

It also says, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones."

Murder, armed robbery, rape, apostasy and serious drug trafficking are also punishable by hanging in Iran.

CHEATED ONE HANGMAN, ANOTHER WAITS...

Man once on Illinois' death row could face execution in Missouri

The highlights...

ST. LOUIS - Convicted of kidnapping and killing a woman in Illinois, Thomas Umphrey was spared a death sentence when that state's governor emptied death row. Now, he could again face a death sentence - this time in Missouri - if convicted of killing his boss in St. Louis.

Umphrey, 43, was sentenced to death in 2000 for the Illinois murder. In January 2003, outgoing Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of the state's 167 death row inmates to life in prison.

But six days before the murder in Illinois, authorities believe Umphrey killed his boss at a foam rubber manufacturing plant in St. Louis. He has yet to be tried in that case, and prosecutors here have worked for months to extradite Umphrey to face the charge.

On Dec. 14, Umphrey was moved from an Illinois prison to the St. Louis city jail and charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Assistant prosecutor Rachel Smith confirmed the circuit attorney's office is seeking the death penalty.

"The primary motivating factor was the victim's family really needed closure on this case," Smith said. And, authorities were worried that without the second murder conviction, Umphrey could be moved to a less-restrictive prison in Illinois. She said he was previously accused of trying to escape from prison while serving time in Missouri.

The case is expected to move quickly because Umphrey filed for a process that requires his case be tried within 120 days, Smith said. No trial date has been set.

Tom Block, a St. Louis-based death penalty opponent, questioned the need for another trial when Umphrey was already behind bars for life.

"Can't they see the handwriting on the wall that neither the country nor Missouri in particular is enthusiastic about executing people?" Block said. "Why bring this man to prison in Missouri? Illinois is supporting him. You're talking about spending $1 million to $2 million to give this person death."

Umphrey is a career criminal who has served nearly two decades in prison for armed robbery and theft. He was on parole in 1998, working at C.J. Zone Manufacturing Co. in St. Louis.

On Nov. 5, 1998, Umphrey quarreled with his boss, Gerald "Gary" Eichschlag, 45, of Arnold, a product supervisor at the plant. The two men stepped outside to settle their differences, authorities said.

Umphrey shot Eichschlag in the back of the head, police said, then used a shovel from Eichschlag's truck to bury the body near the manufacturing plant.

Six days later, Umphrey's pickup truck stalled along Interstate 55 near Springfield, Ill. Parts that had fallen from the truck damaged a car driven by Phyllis Liles, a 46-year-old mother of three from Virden, Ill., who was on her way home from work.

She stopped to fix a flat caused by the debris. Umphrey helped her, then kidnapped and shot her in the back of the head. He buried Liles' body under logs and brush near Spaulding Dam in central Illinois.

Later, Umphrey was arrested in Minnesota as he tried to cross into Canada in Liles' car. He confessed to both murders and even drew a map to show authorities where the bodies were buried, police said.

Fifty-five men are currently on death row in Missouri, but the state hasn't carried out an execution in more than a year. There is no official moratorium. But since the balance of the Missouri Supreme Court tipped toward Democratic-appointed judges two years ago, the court has overturned an increasing number of death sentences and has slowed the scheduling of executions to a standstill.

Umphrey would be the second of the 167 commuted inmates in Illinois to potentially return to death row.

THE FRESNO STATE WINS AND COVERS EDITION OF READER'S LAST MEALS....

KIRSTEN S. FROM SAN ANGELO,TX.
A LOBSTER TAIL W/DRAWN BUTTER, GARLIC MASHED POTATOS MIXED WITH 20 VALIUM

Ten minutes later, Kirsten send a another last meal...
O.K. NOW I HAVE A BETTER IDEA WHAT I WOULD ORDER. I WOULD ORDER A CHEESBURGER HAPPY MEAL WITH ORANGE SODA, A 2 LITER OF COKE WITH A GALLON OF CROWN, AND 10 BLUE XANAX. THEN I WOULD SMILE ALL THE WAY TO THE BED:):) AND SLEEP LIKE A BABY.

erIc S., Cypress,Texas...

The meal of champions.

I will have two chicken legs wrapped around my face and some cherries. Two honeydew melons for desert, and top it off with a big can of whipped cream.

rvd from parts unknown....

A rare steak, mashed potato with lots of butter and gravy, asparagus, corn on the cob, buttermilk biscuits, slice of pizza with mushrooms, chips and hot salsa, lobster tail with butter, two diet cokes with lots of ice.

Joseph B. of Shreveport, LA

As a last meal I request My Mom's spaghetti, 2 Arby's Beef N Cheddar, Filet Mingon(rare), Baked Potato w/sour cream and butter. Gallon of Chocolate IceCream from Gelato Fino of Ft Lauderdale. And glazed Southern Maid Donut.