Death row inmates in Texas no longer get a final meal before their execution - and it's down to a white supremacist's shocking request.
For many years, last meals have been a customary ritual before prisoners have their death sentence carried out.
Some convicts' requests have been pretty specific, like when John Wayne Gacy asked for 12 fried shrimp, a bucket of original recipe KFC, french fries, and a pound of strawberries. Others have been simple, like Ted Bundy requesting steak and eggs.
However, one inmate named Lawrence Russell Brewer - who was a white supremacist - requested an outrageous special meal before his death, and this led to Texas abolishing last meals for other death row inmates.
Brewer, 44, was imprisoned on June 7, 1998, along with John William King and Shawn Allen Berry for murdering a Black man named James Byrd Jr.
The group of men killed Byrd by torturing him before chaining him by the ankles to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him behind it for three miles, per The Mirror.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice: "Brewer and his co-defendants then dragged the victim to his death, leaving his decapitated and dismembered body to be found the following day by citizens and law enforcement officials," as cited by the outlet.
Brewer and King were convicted of capital murder and sent to death row, making them the first white men to receive the death penalty for killing a Black man in Texas, causing the state to introduce new laws around hate crimes. Meanwhile, Berry received a life sentence for his involvement in the crime.
It was contended in court that the three men carried out their disturbing criminal act "in part, due to their racially separatist affiliation with the Confederate Knights of America and the Ku Klux Klan," per the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Before his execution, Brewer took full advantage of the last meal request, asking for a wild concoction of foods, including chicken steaks, fried okra with ketchup, and a cheese omelet with ground beef, jalapenos, and bell peppers.
It didn't end there as he also requested a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, three fajitas with all the trimmings, one pound of barbecue and a half loaf of white bread, pizza meat lover's special, one pint of vanilla ice cream; a slab of peanut butter fudge, and three root beers.
The guards did their best to fulfill Brewer's final meal list but, when the prisoner was presented with it, he refused to eat a single mouthful, saying that he wasn't hungry.
Brewer's refusal resulted in Texan Senator John Whitmire ending the 87-year-old tradition, meaning from that day forward, nobody on death row in Texas has had a last meal request granted.
He wrote a letter to the executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Division, stating: "Enough is enough...it is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It's a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim," per the BBC.
He called the last meal request an "extremely inappropriate" privilege, adding: "One which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim."
After spending 12 years of his life on death row, Brewer was executed via lethal injection on September 21, 2011. Asked if he had any final words, he replied: "No. I have no final statement," and was pronounced dead at 6.21PM.
The victim's two sisters and a niece called the execution "the next step to total justice for James," as cited by Reuters.
"Hopefully, today we have been reminded that racial hatred and prejudice can lead to tragic consequences for both the victim and his family, as well as the perpetrator and his family," Clara Taylor, Byrd's sister, said. "Our sincere condolences to the family of Lawrence Brewer."
.jpg_0oEF8G?tr=h-40)
.jpg_VSDIZC?tr=h-184)
.jpg_eVgnll?tr=h-184)
