The Stories Behind Death Row Inmates' Final Meals

These are the craziest last meals ever eaten by death row inmates. From a luxury feast to a dessert that almost stopped an execution. I'm eating them all to find out what these final choices say about the criminals who ordered them. Starting with a meal eaten by one of the most dangerous death row inmates of all time. Whoa, we got a dozen fried shrimp, Mhm. French fries, dip it in this ketchup. Mhm. Yum, who doesn't like french fries? And a pound of straw berries. These are sweet and fresh. Inside this bucket is something that scared the prison guards. Fried chicken.

Prisons avoid serving meat on the bone because it can be sharpened into a weapon. Mhm. Sure is tasty. Imagine this being a weapon. But there's something else. It's from KFC. That's because before prison, the inmate, John Wayne Gacy, actually managed three KFC restaurants, which means the last meal he ever ate came from his old job. Weird. But not every inmate is this lucky. In Japan, prisoners don't know when they'll be executed. So their final meal is often decided by chance.

This is what a typical Japanese prison meal looks like. Rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and pickled vegetables. Got to have chopsticks. Let's try this fish. Try with some rice and pickled vegetables. Mhm. When you combine all three of them, they actually taste pretty good together. Got to take a sip of miso soup, too. I've had miso soup before. This is pretty good. Now the execution in Japan is even stranger. It happens in a room with three buttons. Three officers press them at the same time, but only one opens the trap door that hangs the

prisoner. That way none of them know who caused the execution. That's crazy. There's 11 more last meals I'm going to show you. And next is one that's different because a death row inmate didn't just get one last meal. He got three. The first was a Wendy's Baconator burger and a milkshake. Mhm. Strawberry. That's good. All right, let's check out this Wendy's Baconator. I've never eaten one of these. This is a lot of meat. All right, let's try this out. It's salty, cheesy. That's a good last meal. After he ate this meal, the prison was about to carry out the execution, but minutes before, the prison staff

discovered the lethal injection drug was the wrong one. So they rescheduled his execution. On the next execution day, he ordered the same meal again, and that execution was also canceled, this time because of his lawyers. But the third meal is different. Was fish and chips. This looks amazing. Around this time, Glossip's lawyer said that the main witness who testified against him had lied. Mhm. Oh, wow. Crispy on the outside, soft in the inside. This is good fish and chips. I feel like I'm in England. So anyway, the case got pushed to the highest court in the United States, and the judges agreed.

Now Glossip is no longer on death row. Mhm. This is the best food so far. And he got three meals out of it. But at Ellis prison, one inmate's last meal became a ritual instead of a redemption story. Because a death row inmate named James Edward Smith asked for a small bottle of dirt from Rat Akunda, a sacred pond in India. Smith believed that if he ate it before his execution, it would help his spirit to be reborn. So here's dirt from the sacred pond in India, and this is dirt from my backyard in Los Angeles. They look pretty similar. I want to be respectful, so let's try the dirt from my backyard.

Mhm. Tastes like dirt. I don't recommend that. This might be the worst tasting choice for a last meal. Tonight, we have a three-course meal for you, sir. To start, lobster tail with drawn butter. Ooh, wow. This was the last meal of a death row inmate named Ronnie Lee Gardner. Thank you. Mhm. Man, that's good. And this only the starter? And now for the main, a New York strip steak, aged 30 days, cooked to your liking. Oh, steak and soda? That's a weird combo. It's a nice piece of steak. You can taste that it was aged. I like my steak medium rare.

Mhm. Apparently wine's not allowed in jail. Dessert. Apple pie and ice cream? Mhm, vanilla, my favorite. And finally, sir, the entertainment, the movie marathon you requested. Gardner asked to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. That's about 9 hours of movies. Oh. Watch out, Frodo. Shelob is behind you. This is one of my favorite movies. Now we have seven meals left to try, and that's not all. We'll try a meal from the future, too, because some prisons will be implementing artificial intelligence that personalize an inmate's last meal, so the prison can save money. But next is a last meal that barely passes as food.

Gross. It's called skilly. Prisoners were served this almost every day in Victorian England, even on their execution day. Ugh. It's like extremely watery oatmeal. Is there a fly floating in there? Uh, we made it as realistic as possible. Ugh, I don't think that's going to help with the flavor. The goal of the meal is to make prison feel way worse than life outside. And the bread? It's like a rock, it's so stale. Ugh. Yeah, this is terrible. Worst thing so far. Ugh. While some prison meals were punishment, this next one was an act of kindness. Before his scheduled execution, a South African prisoner [snorts] named Duma Kumalo was given

this. A whole chicken with no bones, plus seven rand, the official money of South Africa. The money was so he could buy more food before his execution. But Kumalo didn't spend it on himself. He used it to buy food for other inmates that were starving. Let's check out this chicken. The chicken looks normal, Mhm. and tastes like chicken. Kumalo thought that this was his final meal. But before the execution happened, South Africa got rid of the death penalty, which means his last meal just became another dinner. Now sometimes it's not just about the inmate. The people doing the execution want to eat, too. Because in 18th century Germany, a prisoner named Susanna Margaretha Brandt took part in a ritual feast where the people in charge

of her execution actually shared a meal with her. The meal was meant to symbolize forgiveness, and the feast kept getting bigger and bigger. Sausages, beef, wine. It got so big that most times it couldn't be finished. But this here shouldn't go to waste. Come on, everyone. So what food tastes better? I like the lamb. Beef. The strangest part though, even with all this food, Susanna Brandt reportedly only drank a single cup of water. And no one knows why. Next is a meal that almost saved a man's life. We got steak and fried chicken again.

They look different, but let's see if they taste better than the ones earlier. This steak is way thinner. It's chewy. Definitely not as good. But what about the fried chicken? The crust looks mushy. The KFC looked better. And the KFC tastes better. Ah, cherry Kool-Aid. My mom used to make a pitcher of this every week. This brings back memories. But the most interesting part of this meal is the pecan pie because it was used as evidence in court. You see, years earlier, Rector had suffered a traumatic brain injury, and his lawyers found out he asked to save the pie for later, which they used to argue he didn't understand he was about to be executed. But the court said that wasn't enough to stop it, and the pie was never eaten.

Mhm. Who doesn't like pecan pie? Reminds me of the holidays. Inside my hand is one of the strangest last meals ever eaten. It's an olive with the pit inside. Victor Feguer wanted it because he thought if the pit was buried with him, an olive tree would grow from his grave. But would that actually work? Well, if a pit reaches soil with water and oxygen, it could grow into a tree. But most olives people eat are cured in salt or lye, and that process usually kills the seed inside the pit, which means the olive tree Feguer hoped would grow from his grave never had a chance. This is it? Just a bag of Jolly Ranchers? You'd expect a last meal like this to belong to a kid, which in a way it did.

Mitchell was 17 when the crime happened. At the time, the state he lived in still allowed the death penalty for crimes committed by people under 18. Mhm. Watermelon. A few years later, the US Supreme Court banned that, which means Mitchell was executed just a few years before the law changed. Well, where prisons are heading is a lot crazier because recently the news exposed three ways prisons are using new technology. The first is with 6-ft tall sentry robots that patrol jail quarters with 360° cameras and heat sensors. Then there's cell feeding. Proposals to use robots to deliver medicine and food right into inmates' cells. And the last

one is standardizing death row inmate meals. One prison has already done this to save money, switching inmates' main meals to processed meat patties, their hamburger and hot dog buns to plain white bread, and their milk cartons to powdered milk. I don't know about this one. All right, let's try the processed meat patty. Ugh, that does not taste good. Ugh, it's got like no flavor. I'm just I don't even know. It doesn't even taste like real meat. All right, we got white bread. This can't be as bad. It's not good, either.

Again, no flavor. Really bland, and I don't even know what to think about this powdered milk. Ugh. The future looks terrible. Oh my gosh. Now, keep in mind we're only a couple years into AI. So, in 5 to 10 years, prisons could look completely different. Hopefully, they don't have to eat this food. Now, finally, we have the greatest last meal request in prison history. It includes a pizza and a birthday cake. The inmate who requested it was named David Woods. He said the reason was because he never had a birthday cake before. So, the prison staff baked one for him. Ooh, cake. All right.

Mhm. Okay, this is pretty good. I hope you learned something. Stay out of trouble, and if you want to watch another video, click here.