This week in 1996

“Merry Christmas.”

— Lem Tuggle, convicted of rape and murder, lethal injection, Virginia.
Executed December 12, 1996

Sporting an arm tattoo saying “Born to Die,” Tuggle was the final man to be executed out of the six who pulled off the largest deathrow escape in U.S. history. Already on death row for the rape and murder of a fifty-two-year-old woman, Tuggle, along with five other inmates, used stolen uniforms to escape in a prison van. Within three weeks all six were apprehended, and by 1993 all but Tuggle had been executed.