This week in 1979

“Man is what he chooses to be; he chooses that for himself. If this comes down, I hope that some good will come of it.”

— John Spenkelink, convicted of murder, Florida.
Executed May 25, 1979

Though prison officials reported that Spenkelink wished to leave no final statement, these quotations were passed on by an Episcopal priest, the last person to talk to the prisoner. After Spenkelink escaped from a California jail, he killed an ex-convict named Joseph Syzmankiewicz, whom Spenkelink claimed had robbed him, held him prisoner, and forced him into homosexual acts. Spenkelink’s last words have previously been reported as “Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment,” but newspaper accounts do not confirm this.