This week in 2007

“…I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That’s the biggest joke, I deserve this. And the other joke is I
am not Patrick Bryan Knight, and y’all can’t stop this execution now. Go ahead, I’m finished. Come on, tell me Lord…”

— Patrick Knight, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed June 26, 2007

Knight solicited jokes from the general public so he could tell one at his execution for the double abduction and murder of Walter and Mary Werner. He received more than thirteen hundred suggestions after a friend set up a MySpace .com profile named “Dead Man Laughing.” Knight, however, opted for more serious subjects and then claimed he was not “Patrick Bryan Knight.” His fingerprints, taken before the execution, confirmed his identity.