“I’m still awake.”

— Robyn Parks, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Oklahoma.
Executed March 10, 1992

Parks’s last words were spoken after his execution injection had been administered. He was reinjected and died shortly after.

“I don’t hold no grudges. I’m sorry it happened. I know what I’m doing.”

— Steven T. Judy, convicted of rape and murder, electric chair, Indiana.
Executed March 9, 1981

A serial rapist, Judy openly courted capital punishment. At his trial for killing a woman and her three children (ages five, four, and two), Judy told a jury to condemn him or else he might kill them, their children, and the judge. He showed no remorse for the murders, telling reporters, “I don’t lose sleep over it.” Judy asked for death. “I’ve lived my hell,” he said. “So [what waits for me] has to be better.”

“I have this to say: That I know nothing about the murder. The people bore false witness against me. I hired Mr. Platt to defend me and told him all I knew, but he turned against me and went over to the other side. That is the reason I am on the scaffold to-day. If I did the deed and knew what I was doing, I ought to be hanged for it, but I did not know what I was doing.”

— Charles Wall, convicted of murder, hanging, Pennsylvania.
Executed March 8, 1892

A large crowd pushed past prison gates and some even jumped walls to stand in ankle- deep snow to see Wall hang. Wall, convicted of axing his wife in a field in front of her father, remained calm in his cell the morning of his execution. Prison guards were surprised by Wall’s happy mood in the death cell and claimed that he was bothered only by the fact that his favorite horse had just died.