“Is the mic on? My only statement is that no cases ever tried have been error free. Those are my words. No cases are error free. You may proceed Warden.”

— Dale Devon Scheanette, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed February 10, 2009

Scheanette faced the death penalty for the Christmas Eve death of Wendie Prescott, age twenty-two. The Associated Press reported: “Scheanette, 35, became known as the ‘Bathtub Killer’ after two women at the same apartment complex in Arlington in 1996 were found dead in half-filled bathtubs, strangled, raped and bound with duct tape. The slayings terrorized the Dallas- Fort Worth area and went unsolved for more than three years, until Scheanette was arrested for a burglary and his fingerprints were tied to the killings. DNA strengthened the confirmations and pointed to his involvement in the other rapes.”

“I shouldn’t have killed those bank messengers. Maybe my death on the gallows will even the score.”

— Edward Blackie Wheed, convicted of murder, hanging, Illinois.
Executed February 15, 1918

While his accomplice fainted when taken to the gallows, veteran thief Wheed “kept cool and did some praying,” according to the Chicago Daily Tribune. Wheed had killed two bank messengers with a sawed-off shotgun during a seven-thousand-dollar payroll robbery. He was captured “after a battle with several hundred policemen.”

“There’s love and peace in Islam.”

— Willie Ray Williams, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed January 31, 1995

Williams shot Claude Schaffer Jr. during an armed robbery of a delicatessen.