Paraphrased account from Robert Calef, later a critic of the witch trials:
“[Burroughs] made a clear Speech for the clearing of his Innocency, with such Solemn and Serious Expressions,as were to the Admiration of all Present. [Burroughs then perfectly recited the Lord’s Prayer, which] drew Tears from many.”

— George Burroughs, convicted of witchcraft, hanging, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Executed August 19, 1692

It was believed that witches could not say the Lord’s Prayer, thus the tearful crowd reaction. Burroughs’s recitation caused concerns that “the Spectators would hinder the Execution.” But as soon as Burroughs hanged, Rev. Cotton Mather told the crowd that the prisoner was “no ordained Minister” and “the Devil has often been transformed into an Angel of Light.”

“I am the happiest man in the world. I’m not afraid to die. I’m not crazy. Jesus, your baby is coming home. I love you. I love you, Lord.”

— Sylvester Adams, convicted of murder, lethal injection, South Carolina.
Executed August 18, 1995

Despite numerous appeals and a plea by his mother and death penalty opponents to commute his sentence, thirty-nine-year-old Adams was executed for the 1979 strangling death of his sixteen-year-old mildly retarded neighbor Bryan Chambers. Upon breaking into the neighbor’s home and finding no money there, he took Chambers into the woods to kill him. Adams’s jury never learned that IQ screenings indicated that he himself was mildly mentally retarded, nor did they hear that his mental condition involved sudden and unpredictable bursts of rage.

“For almost nine years I have thought about the death penalty, whether it is right or wrong and I don’t have any answers. But I don’t think the world will be a better or safer place without me. If you had wanted to punish me you would have killed me the day after, instead of killing me now. You are not hurting me now. I have had time to get ready, to tell my family goodbye, to get my life where it needed to be. It started with a needle and it is ending with a needle.”

— Jeffrey Doughtie, convicted of robbery and murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed August 16, 2001

Doughtie had a $400-a-day drug habit, which he financed by selling stolen property. He had once worked for the antique store in Corpus Christi where he sold much of his loot. One day, after shooting a mix of heroin and cocaine, Doughtie beat the store’s proprietors to death with a piece of metal tubing. He confessed to the murders.