“Let my death serve as an instigator that will awaken a nation to fight and adopt the philosophy of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”

— Wallace Thomas, convicted of murder, electric chair, Alabama.
Executed July 13, 1990

Fourteen years after the abduction and fatal shooting of Quenette Shehane, age twenty-one, and several appeals later, Thomas Wallace was executed. Both of Wallace’s accomplices had implicated him in the shooting. Wallace, a black man, vehemently protested the death penalty, calling it racist. He even wore a purple ribbon and a sticker that said “Execute justice, not people,” to his own execution.

“So long.”

— James Joseph Roedl, convicted of robbery and murder, firing squad, Utah.
Executed July 13, 1945

Roedl killed Abigail Williams with a hammer after she picked up him and an accomplice while they were hitchhiking. According to authorities, one of them sang the pop tune “Love Letters in the Sand” to signal the murder. Just before his execution, Roedl served cherry pie and coffee to the press, laughing and joking. According to the prison chaplain, however, Roedl “broke into sobs” when he was strapped to the “old wooden chair” used in previous executions.

“I’m sorry for what I done. I’m sorry for killing your mama. I’m not asking you to forgive me. Not a day goes by that I’m not trying to forgive myself. Don’t let your anger and hate for me destroy your lives.”

After apologizing to his parents for the “embarrassment and shame” brought on the family:
“As Gary Gilmore said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

— Rocky Barton, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Ohio.
Executed July 12, 2006

After a domestic dispute, Barton shot his wife, then turned the gun on himself. Barton said he deserved execution and gave up his appeals shortly before his death. He was the first to receive a new technique of lethal injection in Ohio, with two veins instead of one used to administer the drug.