“Yeah, I think I’d rather be fishing.”

— Jimmy Glass, convicted of murder, electric chair, Louisiana.
Executed June 12, 1987

Jimmy Glass was a twenty-five-year-old high school dropout who received the death penalty for murdering Newt and Erlene Brown on Christmas Eve in their home. Glass claimed that cellmate Jimmy Wingo, with whom he had escaped from jail on the same evening, held a gun to his head and forced him to perform the murders after he called Wingo by name. Wingo was executed a few days later for the same crimes.

“I wish to apologize to the people who I have hurt and I ask for their forgiveness. I don’t deserve it, but I do ask for it.”

— Jack Trawick, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Alabama.
Executed June 11, 2009

Trawick was a self-professed serial killer who faced the death penalty for kidnapping, stabbing, and strangling twenty-one-year-old Stephanie Gach in 1992. He claimed to have killed at least four other people and was serving a life sentence for one of those murders. After the execution, Gach’s sister Heather expressed surprise at Trawick’s last words. “The Jack Trawick I’ve seen has been kind of unremorseful, reveling in the attention he got for being a serial killer. But he gave no indication of that tonight.”

“I want you all to know, everyone with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Thank you for being here today to honor Felecia Prechtl, whom I didn’t even know. To celebrate my death. My death began on August 2, 1991 and continued when I began to see the beautiful and innocent life that I had taken. I am so terribly sorry. I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am…Thank you for being a part of my life. I love you. May God be with us all. May God have mercy on us all. I am ready. Please do not hate anybody because . . .”

— Karl Chamberlain, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed June 11, 2008

An Associated Press writer reported that Chamberlain was “unable to finish as he slipped into unconsciousness.” The August 2 date he referred to was the date of his crime, when he raped and murdered neighbor Felecia Prechtl, whose body was later found by her five-year-old son. (News accounts differ on the spelling of the victim’s first name.)