28. Gary Gilmore’s Final Meal
Gary Gilmore did not appreciate the efforts of others to prevent his execution. As he stated at a Board of Pardons hearing in November, 1976: “They always want to get in on the act. I don’t think they have ever really done anything effective in their lives. I would like them all — including that group of reverends and rabbis from Salt Lake City — to butt out. This is my life and this is my death. It’s been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that“. While on death row, he tried to commit suicide twice, once on November 16, 1976, just a day after the first stay of execution, and again on December 16th.
The final stay of execution occurred a few hours before he was rescheduled to be executed on January 17, 1977. It did not last long, however, and was lifted at 7:30 AM. His final meal before he met end before a firing squad at 8:07 that morning was a hamburger, baked potato, hard-boiled eggs, coffee, and three shots of contraband Jack Daniel’s whiskey. His story became the subject of a novel by Norman Mailer, The Executioner’s Song, which went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.