As death row convict Casey McWhorter's final hours approached yesterday, he made one last request — his last meal. But it wasn't the kind of food anyone expected the killer to order and savour before being put to death by lethal injection on Thursday.
McWhorter demanded Turtles candy, delicious chocolate treats made with pecans and caramel and coated in chocolate. They're called Turtles, which is also the brand name, because the bites resemble tiny versions of the adorable reptiles.
So, McWhorter devoured his Turtles, visited with his mother, stepdad and a spiritual advisor, called his friends and his attorney, and then went to the execution chamber. He was pronounced dead at 6:47pm local time in Atmore, Alabama, a small town near the Florida border about 52 miles (84km) east of Mobile, becoming the second to be executed in the state in 2023 after a moratorium was placed on executions following several botched ones over the years.
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"I would like to say I love my mother and family. I would like to say to the victim's family I'm sorry. I hope you found peace," McWhorter said as his final words, opting to also take a jab at the prison warden overseeing the facility, who he accused of domestic violence, citing allegations that surfaced years ago. He called him a "habitual abuser of women" and made sure everyone knew about the allegations before he was put to death.
The convicted killer also issued a dire warning to youth struggling mentally like he was at the time of the heinous crime he committed in 1993. He said in an interview before his execution date that he had been "a very confused kid" and that there were "some issues going on" in his head that he didn't know how to handle.
"The only way I knew to feel acceptance was doing some of the stupid stuff I was doing with the people I was doing it with," he said. I felt like they were family at that point."
He said other youth should pause and think about what they're about to do before they make life-altering mistakes they can't recover from, just like he did. His decisions ruined his life, he said.
"Anything that comes across them that just doesn’t sit well at first, take a few seconds to think that through," he said. "Because one bad choice, one stupid mistake, one dumb decision can alter your life — and those that you care about — forever."
McWhorter shot and killed 34-year-old Edward Lee Williams when he was just 18, having planned a robbery of the man, who was his friend's dad, with said friend, 15, and another teenager, who was 16. The three went into his home carrying rifles, and McWhorter shot the man 11 times in the abdomen with a .22-caliber weapon.
He said he never meant to go into the situation and commit murder, but things escalated when the older Williams came home and found the teens robbing the house. He confronted them, and then shots were fired. McWhorter said he had been aiming for the legs but that the shots had hit Williams in the stomach.
Prosecutors then alleged that McWhorter stole Wiliams wallet from his dead body, then drove away in his pickup truck, using that as an argument for why the now-49-year-old should be put to death as he and his legal team actively attempted to reverse the decision.
They were denied a stay on the execution for two separate reasons on Thursday, first over arguments they had made about McWhorter's age and second over issues they took with Alabama's lethal injection chemicals and the botched executions in the state's past.
Since the age of majority is 19 in Alabama, they argued that McWhorter had been a minor at the time of the killing, and because of the previous botched executions, they argued that killing him on Thursday would have been inhumane and a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
But the US Supreme Court ultimately denied the requests, and McWhorter was killed on Thursday right on schedule.
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