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Death row inmate suffered 'excruciating' execution after making last meal 'mistake'
Death row inmate suffered 'excruciating' execution after making last meal 'mistake'

Daily Mail​

time08-05-2025

  • Daily Mail​

Death row inmate suffered 'excruciating' execution after making last meal 'mistake'

A death row inmate suffered an excruciating execution after making a critical last meal mistake. Wesley Ira Purkey, who had been on death row since 2004, was found guilty of raping and murdering 16-year-old Jennifer Long back in 1998. The killer also brutally murdered Mary Bales, 80, after beating her with a claw hammer but he faced justice after neighbours caught him attempting to burn her body. He was arrested before being found guilty of the double murder and placed on death row in January 20024. But when he was executed in July 2020, Purkey, 68, was suffering from dementia. Due to the disease, it is not clear whether he understood what was going to happen to him judging by how he treated his last meal. Purkey had requested pecan pie as his final meal but asked officers to save it for him for later, apparently unaware that there would be no later for him. When it eventually came to his execution, Dr Gail Van Norman, a medical expert, said Purkey likely experienced an 'excruciating' death rather than the intended painless death. The autopsy of Purkey revealed he had suffered a sudden accumulation of fluid in both lungs which would have led to him having difficulty breathing due to the coughing up of frothy, pink sputum, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Van Norman said this would cause a near drowning experience for the inmate that would likely be 'among the most excruciating feelings known to man', and the filling of Purkey's lungs could only have happened while he was still alive. He added: 'It is a virtual medical certainty, that most, if not all, prisoners will experience excruciating suffering, including sensations of drowning and suffocation from [the lethal injection drug] pentobarbital.' Purkey's first victim, Jennifer Long, was last seen at East High School in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 22, 1998, before she disappeared. She had been lured into Purkey's car before he took her back to his home where he reportedly stabbed her to death and dismembered her body with a chainsaw. The killer is then said to have burned her body in a fireplace before placing her remains in a septic pond in Clearwater, Kansas. But to this day, Long's remains are yet to be found. Before his execution took place, Purkey appeared to show remorse for his actions. His final words were reportedly: 'I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. 'I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much.

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