A human rights lawyer has revealed how one of his ‘friends’ was denied his last meal before execution because it was ‘bad for his health’.
What on Earth could you request as your last meal on Death Row that is so bad for you that prison staff would state they would not be prepared to dish it up?
Immediately, a greasy smash burger comes to mind, maybe even a deep-fried chocolate bar – which are sold in takeways all over Scotland.
Well, what Nicholas Ingram ordered was flat-out refused – despite roughly one in 10 Americans being partial to his order.
But first, before we get into that, let’s discuss who the 31-year-old was and the wicked crimes he carried out back in 1983.
Ingram, a dual British and American national, was born in the UK before moving to the US at the age of one.
He was just 19 years old when he murdered JC Sawyer in the city of Marietta, Georgia. He also injured Sawyer’s wife.
After breaking into their home in Cobb County, he walked them to the woods behind it, and bound them to a tree using rope and wire, before taunting them and eventually shooting them at point-blank range – killing JC, but miraculously, Mary survived.
British-born convicted killer Nicholas Lee Ingram is shown on Atlanta TV station WSB just two days before being executed in 1995 (DAVID MURRAY JR/AFP via Getty Images)
Now, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has opened up to LADbible about the ‘disgusting’ use of the electric chair, as well as the ‘absurd’ reason that Ingram was, at first, denied his last meal.
“I’ve lost six people over the years. The electric chair – just disgusting, that you put 2,400 volts of electricity through someone’s head.
“You know Nicky Ingram? He and I were born in the same hospital, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, and I had to watch him die and I liked Nicky – we’d been friends for 12 years when they killed him.
“At first, I mean… oh God, you know, they go through all that nonsense about last meals, and Nicky said ‘I don’t want a last meal because you’re about to kill me’ and he said ‘I want a last cigarette’, so I asked if they’d give him a last cigarette, and they say no because it’s bad for his health – and I say ‘you’ve got to be kidding me, you’re planning to kill this poor guy’.”
Clive Stafford Smith opened up about his friendship with Ingram during an interview (LADbible Group)
He continued: “So I went out and told the media and they [the prison] were humiliated by that, so they gave him a last cigarette, but then they shave his head and shave his legs and put you know 2,400 volts through him – it’s just disgusting.”
But not everyone thought Ingram’s ending was as sad as Smith found it.
One person commented on YouTube: “No mention that this guy murdered and attempted to murder another. While his victims were begging for their lives and he taunted them.”