Julia Ziegler-Haynes Recreates and Photographs Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

The “last meal” is a well known segment of popular culture in the United States. We may not be all too familiar with the intricacies of capital punishment, but we all have heard of a last meal. Photographer and chef Julia Ziegler-Haynes found public records of last meal requests by executed inmates and meticulously recreated them in this series called “Today’s Special.”

Look, the death penalty is a complicated and difficult subject and any exploration from an artistic perspective is going to bring about some controversy. Though the last meal is well known, it doesn’t remove the morbidity of the concept. These meals are what people decided to try and enjoy while they pondered the last few hours of their lives. To say these images are loaded would be an understatement. This series has 24 images, and I’m sure that number is not arbitrary.

Julia Ziegler Haynes Recreates and Photographs Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

To read the whole story of these images, check out the Huffington Post.

[Via HuffPost & Julia Ziegler-Haynes]

Fine Art

Food

Pictures

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http://twitter.com/tobiassolem Tobias Solem
Somehow I find this so sad.
Nikola Milasevic
Yes, sad is the good word. Although-we must remember that those people ARE having this last meal for a reason…but yes, a bit sad.
http://twitter.com/aepoc jason.kessenich
Very heavy. The images are great though. I do like the different colored backgrounds.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1775208907 Feel Muse
its almost as metaphorical of personality of the person who eat those foods.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=803895293 Erika Fenton
I find it so sad too.
http://twitter.com/Cybergabi Cybergabi
“For a reason”? There should be no, absolutely no reason to deliberately take another person’s life. I think this just shows the perversion of the US justice system which is based almost entirely on punishment. Who are we to punish anyone for what they did by taking their life? Shouldn’t the purpose of justice be to make up for damage, and if that’s not possible, to avoid further damage by protecting society from an evildoer or by rehabilitating him or her?
http://twitter.com/TheCrazyLudwig Ian Ludwig
“If it’s wrong to kill, it’s wrong to kill.” Someone said that to me once when we were debating the death penalty and I had no response. I think what we have doesn’t work but I don’t know what the right answer is.
http://openid-provider.appspot.com/godofnopants Clean Record
Are you that naive or do you just speak without understanding your own words?
“There should be no, absolutely no reason to deliberately take another person’s life”
Yet, many if not all people on death row have committed murder, usually in the 1st degree, and usually to multiple people.
“Who are we to punish anyone for what they did by taking their life”
Who were the families of the people the inmates killed, to be punished with losing their loved ones for no reason?
“Shouldn’t the purpose of justice be to make up for damage, and if that’s not possible, to avoid further damage by protecting society from an evildoer or by rehabilitating him or her”
The damage is that people were killed unjustly, there is no recuperation for such a thing. Your choice is to either spend the time/money/resources to “rehab” a serial killer and hope that you somehow manage to re-wire the person so that they don’t do it again. Or you can off the person so that he/she doesn’t get another chance to do it again.
Do you think a good talking to is magically going to convert some serial killer into a functioning member of society? Then what happens when they get out there and repeat their offense and more people die unnecessarily because of your morality issues? Do they THEN get to die? Or do we keep giving them chances so they can keep killing more people?
If giving a serial killer a 2nd chance is a good idea to you, then I hope they decide to visit your house during their 2nd shot at the world.
http://www.facebook.com/felix.hernandezrodriguez Felix Alejandro Hernández Rodr
Sad… very sad… The food represents the personality of those how are about to die…!!!… The man that ask only for a olive!!…. Can you imagine what he was thinking?!
Dorota Pankowska
That’s so sad. It’s sad that no matter how much guilt, remorse, and regret those people will feel, simply because they can’t undo the past, they have to die for it. And the mind is such a complicated thing. We’ve all done things, maybe not bad things, but simply things which we later on saw in a different perspective. We all do things that we don’t even understand.
I don’t think killing these people will solve the problems of why people do bad things.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Hansen/1348890822 Brandon Hansen
First off, the images are not compelling at all. As for the people knocking the death penalty. I’ll hear back from you when you have a child raped and murdered by some sick SOB. There was one such incident in my community and I would love to personally administer the punishment myself if I had the opportunity.
http://www.facebook.com/paulanthonysutton Paul Sutton
Naive? Naive is assuming everyone who has been convicted of the death penalty will most certainly kill again or even committed the crime.
Keep a Clean Record, mate. Know your shit.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-dpdpillinois-special,0,7409406.special
http://www.facebook.com/paulanthonysutton Paul Sutton
I read your phrase as “two wrongs don’t make a right”. I get the feeling that’s not how you read it.
jorge pastrana
those pic make feel so sad, but in the other hand, there are hundreds of criminals on Cd Juarez Mexico, who should be sentenced to death, they kill, rape,extortion, assault, every day and government cant against them.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1636695731 Michel Steeze
Of course it really sad when stuff like that happens, but still no one has the right to take another persons life and especially not the government. Responding to violence with violence has never led to anything good and in most cases made things worse. “spend the time/money/resources to “rehab” a serial killer and hope that you somehow manage to re-wire the person so that they don’t do it again.” Yes! If a person gets killed on death row is much more expensive than to keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Just replace the word “serial killer” with mentally sick person. Mentally sick people need help and shouldn’t just be killed.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Hansen/1348890822 Brandon Hansen
Why not? Like I said below…..when you have a 6 year old girl raped, murdered and left in a canal near your home by some sick fuck, you start to re-think things. I have a daughter and I can only imagine what these victims go through before they are killed by “mentally ill” people. I could give two shits if they are mentally ill. There is no benefit to anybody to keep them around…period.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1636695731 Michel Steeze
“If giving a serial killer a 2nd chance is a good idea to you, then I hope they decide to visit your house during their 2nd shot at the world.” And why would you ever wish someone to be killed???? Its kinda sad how some people think.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Hansen/1348890822 Brandon Hansen
And what help do the families of the victims get? What second chance to they get to see their daughterson again? Do they get a second chance to rebuild a life forever tormented by what was done at the hands of these people? Nobody ever seems to give a shit about the victims, just that the person who did it is treated fairly…..that is just sad.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1161657585 Ryan Cooper
Of course we should but in the event of rehabilitation being impossible a quick, peaceful, and painless death is the most logical and guaranteed solution to ensure the criminal does not repeat their actions. It is not justice. It is not revenge. It is merely prevention.
Meghan Spegal
This photos also brought out a sense of sadness being someone’s last meal but then I remembered that these were for death row people. It’s still sad nonetheless but what’s even more sad looking back through them is the amount of food some of them got as a ‘last meal’ and that they still had more as a last meal than the homeless person who didn’t have anything at all as their last. It’s great to know more money is being spent on someone who’s about to die than preventing a homeless person’s death.
http://twitter.com/JPGodwin John Godwin
The most expensive meal in that picture can be bought for less than $100. You’re saying that the American government spends less than $100 on homelessness? For your information, the homelessness budget for 2012 was $4 billion. Substantially more than all of the last meals in the history of the human race, multiplied by 10000
Condemned prisoners get a last meal because it is a symbolic truce, or pact, made between prisoner and executioner that peace has been made and no grudges are held. It’s a tradition that is over 1000 years old.
http://twitter.com/JPGodwin John Godwin
I have to be honest and say that I got nothing from these pictures. They don’t mean anything without the backstory, and to me that makes them quite boring.
Just in case anyone wondered, the olive shot was the last meal of Victor Faguer (sp?), the last man to be federally executed in the United States. (Before Mcveigh).
Jernej Lasič
Seems as if this is not as original as I thought it was.
finalmeals installation by barbara caveng, 2000
http://www.finalmeals.net/finalmeals.htm#
http://www.facebook.com/tracy.nanthavongsa Tracy Nanthavongsa
I’m from Texas — An eye for an eye. That is all.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Wang/1072659749 Richard Wang
I actually recognize some of the meals.
1. The lobster tail on the orange background was requested by Hastings Arthur Wise.
Wise went back to the factory he was fired from and murdered 4 former co-workers.
Sheryl Wood, 27. Shot execution style in the back of the head.
Charles Griffeth, 56. Shot twice in the back while trying to run away.
David Moore, 30. Worked in the same department as Wise.
Leonard Filyaw, 31. Worked in the same department as Wise.
Both Moore and Filyaw were engaged at the time of his death.
Wise also wounded 3 other co-workers.
2. The fried chicken on the blue background was requested by John Wayne Gacy aka “The Killer Clown”
Gacy was known to have sexually assaulted and murder at least 33 teenage boys.
He buried 26 in the crawl space under his house. Two of the victims are still unidentified.
Before his killing spree, Gacy had been convicted of the sexual assault of a 15 year old name Donald Voorhess. Gacy was sentenced to 10 years but was paroled after 18 months.
3. The chicken and burger meal on the yellow background was requested by Dennis Bagwell.
Bagwell murdered 4 during a one day killing spree.
Leona McBee, 47. McBee, Bagwell’s mother, was beaten repeated and then strangled.
Libby Best, 24. Best, Bagwell’s half-sister, was shot twice in the head.
Tassy Boone, 14. Boone was the granddaughter of Bagwell’s step father. She was sexually assaulted, beaten and then strangled.
Reba Best, 4. Libby Best’s daughter. She was beaten with a hammer and her skull crushed.

Before this killing spree, Bagwell kicked to death, George Barry, a 63-year-old janitor.
……
Since most here felt such sympathy upon seeing these photos, thought it would be nice to put a face to these meals and related to you the atrocities they committed.
Robertt1
2nd chance is not like “let them free and unpunished”. Nobody said that.
http://profile.yahoo.com/HSQAVOT2S7PTY5K45ZPMPMSGL4 Gregory
It’s fascinating the specificity of choices; definitely not much in the way of ‘health’ food represented here, but why would they be concerned with that given the nature of the situation at hand. I see a lot of emotion based selections that illustrate the value of comfort food as an antidote to stressful situations; this being perhaps the worst kind.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Wang/1072659749 Richard Wang
I recognize three meals; Hasting Arthur Wise, John Wayne Gacy and Dennis Wayne Bagwell.
NONE of them expressed any remorse. NONE of them admitted their guilt.
Read my post below and realize that these were three sadistic cruel killers.
Mike_Kelley
John, you should know that I think you’re my favorite commenter on this site.
http://www.facebook.com/salmonmark Mark Salmon
I love how these images have sparked debate… well I say debate it’s more like people are trying to 1 up each other.
Some people are commenting quite intelligently and encouraging further debate then some other bright spark says “I hope a serial killer visits your house on his, or hers, second chance” – Brilliant!
Martinvh
Imho, like in an earlier post is said “If killing is bad, killing is bad” covers the load.
Life in prison without option of getting out would be better,..
Just without any luxery! no tv, nothing!
Just one pil,… a pil with a deadly dose of something,… so if they’d like they can do it theirself,..
I live in the Netherlands,.. and punishment good be a lot harder, and life in prison should be more sober here!
But, when it comes to the deathpenalty,.. i’m glad we don’t have that.
To explain a lil bit,… I DO NOT have any remorse for those killers !!!!!
It’s just that in my eyes taking lifes is a bad thing, and belongs in the 1600′s, not in this era!
It’s nothing more than lowering yourself to the same degree as the killer,…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003024584244 Andrew Gilmore
“They don’t mean anything without the backstory, and to me that makes them quite boring. ”
Can you see how silly this comment is or do you need it explained to you?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1637439054 Malina Mihaiu
It’s not silly, it’s true. It’s just food. Food without story.. is just .. food.
http://www.facebook.com/mars5 Mars Majarucon
Its so easy to judge that the death sentence is wrong until we put ourselves in the shoes of the victims’ relatives and friends. yes, it will never bring the victims back to life but this kind of punishment falls short compared to the loss, anger, disappointment and hurt of losing a loved one from a heinous and senseless crime.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003024584244 Andrew Gilmore
Yes, I’m sure we all know that, thank you. But this isn’t food without a story, is it?
And that’s not the point being made above, anyway. He’s implying that the
project as a whole is somehow less worthy because the photos would mean
nothing without the context.
Separating art into its constituent elements and judging that art on one
element in isolation is ridiculous. It’s like watching a film with the
audio switched off and then complaining that you didn’t understand the
story, and it was all just a bunch of meaningless moving images.
The photos and the context are one.
http://twitter.com/JPGodwin John Godwin
If someone took a Polaroid of a pile of shit, and it happened to be the last dump Hitler took before he pulled the trigger, it would still be a photo of a pile of shit.
http://twitter.com/JPGodwin John Godwin
You see the bit where I begin with “I” and then further along I also say “to me”?
Those are what make your three paragraphs below a complete waste of your time.
Feel free to enjoy those pictures of fast food. You should head to McDonalds, every store runs a permanent exhibition of this kind of work. Some “galleries” even allow you to purchase and EAT the food in the pictures..
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=604093855 David Tonnes
I wonder how many of those killers offered their victims a last meal.
http://www.facebook.com/martin.melnick Martin Melnick
What you don’t understand I guess is that it actually costs more money to execute someone on death row than to imprison them for life. This is due to excessive trial costs, appeals costs and red tape needed to perform said execution. That however is not my problem with the death penalty. How about the fact that although small, there is a percentage of inmates who are put to death and then later found to be innocent. I don’t care how small the percentage is, if it is possible that we might be executing innocent people, then it should not be allowed.
Plus, it’s A. more expensive, B. Hypocritical in the context of a society that claims to be modern and not barbarous, and C. not allowing any room for potential rehab – not all inmates on death row are massive evil serial killers by the way….
john_mil
Well, the US is a democracy in the sense the power is to the people and they do have election and elect their representative in matter which even if sometimes raises questions is generally admitted as a democracy.
Then having a death penalty is the choice of the people of that country, I am not from their country but I respect their choice to run their own country the way they want.
Now one can be unhappy about what are the choice made by the majority of person in a democracy, but that’s a regular debate that’s why there are elections on a regular basis.
Now if a democracy is not good enough, as it doesn’t tend to get the best out of the people, that would be an invention, one which is not invented yet.
With these kind of recurring debate and the crisis in Greece (where the people do not recognise the choice made by a previous government, which is ironical in a place tht invented the concept in the first place), maybe we are looking at the end of Democracy, for the greater good.
Martinvh
LoL, an eye for an eye ey ?
So, if somebody steals from you, steal it back
if somebody kills a persone you like,.. kill him.
or better yet, if somebody rapes your gf, rape his,.. or just the same, shoot the mf,…
We could save a lot of money !! no justice system needed at all!!
For crying out loud man! your photographs are realy good !! But that state of mind is from like a few centuries ago,… It’s like acting on natural instinct instead of thinking,…
Yes, serial killers, rapists and such criminals need to be punished, and do not have to have even a little change of getting back in the community!!
But just simply killing them like “an eye for an eye” Is nothing more than lowering yourself to their level,…..And makes you nothing close to better than they are!
Like i said earlier on, I’m from the netherlands,.. and the justice system here could, and should be a lot harder,… prisons should be a lot more sober,… no tv, nothing just a bed, a toilet and maybe a table. No more early release etc etc,…
But the deathpenalty is something i myself find very dumb,… it’s like an act of despair, like the saying “all muscle, no brains”,… Now-a-day’s we think, we try to find soloutions for problems instead of just ignoring they are there.
Michael Delman
Interesting concept, awful execution (you should pardon the phrase). These photographs are lazy and convey nothing of the experience. A simple list of the meals would have much more impact than these flat photos. Not worthy of your generally excellent website.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch
I’m impressed. It took 3 comments for the shitstorm to hit.
I like to imagine the person judging from their last meal. I can get the guy who orders “art-ts7″ (really, you should number the pictures more clearly…), but the simple coffee pot? the olive? Disturbing.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch
You’re looking at it wrong. what kind of lighting can possible render justice (no pun intented) to these sad, disturbing meals. The last meal of your life.
Since no lighting magic could possibly convey correctly the intensity of that moment/meal, I rather like the simple, flat, dull lighting.
the last meal of your life CAN’T be excyting in any way… why should the lighting be?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003024584244 Andrew Gilmore
Uh-huh. So, in quick succession, a nazi reference followed by a post which boils down to ‘it’s, like, my opinion and stuff’.
You could not be any more of an internet cliché if you tried.
Let me fill you in on something, John – something which people like you tend to forget. It’s perfectly true that you are entitled to your opinion, however stupid that opinion may be, and it’s also true that you are entitled to express said idiotic opinion at your leisure.
What you are not entitled to is to publicly express an ill-informed, ill-educated and ignorant opinion without somebody pointing out the flaws in your logic.
Keep it in mind. I suspect you have a lifetime of this ahead.
http://twitter.com/JPGodwin John Godwin
Hey Andrew, good to hear back from you, dude. Did you go and see the McDonalds burger exhibition yet? If you’re still on the fence about visiting, remember that it’s not just burgers down there. They’ve got, like, shots of apple pies, frozen ice cream, little chicken strips, etc.. Really great if you like this kind of stuff. Huge backlit prints hanging from the ceiling; very intense.
I’m quite sure that even for a discerning intellectual powerhouse such as yourself, there’s something to appreciate. They don’t have the same backstory as these shots, but you can absolutely guarantee that 99% of people on death row ate there at least once before they committed their ultimate crime. Now that, we can both agree, is some way deep arty shit only the most cultured can fully appreciate.
http://www.facebook.com/bichard John Paul Bichard
This has been done several times before – first one I remember was James Reynolds who took a more formal and arguably more engaging/disturbing approach (and far better photography!) http://www.jwgreynolds.co.uk/index.php?/last-suppers/ Reynolds works fetishise the food in a way that reflects the way that society fetishises the prisoner and the ritual of institutional murder. The way the ‘penalty’ is a carried out is a very strange mix of the very personal last moments: their last meal, their last words; and the contrasting reduction of the body to state owned object: the efficient, industrial means of ending life that emphasises the utter hopelessness and finality of the death penalty. It has always been a macabre display of power of the state over power of the individual and the resultant ownership of self which is eloquently summed up in these food works, particularly Reynolds.
As a side note, I wish F-Stoppers would do a bit more research on their photo ‘essays’ it is really sloppy to put forward a body of work as seemingly ‘original’ when it is part of a line of similar works…
suze57
The death penalty is just plain wrong. How are we any better if we commit the very crime we are punishing an inmate for? Keep them in prison for the duration of their lives and let them wake up each day to the end knowing where they are and why.

Julia Ziegler-Haynes Recreates and Photographs Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

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