What Gleason Gobbled is a Guessing Game

There was electricity in the air at the state of Virginia's death chamber tonight--and no, we don't mean excitement. We mean real electricity. That's because triple murderer Robert Gleason chose the electric chair over lethal injection as his choice of capital punishment method. 

It seems odd that a man who made his living as a tattoo artist wanted to avoid the needle, but Gleason claimed he didn't want to take his execution lying down--literally. He wanted to die sitting up. He also thought the electric chair would be faster and less likely to result in a botched execution.

Gleason never fought his death sentence. In fact, he did everything he could to speed up the process. He was originally sentenced for a single murder, then killed two more men while behind bars in order to hasten his own demise.

Gleason did order a special last meal--in Virginia, inmates are given a choice of items from the prison's standard menu--but he also chose to keep that last meal a secret, which Virginia also allows.