Thursday, January 29, 2015

A Good Meal for a Bad Ladd

Thirty seven years after he committed his first murder, Robert Charles Ladd was finally executed by the state of Texas.

Ladd’s first capital crime occurred in 1978, when he killed a woman and her two small children then set the woman’s house on fire. Ladd served only 16 years of a 40-year sentence for those crimes before being paroled. Then, in 1996, he killed another woman by beating her with a hammer, strangling her, then setting her body on fire. Afterward, Ladd stole a TV, jewelry, and other small household items and traded them for crack cocaine.

Since Texas did away with special last meal requests,  condemned prisoners are served the same food as others in their unit. That means a Texas inmate’s last meal is a real coin toss; will the dying prisoner get something good, or will the Texas prison system’s notorious chicken patties rear their ugly head?

In Ladd’s case, his last meal of classic comfort food was much better than he deserved. For his last meal, Ladd was served meat loaf, mashed potatoes, tomato gravy, carrots, black eyed peas, and sliced bread, with a choice of water, tea, or punch to drink.

2 comments:

  1. Do these men look sickly to anyone else? The first four men profiled here all had dark circles around their eyes and were pale. Curious

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    1. Yeah they do maybe they don't get out in the sun much. And sleeping isn't good at death row. Impending death hanging above them. And some were sick if you would see what crimes they committed.

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