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The Final Supper: Last Meals of Notorious Death Row Inmates · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine you are an executioner in ancient Germany. Okay.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Setting the scene.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Right. And tomorrow morning you have to take a man's life.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Like it is your job, your duty, just a violent
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: reality of the era you live in. But tonight, tonight
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: you're sitting across from him at this lavishly set table
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: sharing a feast. Wow. Yeah. You're passing him the bread,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you know, pouring his wine, looking him dead in the eye.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: You are literally eating with the person whose life you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: are about to end. It's this bizarre unsettling camaraderie right
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: before the ultimate finality.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, it creates a fascinating psychological tension, doesn't it?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Breaking bread before breaking a life. You know, acknowledging the
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: shared humanity of both parties right up until the final
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: fatal moment.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that imagery from our source material today completely
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: shifted how I view this entire topic. Because when we
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: think about the last meal on death row, we tend
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to view it through this very modern, like, administrative lens.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Right, like a bureaucratic process.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We think of it as a bureaucratic mercy. But
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we are pulling from this incredibly detailed article published by
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: A & E, written by Lina Bentahar, to really unpack
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the haunting, bizarre, and just deeply psychological tradition of the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: last meal.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It's such a heavy topic.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It is. And our mission for this deep dive is clear.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We aren't just looking at menus here. We are using
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: these final plates as an unprecedented window into the human
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: psyche in the mere hours before death.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Which is arguably the most unique psychological pressure cooker a
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: human being can experience.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: To know the exact hour of your annihilation and to
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: be asked in the face of that what you would
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: like to consume. But, you know, to really grasp the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: weight of these modern requests, we have to linger on
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: that historical backdrop for a moment.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Because the concept of a last meal is quite literally
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: as old as civilization itself, and its origins have almost
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with mercy.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Which is wild to think about. I mean, we assume
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: this is some sort of modern constitutional right, but it
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: goes way back to antiquity. Like, take the ancient Greeks.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Their tradition of feeding the condemned wasn't born out of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: compassion at all. It was born entirely out of fear.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: A very profound superstitious terror, really. The Greeks held this
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: deep-seated belief that if a person was executed on an
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: empty stomach, they would, you know, cross over into the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: underworld hungry.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: And a hungry ghost is not a good thing in
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: their mythology. No, not at all.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: A hungry ghost is an angry, vengeful ghost. So they
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: believed that feeding the condemned a massive, hearty final meal
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: would essentially satiate their spirit and prevent them from returning
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: to haunt the living.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It's a meal born entirely of self-preservation. Exactly. They weren't
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: trying to comfort the prisoner. They were trying to protect
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: themselves from a supernatural threat. It's just fascinating how the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: motivation flips depending on the era.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: The Germans did it for this macabre camaraderie. The Greeks
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: did it out of fear of the paranormal. And obviously
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the landscape in modern America is a completely different patchwork
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of rules.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, a very chaotic patchwork. In the United States today,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the last meal is just a tradition. It's not a law.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? There's no law?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: There is absolutely no federal mandate that a condemned person
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: must receive.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: A special request.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: It varies wildly depending on which state's borders you happen
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: to be inside.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So it's state by state?
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Completely. Some states have strict, specific dollar limits on what
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: can be ordered. Some stipulate that the food must be
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: available locally, like they aren't flying in truffles from Italy.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Just local takeout or whatever.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And some states have abandoned the practice entirely. In Texas,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: for instance, custom meals are completely banned today.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: If you are on death row in Texas, your final
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: meal is whatever happens to be on the standard prison
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: cafeteria menu that day.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Period. So there is no agency whatsoever in Texas. None.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Which honestly makes the cases where the condemned do have
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: agency so incredibly revealing.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: If we look at the plates of these infamous figures
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: who actually were allowed to make a choice, What do
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: those specific flavors and textures tell us about their internal worlds,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: their crimes, and, you know, the justice system itself?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: That's the core of it.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So let's bridge that gap from ancient history right into
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: modern times. And to do that, we have to start
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: by examining the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: We need to look at the case of Timothy McVeigh.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: We do. And just as a quick aside as we
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: get into this for you listening, because we are dealing
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: with some intensely dark, politically charged history here, ranging from
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: white supremacy to extreme anti-government violence.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Right. Very sensitive material.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Our goal today is just to look at the historical record.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We're pulling these facts straight from our sources to understand
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the psychology, not to validate the horrifying ideologies behind them
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: in any way. We are just looking at the context
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of the events to understand the mind of the person
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: sitting in that cell.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And the facts of this particular case are undeniably grim.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: In 1995, Timothy McVeigh, who was a Gulf War veteran
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: and an avowed white supremacist, masterminded the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: A horrific event.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: He detonated several thousand pounds of explosives, completely destroying the
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and killing 168 people. And,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: you know, while there were co-conspirators involved in the plot,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: McVeigh was the only one condemned to death for it.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Let's drill down into his motive, though, because the A
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: & E article points out a very specific timeline that
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: sort of dictates his entire psychological posture during his imprisonment. Yes.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: He carried out this horrific bombing in direct response to
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the federal government's siege on a compound in Waco, Texas.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: The Waco siege is the absolute ideological anchor for him.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: That event involved the federal use of tear gas and
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: ended in a massive fire that led to the deaths
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: of dozens of people.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And the timing wasn't a coincidence, right? Not at all.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: McVeigh didn't just bomb a building randomly. He timed his
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: attack to occur on the exact two-year anniversary of the
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: end of the Waco siege. Wow. It was a highly calculated,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: retaliatory strike. And because he viewed himself as a soldier
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: striking back in a war, his demeanor throughout his trial
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: and right up to his execution was incredibly hardened.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Unyielding, really. The source notes that the day before his execution,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: he was still actively boasting.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: He referred to the bombing as a legit tactic. He
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: leaned so heavily into this militaristic persona, telling people that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: he would improvise, adapt, and overcome in the afterlife.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: It's pure bravado.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. A complete refusal to show any weakness, any remorse,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: or any fear of the system that is about to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: legally end his life.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: He built this impenetrable psychological armor. Publicly, he is the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: stoic warrior facing death without a flinch. He speaks in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: military jargon. He projects absolute certainty in his actions.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But then the warden comes to his cell. They ask
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: this hardened, unrepentant terrorist what he wants for his final meal.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And Timothy McVeigh orders two pints of mint chocolate ice cream.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Just two pints of mint chocolate ice cream. Nothing else
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: on the tray.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Hold on. We have to unpack the glaring contradiction here.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Because he puts on this tough, unyielding mask for the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: entire world, talking about tactical superiority in the afterlife. Yeah.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But in his cell, with the clock ticking down, he
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: just wants two pints of mint chocolate chip. Is this
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the ultimate mask slipping? Because mint chocolate chip is noted
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in the text as literally one of the most popular
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: ubiquitous ice cream flavors in America.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: It's very common.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Right. It is the most mundane childhood associated treat you
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: could possibly imagine.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It is a profound slip of the mask. And the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: prison logs confirm exactly what was happening beneath the surface.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: The records from that night show that McVeigh was highly restless.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Restless.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Like pacing the cell.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The adrenaline and cortisol of impending death cannot be
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: completely overridden by ideology. So we have this intense dichotomy. Publicly,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: he is the soldier. Privately, in the dark, quiet hours
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of his cell, the biological reality of his situation is
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: setting in. He is restless. He is deeply human. And
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: despite his rhetoric, he's likely terrified.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And the ice cream acts as a physical and psychological
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: soothing mechanism.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: A complete psychological regression. When human beings are stripped of
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: all our defenses, you know, when the end is mere
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: hours away and the bravado no longer serves a purpose,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the mind often retreats to what is safe.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Safe, simple, familiar.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Right. The cooling, sugary sensation of ice cream is a
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: primal comfort. Despite his horrific crimes and this immense ideological
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: fortress he built around himself, His final hours reduced him
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: to a restless human being seeking the soothing comfort of
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: a profoundly normal dessert.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: It provides the illusion of comfort for a man whose
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: reality is about to violently end.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It proves that the biology of fear and the desire
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: for comfort remain, regardless of the magnitude of the crime.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That really exposes the vulnerability of the nervous system. Like,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you can preach about adapting and overcoming all you want,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: but your body still craves sugar and cold cream when
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: it's pushed to the absolute brink of panic.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: The physical body always takes over in those moments.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So if McVeigh's ice cream was a moment of the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: mask slipping, revealing the terrified, restless kid underneath, what happens
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: when the mask doesn't slip? What happens when a condemned
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: person uses their final meal to desperately, frantically tape that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: mask back to their face? That brings us to John
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Wayne Gacy.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Gacy's story involves a very different kind of facade and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: a much more elaborate attempt at psychological escapism.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are talking about a man who was executed
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in 1994 by lethal injection in Illinois. And the crimes
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: are just... infamous and horrifying.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Unimaginable, really.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He admitted to sexually assaulting and killing young men and boys. Ultimately,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: police recovered 33 bodies, many of them hidden in the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: crawl spaces of his own house and with others dumped
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in Des Plaines River.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: And yet the contrast with his public life is what
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: makes his psychology so labyrinthine. Because to his neighbors in Chicago,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: right up until his arrest in December 1978, he was
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: the picture of civic virtue. He was seen as an
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: upstanding citizen. He hosted elaborate neighborhood parties. He was involved
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: in local politics. He cultivated this image of the jovial, successful,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: reliable community man.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Which makes the reality of the crawlspace under his floorboards
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: so profoundly disturbing.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: It was a dual life maintained with terrifying precision.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: But the A & E article traces his timeline back further,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: pointing out that this life of violent crime really kicked
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: into high gear right where his quote-unquote perfect life ended.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: And that perfect life was located in Waterloo, Iowa.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: To understand Gacy's final meal request, you really have to
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: understand the psychological weight of Waterloo. Before the murders began
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: in earnest, Gacy actually graduated from what was officially called
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: KFC Chicken School.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Wait, KFC Chicken School?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: It was a real thing.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It was a real corporate training program.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Which just sounds completely absurd given the dark legacy attached
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to his name.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: It is deeply surreal. But he relocated to Waterloo, Iowa
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: with his first wife specifically to manage three KFC locations
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: that were owned by his father-in-law.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: This era in Waterloo was the absolute peak of his
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: socially acceptable, legitimate life. He was managing businesses. He was
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: an active member of the Jaycees. He was married. He
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: was playing the part of the successful American businessman to perfection.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And crucially, the text notes this was the one brief
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: period in his entire life where he gained the approval
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of his deeply abusive father.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: That is the psychological linchpin of his entire profile. For
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a deeply disturbed individual who grew up under the crushing
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: weight of an abusive father, gaining that paternal approval through
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: this franchised corporate success was everything.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It was the only validation he ever had. Exactly.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: But of course, the facade was built on sand. He
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: was arrested at age 26 in Waterloo for sexually assaulting
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: a teenage boy, which shattered the marriage, destroyed his business standing,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: and really began his downward spiral into becoming one of
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: America's worst serial killers.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: So keeping all of that in mind, the KFC management,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the elusive father's approval, the community standing in Waterloo, we
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: look at his final meal request on death row in 1994.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: He ordered a dozen fried shrimp, a plate of french fries,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a pound of fresh strawberries, and a bucket of original
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: recipe KFC chicken.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: A very specific, brand-loyal, highly caloric request.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I find this so chilling. A serial killer facing execution
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: for these unimaginable acts uses his absolute last moments of agency,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: his final choice on earth, to order original recipe.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: It is unsettling.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It's almost pathetic in a way. It's like a retired
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: disgraced athlete watching their high school highlight reel on a loop,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: desperately trying to mentally inhabit the only time they ever
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: felt successful and accepted by society.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. It really is a psychological
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: time machine. We know that food is incredibly tied to
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: our olfactory senses and our memories.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: The olfactory bulb has direct connections to the amygdala and
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the hippocampus, which are the areas of the brain. strongly
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: implicated in emotion and memory. Think about how the smell
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: of a certain soup can instantly transport you back to
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: your grandmother's kitchen.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, instantly.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Gacy was attempting a neurological hack. He was trying to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: recreate the exact sensory experience of Waterloo, Iowa.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: But wait, let me challenge that for a second. Are
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: we over-intellectualizing this? Like, what if he was just a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: gluttonous guy who really liked fried chicken and shrimp? Why
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: does it have to be a time machine?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That's a fair question. But it's because of the specificity
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: of the brand and the context of his psychological profile.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: A narcissist like Gacy cannot accept the reality of being
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: a condemned monster. He is sitting on death row. The
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: whole world knows exactly what he is. The crawl space
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: has been emptied. The 33 victims are named. In those
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: final hours, he uses the specific taste of the very
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: franchise that gave him temporary respectability to mentally escape that reality.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: He's blocking it all out. Yes.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: He isn't just eating chicken. He is trying to consume
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the approval of his father one last time. He is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: trying to wash away the smell of the crawlspace with
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: the smell of the deep fryer in Waterloo.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: A profound, desperate level of denial. To sit in a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: concrete cell, eat the chicken, and pretend you are still
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the respected manager and not the monster awaiting the lethal
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: injection needle.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: It shows the length the human mind will go to
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: protect its own ego even minutes before death.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Well, we've been talking about massive calorie intake so far.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Pints of ice cream, buckets of fried chicken, dozen shrimp, fries.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It's this profound overindulgence to cope with impending death.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, very common.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But that leads to a totally different psychological response. Like,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: what does it mean when the plate stays entirely empty?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: This is a fascinating divergence in the data. Refusing a
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: meal is a powerful, undeniable statement. But the motivation behind
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: that refusal can vary dramatically depending on the trauma and
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the personality of the condemned.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: So we are going to look at two vastly different
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: killers who had the exact same final reaction to food. First,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Aileen Wuornos.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: She was executed in 2002 by lethal injection in Florida.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: She was convicted of killing seven men while working as
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a prostitute along the highways, though she maintained that these
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: men had either raped or attempted to rape her.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Her background, as provided in the source, is a continuous,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: harrowing story of survival, marginalization, and profound trauma. This wasn't
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a sudden, unexplainable snap into violence. It was the culmination
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: of a lifetime of abuse.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the text outlines this tragic timeline. At school, she
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: was trading sexual favors just to get cigarettes and food.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: She became pregnant at 15. Her family threw her out
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: onto the street. And she turned to prostitution, petty theft,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and armed robbery just to survive day to day.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Her entire life was a transactional, highly dangerous existence. Food
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: was never a comfort for her. It was a commodity
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: she had to barter her physical safety for. And when
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: she arrived on death row, that lifelong trauma didn't magically evaporate.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: The source notes that she absolutely hated death row. She
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: felt deeply dehumanized by the prison system.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And she was incredibly paranoid, right? The article explicitly mentions
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: she accused multiple people of having it out for her.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: She was living in a state of severe hypervigilance. Her
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: nervous system was constantly sounding the alarm. So when the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: time came for her final meal, she declined it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: No meal at all? No.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: She didn't order a feast. She didn't seek out childhood
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: comfort food like McVeigh. She received only a single cup
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: of coffee. The reports state she was simply too nervous
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: to eat.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the physical mechanics of being too nervous
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to eat. If you've ever had a severe panic attack
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: or received devastating world-chattering news, your stomach just drops out.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: It feels like you couldn't swallow a piece of bread
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: if you tried.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: That's the physiological reality of the fight-or-flight response. When you
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: are in a state of extreme anxiety and paranoia, Your
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: sympathetic nervous system takes over. Blood is literally diverted away
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: from your digestive tract and pushed toward your muscles to
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: prepare you to run or fight.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Biology literally takes over. Yes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: The biological mechanism for digestion shuts down completely. Her nervous
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: system was so overloaded with the trauma of her impending
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: execution and the paranoia of her surroundings that eating became
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: biologically and psychologically impossible.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: The system had broken her down to the point where
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: even the act of accepting a meal felt unsafe. Precisely.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: For someone whose whole life involved trading her body for food,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: refusing food at the end is a stark indicator of
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: how entirely cornered and terrified she felt. Yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And the coffee.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: The single cup of coffee is just a desperate need
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: for a stimulant to stay alert in an environment she
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: perceived as entirely hostile.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely tragic when you view it through that lens.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Now hold that image of Wuornos and her single cup
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of coffee. And let's contrast it with our next subject,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: who also left an empty plate. Ted Bundy.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Very different case.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Extremely. Executed in 1989 by electric chair, also in Florida.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Bundy presents a completely different psychological profile. He murdered dozens
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: of women between 1974 and 1978. But what he is
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: perhaps most notorious for, beyond the sheer volume of his crimes,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: is his manipulative charm.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: He was the guy who could talk his way into anything.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: He weaponized his charisma to lure his victims, often faking
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: injuries to gain their sympathy.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And that deep-seated need for control, that narcissistic belief in
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: his own supreme intellect, extended right into the courtroom.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: The text notes he was incredibly combative during his trials.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: He even acted as his own attorney at times, arguing
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: with judges, pacing the courtroom. He deeply resented his sentence
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: and refused to accept his fate, fighting the system and
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: manipulating the media to the very last second.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And when it came time for his final meal, they
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: offered him the standard Florida death row meal. It's a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: huge traditional spread. Steak, eggs, toast with butter and jelly, milk, coffee, juice,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and hash browns. It's a massive breakfast.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: But he declined it completely.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: He didn't need a single bite. See, an empty plate
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: can mean, I am terrified. Or it can mean, I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: am in charge. This is where it gets really interesting
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to me. We have two empty plates, but they mean
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: entirely different things.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Completely different.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Wuornos' empty plate feels like a biological symptom of severe trauma.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Like she is physically paralyzed by paranoia. Bundy's empty plate,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, feels like a calculated narcissistic power play.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: It raises a vital question about agency and power dynamics.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: For a malignant narcissist like Bundy... Control is the only
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: currency that matters.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: The only thing.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: His whole life, his horrific crimes, his theatrical trial, it
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: was all about him being the smartest person in the room,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: the one pulling all the strings and deciding who lives
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and who dies.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: But on death row, you have absolutely no strings left
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to pull.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: You are rendered entirely powerless. You are told when to sleep,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: when to wake, what to wear, and ultimately exactly the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: minute you will die. The state has assumed absolute unyielding
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: power over your physical body.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Bundy couldn't charm his way out of the electric chair.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: The courts had finally stopped listening to his legal maneuvers.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: The manipulation had run out of road. So what is
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: the absolute last act of defiance available to a control
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: freak trapped in a cage?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: You refuse their hospitality.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: You reject the state's offering. By refusing to eat the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: steak and eggs, Bundy was essentially broadcasting a message. He's saying,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: you can kill me, but you cannot feed me. I
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: dictate what enters my body. I retain this one final
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: shred of autonomy. Wow. It is the ultimate, final exertion
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: of control from a man who realizes he has absolutely
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: none left.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It's so telling. The exact same physical action, you know,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: not eating, stems from completely opposite ends of the psychological spectrum.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: It just shows how food, or the deliberate lack of it,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: is a language all its own.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: It truly is.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But if we move away from those who rejected the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: system entirely... We find a case where the meal was
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: used to stubbornly celebrate the very ideology that put them
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: on death row.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, we are moving to the case of Paul Jennings Hill.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And again, just looking at the historical record here regarding
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the abortion debate, setting aside the intense politics to focus
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: purely on his state of mind, as presented in the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: A & E article. For you listening, we're just conveying
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the context.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Right. Maintaining objectivity.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: So Paul Jennings Hill was a former Presbyterian minister and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: a staunch anti-abortionist. In 1994, he used a shotgun to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: kill Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard as they
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: were driving into an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: For those double murders, he was convicted and later executed
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: in 2003 by lethal injection. Let's look closely at his
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: final meal, because on the surface, it sounds like a pleasant,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: standard summer dinner.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: He ordered steak, a baked potato, broccoli, a salad, orange sherbet,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: and sweetened iced tea.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like something you'd order at a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: neighborhood diner on a Tuesday night. It does.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: But the key to understanding this meal isn't just the
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: food itself. It's the geography embedded in the food. The
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: A & E article makes a specific point to highlight
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the cultural staples of the Sunshine State.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: The Florida connection.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Oranges, represented by his choice of orange sherbet, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: sweetened iced tea are deeply ingrained in Florida's regional identity.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And Paul Jennings Hill was born and raised in Florida. So.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: This is a hometown meal. It is a.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Profound, unapologetic declaration of identity. He wasn't ordering exotic, expensive
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: foods as a last hurrah or reaching for a childhood
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: brand to escape reality like Gacy. He was ordering the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: staples of his immediate environment.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: But to really grasp why he did this, we have
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to look at his final words.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: His final words in the death chamber were, may God
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: help you to protect the unborn as you would want
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to be protected.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Right. And if we synthesize that final, unyielding statement with
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: his choice of a hometown meal, a very clear, resolute
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: psychological profile emerges. Yeah. We've talked about Gacy, who was
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: seeking lost approval and trying to escape his reality. We
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: talked about McVeigh, who was seeking soothing comfort to mask
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: his internal terror.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: But Hill wasn't seeking comfort or escape. No.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Hill's meal and his final words reflect a man who
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: is entirely, unshakably at peace with his actions. He did
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: not view himself as a criminal who had done wrong.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: He viewed himself as a righteous man who had served
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: his community and his God.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: The psychology of righteousness is a powerful drug.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: It overrides the typical fear responses we see in other inmates.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: When you genuinely believe your actions were morally justified, you
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: don't need to retreat into childhood ice cream or time
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: travel with a bucket of KFC.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Right. You don't need the mask.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You sit down, you order a hearty standard dinner
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: from your home state, and you eat it with a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: clear conscience. His meal was a stubborn celebration of who
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: he was and where he was from, eaten by a
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: man who felt absolutely zero remorse for the murders he committed.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It's the meal of a man who genuinely thinks he's
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: going to a hero's welcome in the afterlife, not a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: man who thinks he's facing punishment. It really highlights how
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: deeply subjective the experience of the death chamber is.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: It's intensely subjective.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Well, We've looked at meals as comfort, as denial, as defiance,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and as regional identity. But to understand the final meal
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: on our list, we have to pull back the lens.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the literal machinery of the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: American justice system. Yes. Because this last meal wasn't just
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: about the person eating it. It was meant to be
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a literal seed for the future.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: This is where we need to zoom out and look
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: at the systemic context provided in the source data. Before
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: we talk about the specific individual and his single olive,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: We have to ask a broader sociological question.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Like who's actually on death row? Exactly.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Who is actually eating these last meals today? What does
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the modern death row population actually look like?
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And the statistics in the article are pretty stark. They
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: paint a picture that might surprise people who only follow
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: high profile cases like Bundy or McVeigh.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: The data reveals a systemic reality. It shows that nearly
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: all executions involve criminals who were simply too poor to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: afford their own attorney. Capital punishment is disproportionately, overwhelmingly applied.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: To the impoverished. It's an economic issue as much as
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a legal one. Absolutely.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, many of these individuals have no higher education and
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: some have no formal education at all. We are looking
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: at a deeply marginalized segment of society, heavily reliant on
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: overworked public defenders.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And public opinion is shifting dramatically alongside the awareness of
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: those facts.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: The popularity of the death penalty is plummeting. The source
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: notes that currently only 50 percent of Americans support the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: death penalty for murder convictions.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: A 50-50 split, which is a huge drop when you
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: look at the historical context. Like, the article points out
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that just before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, so the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: era we discussed with Timothy McVeigh, support for the death
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: penalty was at a staggering 80 percent.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: A 30-point drop in public support over a few decades
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: is a massive cultural and sociological shift. And we are
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: seeing that shift mirrored in systemic pullback at the federal level.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Following a mass clemency in 2024, there are only three
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: people left on federal death row. Now, it is important
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: to clarify that thousands of inmates still remain on death
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: row across the 27 states that still allow capital punishment.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So state level is different.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Right. But the overall macro trend is steadily moving away
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: from state-sanctioned executions.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So with that systemic decline and changing public sentiment in mind,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: we turn to the case of Victor Fager. He was
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: convicted of kidnapping and killing a doctor, and he was
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: executed by hanging in Iowa in 1963.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: This is a much older case, but its impact echoes
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: directly into the statistics we just discussed. It serves as
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: a catalyst.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: When asked for his final meal, Fager didn't order ice
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: cream to soothe his nerves or a bucket of chicken
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to escape his reality. Or a massive steak dinner to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: celebrate his roots.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: No.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: He ordered a single olive. And he specifically requested that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the pit still be inside the olive.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: A single olive with the pit.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Why? I mean, really, why on earth, when you are
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: facing the gallows and have the opportunity to eat anything
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you want, do you ask for one solitary olive?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Faggier told the prison guards exactly why. And it wasn't
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: about nutrition or comfort. He said he wanted an olive tree.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, the universal ancient symbol of peace,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to sprout and grow from his grave. Oh, wow. He
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: intended to swallow the pit, take it to the grave
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: inside his body, and let it bloom.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: That's almost cinematic. Like, it's incredibly poetic for such a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: bleak environment. And its final words to the press align
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: with that symbolic gesture entirely. He told the reporters, He
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: was highly aware of the narrative he was creating.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: So the question is, did his gesture work?
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: That's the million-dollar question. Did a single olive pit actually
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: change the machinery of the justice system?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: According to the source, it actually did. Feger's haunting last meal,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: combined with his highly publicized execution, played a significant role
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: in shifting public sentiment and helping to ultimately end the
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: death penalty in the state of Iowa.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how a piece of food so small could
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: carry that much narrative weight. But when you think about
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the optics, it makes perfect sense.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Think about the massive meals we've discussed. Gacy's bucket of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: chicken and dozen shrimp. Bundy's massive steak and egg spread.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Those meals often reinforce the public's perception of the criminal's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: monstrous gluttonous appetite. It makes them seem less human. Exactly.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: The gluttony distances the public from the reality of the execution.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: But Fegger's single olive pit shifted the narrative entirely. It
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: strips away the monstrous appetite and leaves this stark, undeniable,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: incredibly vulnerable plea for peace.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It's completely reframing it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Right. It forced the public to look at the execution
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: not as a logistical endpoint for a bad person, but
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: as a deeply sad human event. He used his final
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: meal not to feed his body, but to plant an
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: idea in the minds of the public. He turned his
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: execution into a message for systemic peace. And that contrast
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: was so sharp that it actually resonated and helped change
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: the law.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It is a profound example of how a final meal
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: is never just about the food on the plate. It
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is a communication tool. And I think that brings us
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: beautifully to our synthesis for this deep dive.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It wraps it all up nicely.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: We've taken you, the listener, on a journey through some
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of the darkest corners of the human experience. But by
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: looking closely at a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: a bucket of original recipe KFC, an untouched cup of coffee,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a glass of sweet tea, and a single olive with
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the pit still inside, we realize we aren't just looking
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: at calories or menus. Not at all.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: We are looking at a taxonomy of human emotion in
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the absolute face of annihilation. Yes.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: We're looking at McVeigh's restless fear, Gacy's desperate nostalgia, Wuornos'
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: paralyzing trauma, Bundy's narcissistic defiance, Hill's unyielding righteousness, and Fager's
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: final desperate desire for a peaceful legacy. It proves that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: what we choose to consume is intimately, biologically tied to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: who we are.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Food is a language. And when you are completely out
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: of time and out of words, and the state has
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: taken away all of your agency... It might be the
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: only language you have left to speak.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So we want to leave you listening with this thought.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: The next time you sit down for your favorite meal,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: take a second to think about what those flavors really
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: mean to you.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Beyond just the taste.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Beyond just the taste. What memories do they trigger?
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Where do they transport your mind? Because food is never
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: just fuel. It is deeply, inextricably tied to our sense
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of safety, our personal history, and our very identity.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And as you think about that, I want to leave
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: you with one final question to mull over. We started
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: this deep dive by talking about the ancient Greeks. Right.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The ghosts.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Right. They fed the condemned a final meal out of
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: fear to keep their angry ghosts at bay. Today, we
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: tell ourselves that allowing a custom final meal is a
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: form of modern administrative mercy.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: We think we're being kind.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: But if you really think about it, what does a
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: society's willingness to grant or ban a last meal say
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: about us? Are we actually feeding the condemned for their
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: comfort in their final hours? Or are we feeding them
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: to make ourselves feel a little more humane about taking
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: their lives?