Chilling reason behind death row inmate’s single olive as his final meal
Musing on what your ideal last meal would be is an interesting if not morbid topic of conversation.
The altogether less spooky Dream Restaurant meals of the Off Menu podcast happily draw the conversation without the risk of tempting fate, but it’s unlikely that Ed Gamble and James Acaster would get regaled with the benefits of eating a single olive for your ideal final supper.
A single olive was indeed the death row request of Victor Harry Feguer. He was executed in 1963 at just 28 years old for the murder of Dr Edward Bartels.
Born in Michigan and executed in Iowa, Feguer supposedly raked through the Yellow Pages in pursuit of a medical professional to attack, landing upon Bartels.
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He told him that there was a woman in need of urgent medical attention, and so Dr Bartels sped to the address to help. The unwitting doctor was soon killed by a gunshot to the head.
Feguer denied the murder, and some theorised that he had been attempting to steal drugs from the doctor that he may have been carrying for prospective patients.
The convicted murderer put in a request to President John F Kennedy to have his death sentence commuted, but the ill-fated JFK denied him.
"Taking all factors into account, it is my decision that the petition should be and is hereby denied,” Kennedy wrote.
With his execution guaranteed, Feguer was asked what he would like his final meal to be.
Unlike the elaborate selections made by the likes of Killer Clown John Wayne Gacy and Gary Carl Simmons Jr, the latter of whom ordered a 29,000 calorie feast, Feguer’s selection was remarkably austere.
A single olive with the stone still inside it.
He reportedly told guards he hoped the olive stone would germinate and spawn an olive tree from his final resting place ‘as a sign of peace’.
After he died, it was reported that Feguer had the olive stone in one of his coat pockets.
Photographer Henry Hargreaves, who has remade various famous last meals as part of his ‘No Seconds’ collection, spoke to CBS News about Feguer’s strange last request.
"It's just such a polarising image,” he said.
"We think about last meals, and is it something that's going to be totally gluttonous, and then he just has a single olive.
"You know, it's so simple, beautiful, and kind of final. It's like a full stop at the end of his life."
All that being said, let’s not wax lyrical about a man who murdered another in cold blood.
It’s unclear whether he was indeed buried with the olive stone or if it spawned an olive tree in the end.
Topics: US Food
Rachael Davis