Death row murderer suffered ‘excruciating’ death after making last meal ‘mistake’

Warning: graphic content

A death row inmate - who suffered an ‘excruciating’ death - made a ‘mistake’ in his last meal request.

Wesley Ira Purkey, 68, from the US, was sent to death row in 2004 for the kidnapping, rape and murdering of a 16-year-old schoolgirl in 1998.

The killer lured Jennifer Long into his pickup truck outside a supermarket where he assulted the young girl and shot her dead.

Purkey then dismembered her body with a chainsaw and buried her in a pond in Kansas.

Her remains were never found.

Kansas Dept. of Corrections

That same year, he beat 80-year-old polio patient Mary Bales to death after he visited her home to fit in a kitchen tap.

Neighbours became aware of the incident as they alerted police, who came to the property, to arrest him.

Purkey pleaded guilty to Bales’ murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

However, it was when he confessed to Long’s murder that he was given the death penalty.

The 68-year-old was put to death by a lethal injection of pentobarbital and was administered the dose at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, on 16 July 2020.

Kansas Dept. of Corrections

In terms of his autopsy, it revealed 'severe bilateral acute pulmonary oedema' and 'frothy pulmonary oedema in trachea and main stem bronchi', meaning fluid entered his lungs which causes the feeling of drowning.

In fact, it's been described as 'among the most excruciating feelings known to man'.

Dr Gail Van Norman said: "It is a virtual medical certainty, that most, if not all, prisoners will experience excruciating suffering, including sensations of drowning and suffocation from (the drug) pentobarbital."

He had reportedly been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's and, the night before his execution, for his last meal Purkey requested a pecan pie.

The issue being, he asked to eat it 'later' - not realising there wouldn't be a later.

According to accounts, Purkey's last words were: "I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. I am deeply sorry.

"I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much. This sanitised murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever."

Long’s family were present at the execution, as her father William said: “We took care of today, what we needed to take care of. It has been a long time coming.

“He needed to take his last breath – he took my daughter’s last breath. And there’s some resolve. There is no closure, and there never will be because I won’t get my daughter back.”