Edmund Zagorski, 63, was electrocuted in the chair at a maximum-security prison in Nashville on Thursday night after his last meal request of pickled pig knuckles and pig tails
A Tennessee man convicted of a 1980s double murder has been executed in the electric chair, after insisting on the rarely used method rather than lethal injection.
Edmund Zagorski, 63, was electrocuted in the chair at a maximum-security prison in Nashville on Thursday night after his last meal request of pickled pig knuckles and pig tails.
Zagorski’s official time of death was 7.26pm.
He had opted for the electric chair over a lethal injection after arguing it would be a quicker and less painful way to die.
His attorneys then launched a last minute appeal on Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, saying it was unconstitutional to force him to choose between the electric chair and lethal injection.
He is the first inmate in five years to be put to death by electrocution in the United States. He became only the second person to die in the electric chair in Tennessee since 1960.
Nationwide, only 14 other people have been put to death in the electric chair since 2000, including a Virginia inmate in 2013.
He is the first inmate in five years to be put to death by electrocution in the United States. Pictured above is the electric chair Zagorski was electrocuted in on Thursday
Zagorski was convicted of the April 1983 slayings of two men during a drug deal.
He shot victims John Dotson and Jimmy Porter and then slit their throats after robbing the two men after they came to him to buy marijuana.
Tennessee’s electric chair was inspected on October 10 and found to meet the criteria for an execution, according to state documents.
The device was originally rebuilt in the late 1980s by a self-taught execution expert, Fred Leuchter, who feared the device would malfunction on Thursday.
It’s only been used to execute one person before: Daryl Holton, in 2007.
Leuchter had a successful career in the execution business before his reputation was tainted by his claim that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. He is no longer welcome in the prison system.