A death row inmate in Tennessee who will die by electric chair has been served his last meal three hours before his scheduled execution at 8pm on Thursday evening.
Nicholas Sutton, 58, ordered fried pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy and peach pie with vanilla ice cream, the Tennessee Department of Correction said. Death row inmates typically have a $20 limit for their last meal.
Sutton’s fate was sealed on Wednesday when Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he would not grant him clemency – despite the inmate having support from family members of his victims as well as past and present prison workers.
Nicholas Sutton, 58, was served his last meal three hours before he was scheduled to be executed on Thursday evening at Nashville maximum security prison
Sutton was sentenced to death in 1986 for killing fellow inmate Carl Estep in a conflict over a drug deal in an East Tennessee jail.
He is scheduled to be executed at a Nashville maximum security prison, where he was moved to a cell next to the death chamber on Tuesday and put under 24-hour surveillance.
Sutton has chosen to die in the electric chair, an option in Tennessee for prisoners whose crimes were committed before 1999. If executed, Sutton would be the fifth person to die in the state’s electric chair in the past 16 months.
Estep´s oldest daughter has said Sutton did her family a favor when he killed her father, who she describes as an ‘evil man’.
Rosemary Hall said that her father, who was jailed for raping her stepsister when he died, set their house on fire and deliberately caused a traffic accident that killed her baby sister.
Former prison Former Correction Lt. Tony Eden (center) is pictured with Nicholas Sutton and his wife Reba on their wedding day in 1994. Eden described Sutton as ‘the most rehabilitated prisoner I met working in maximum security prisons’ and said he saved his life in a riot
She described his death as a blessing. ‘To say that was the best day of my life is an understatement,’ she said in a statement that was included in Sutton´s clemency petition.
‘I felt as though a 100-pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I thought to myself, `There is a God!”
She called Estep an ‘evil man’ and accused him of setting their house on fire and deliberately causing a traffic accident that killed her baby sister. Estep was in prison for raping Hall´s stepsister when Sutton killed him, she said.
Despite Hall’s support, Governor Lee decided to allow Sutton’s execution go ahead.
Tennessee Govenor Bill Lee refused to grant clemency to Sutton on Wednesday as his legal options to escape execution dwindled
Three men have been executed since Governor Lee took office, including one who became a devout Christian and religious leader while in prison.
‘After careful consideration of Nicholas Sutton´s request for clemency and a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening,’ he said on Wednesday.
At the time of Estep´s killing, Sutton was already serving time for murdering three people, including his grandmother, in 1979.
Friends described a childhood marked by abandonment, abuse and neglect in his clemency petition. They said he later a spiraled into drug abuse.
Former Correction Lt. Tony Eden said that Sutton had reformed since he was imprisoned as a teenager.
‘I can confidently state that Nick Sutton is the most rehabilitated prisoner that I met working in maximum security prisons over the course of 30 years,’ he said.
Eden believes Sutton may have saved his life during a prison riot in 1985 by confronting a group of armed inmates who were trying to take Eden hostage.
‘If Nick Sutton was released tomorrow, I would welcome him into my home and invite him to be my neighbor,’ Eden wrote.
Former counselor Cheryl Donaldson also believes Sutton may have saved her life when he sprang into action and called for help after she slipped and hit her head hard on a concrete prison floor.
Donaldson also described how her own brother’s killing prompted a very frank conversation with Sutton.
An electric chair at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution under the jurisdiction of Tennessee’s Department of Correction in Nashville. He would be the fifth person to die in the state by electric chair since 2018
‘Nick told me he deeply regretted his crimes, constantly reflected on his wrongs, his victims and their families, and is haunted by the lives he has taken,’ Donaldson stated.
The mother of Paul House, a former death row inmate who was later freed when a judge overturned his conviction based on new evidence, said last week that she was doing all she could to advocate for Sutton. She said Sutton cared for her son after he developed multiple sclerosis in prison, including helping him eat and shower.
‘I´m telling you right now, my son would be dead if it wasn’t for Nick,’ Joyce House said in a telephone interview.
Relatives of another of Sutton’s victims, Charles Almon, were also among those who requested clemency. Almon’s nephew and namesake, Charles Maynard, said his close-knit family never got over his uncle’s death, but the past few months have been especially painful as Sutton’s execution date approaches.
Maynard said he doesn’t feel executing Sutton will solve anything. ‘It just ends my uncle’s story with another killing,’ Maynard said in a phone interview.
He said he and his daughter Anna Lee are considering attending a vigil to be held by Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty if the execution goes forward.
In 1985, Sutton was serving time at the Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility for three murders in 1979.
As prison guards were on a shift change on January 15, Sutton and Thomas Street entered Estep’s cell and stabbed him 38 times in the chest and neck with two homemade knives, prosecutors said.
One of the inmates also said Estep was a marijuana dealer at the facility who had sold the men “bad merchandise” and refused to refund their money. He testified that after the men took Estep´s watch, Estep threatened to kill Sutton.
In 1986, a Morgan County Criminal Court jury convicted Sutton of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Street was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. A third man who was accused of taking part in the attack was acquitted.