Death Row lag who killed Yellow Pages doc had humble final meal for odd cause

While most prisoners on Death Row choose to go full out for their famous last meals – one lag decided he’d be humble for one very strange reason.

Victor Harry Feguer was the last federal inmate to be put death in the state of Iowa, and was executed by hanging in 1963, aged 28. It was a seemingly random murder of a doctor he found through the Yellow Pages in 1961 that saw him sentenced to death.

Feguer called a Dr Edward Bartels who then drove to his location. Feguer took out his gun and forced Bartels to drive to Illinois where he shot the doctor in the head before dumping the body in a field. It’s thought Feguer wanted drugs and when Bartels refused, he killed him.

READ MORE: Death Row inmate’s final meal saw hundreds of homeless people fed pizza

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The killer then tried to sell the car in Birmingham, Alabama, but was caught by the FBI. Feguer professed his innocence despite the car, murder weapon, and Bartel’s body being discovered – adding someone else must have murdered the doctor.

Oddly, for his last meal, Feguer requested a single olive with its stone. Photographer Henry Hargreaves, who captured an image of Feguer’s meal, said: “It’s just such a polarising image. 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.”

However, it’s been rumoured the real reason Feguer chose a single olive is because he hoped when he was buried that an olive tree would grow from his corpse. The night before his execution a guard reported that he wanted the “fruit of the tree of peace” to emerge from his grave.

His last words before his death were reportedly: “I sure hope I’m the last one to go.”

Photographer Hargreaves also spoke on why he decided to create the photo series, reports CBS. He said: “In my photography I have always been fascinated by the mix of the mundane and the extraordinary.

“So while I was reading about efforts to stop the last meal tradition in Texas, it sparked my interest. In the most unnatural moment there is (state sponsored death), what kind of requests for food had been made?”

Some of the more famous last meals meals include that of John Wayne Gacy who had a bucket of KFC chicken, a pound of strawberries, French fries, and a Diet Coke, 12 fried prawns; and Ricky Ray Rector who chowed down steak, fried chicken, cherry Kool-Aid, and pecan pie. Howver, he left the pecan pie behind, telling a guard that he was “saving it for later”.

Ronnie Lee Gardner is well known for requesting to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy while polishing off some steak, a lobster tail, apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Not a bad send off!

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