LET’S ROCK..
DOUBLE murderer Edmund Zagorski ate pickled pigs’ knuckles and tails as his last meal, before saying “let’s rock” moments before he was executed in an electric chair.
Witnesses to his death said the killer alternated between grimacing and smiling as a large sea sponge soaked in saline was put on his shaved head.
Guards wiped his face clear of water before shrouding it with a large black cloth and placing a metal helmet on his head. He then received 1,750 volts.
Zagorski had insisted on the chair rather than lethal injection. It was America’s first use of the method for five years.
Witnesses said he mostly looked ahead, but did glance around the death chamber in the minutes before his death.
He smiled at those watching, including members of his victims’ families, as they stood behind a window in the chamber. Asked if he had any last words just moments before the execution, Zagorski responded: “Let’s rock.”
He was strapped into the electric chair with buckles and had electrodes fixed to his feet. Witnesses noted his fists clenched when the first volts of electricity were applied for 20 seconds and he raised up in his chair when each jolt of electricity went through him.
His lawyer Kelley Henry said Zagorski’s fingers appeared to either dislocate or break due to the force with which he pulled against the straps.
She also said there were signs he was breathing during a short pause before the second jolt was administered for 15 seconds. Zagorski did not move once the electricity stopped.
He was pronounced dead at 7.26pm at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, in Nashville. Tennessee state law allows condemned prisoners, who committed their crimes before January 1999, to opt for electrocution.
Zagorski was convicted of the April 1983 murders of John Dale Dotson, of Hickman County, and Jimmy Porter, of Dickson.
Prosecutors argued Zagorski lured them into the woods in Robertson County with the promise to sell them marijuana and then shot them, slit their throats and stole their money
The 63-year-old had been set to die by lethal injection on October 11, but he opted for electrocution. Pigs’ tails last meal