The Last Supper: Jeffrey Allen Barney

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done.  I deserve this.  Jesus forgive me.”

These were the last words of Jeffrey Allen Barney.

There seems to be little record of Barney’s early days, although it is known that he already boasted an extensive juvenile record before he was let out of prison for automobile theft some time in his 23rd year.  Not long after his release Barney was taken under the wing of John Longsworth, a minister who had befriended Barney, helped him to find employment, and frequently invited the younger man into his home.

It was during one such visit, on November 24, 1981, when Barney got into an argument with the minister’s wife, Ruby Mae Longsworth.  She was repeatedly raped before Barney strangled her to death with a microphone cord.

Barney was executed by lethal injection on April 16, 1986.

Barney reportedly accepted full responsibility for his crimes and, in the end, believed that he deserved to die for what he had done. A witness in the death chamber described Barney as being “calm and cheerful” while the needles were inserted into his arm.

Barney’s requested final meal was Frosted Flakes cereal with milk. 

Symbolism and Inspiration

This composition pays homage to a 1608 painting by Oasis Beert, titled “Still Life with Cheeries and Strawberries in China Bowls”.  When I initially organized Barney’s cereal on the table my arrangement stuck rather closely to Beert’s; however, that composition didn’t seem to be working and, in the end, I opted to break away somewhat from my initial inspiration.  Nevertheless, I think that the similarities between my work and Beert’s are still palpable.  For example: the spoon dangling over the edge of the table is a direct reference to Beert’s foregrounded knife — largely the only cutlery used at the time and probably shared by all participants of the meal.

In my composition I have placed a red cloth, spilling out of the tipped carafe in the background.  This might suggest wine, or perhaps blood, and references the biblical last supper.  Perched upon the ragged red cloth is a single dead cicada.  This is an homage to the dragonfly and butterfly in the foreground of Beert’s arrangement.  In still life butterflies were a symbol of salvation; the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterly was viewed as a metaphor for the resurrection of Christ.  The dragonfly, on the other hand, would have been placed in opposition to this heavenly insect — these were considered creatures of the devil.  (At the time dragonflies were mistakenly thought to be a subspecies of houseflies; the connection to evil comes from references to Beelzebub as the “lord of the flies,” see 2 Kings 1:1-18.)  In my composition I sought to highlight the complexity of moral judgement by using the cicada as a kind of metaphorical stand-in for both the “evil” dragonfly and the “heavenly” butterfly at once.  On the one hand, the cicada is often used to represent immortality, personal transformation, and resurrection.  So in this sense it seems to serve a similar symbolic purpose very similar to the butterfly.  But at the same time the cicada is plainly a much uglier creature than the butterfly; to me it seems easy to imagine these creatures being deemed “evil” by some ancient peoples.