The Last Supper: Dobie Gillis Williams

On July 8, 1984, an intruder entered Sonja Kippers’ home through a bathroom window. Before the assailant eventually fled the scene Kippers was sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly, her husband just outside the bathroom door, struggling in vain to force his way in. Kippers eventually managed to open the door herself. She bled to death on the living room couch, waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

Dobie Gillis Williams was picked up in a police round-up not long afterwards; he living with his grandfather nearby and was known to the local authorities because he was on a 5 day furlough from Camp Beauregard, where he was serving time for a minor burglary. Williams was allegedly told that he would be held in custody until the officers “got what they wanted“. Police would subsequently claim that Williams confessed to the crime while being held, although this was not recorded. Williams had an IQ of 65 — below the cutoff to be considered intellectually disabled — and he was represented by a lawyer who would subsequently be disbarred for incompetence. There has been considerable controversy surrounding Williams’ conviction; the case was a subject of Sister Prejean’s 2005 book The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.

Williams was executed by lethal injection on Jan 8, 1999, after a series of unsuccessful appeals. In his final statement he said: "I just want to say, I don't have any hard feelings against anybody. God bless y'all. God bless."

His requested final meal was 12 chocolate bars.