Murderer Robert Gleason Jr was impatient to die – so to speed things up, he started killing his fellow inmates.
And he told prison bosses and the press that he wouldn’t stop until he was put to death in the electric chair.
The 42-year-old was given a life sentence without parole for the 2007 murder of Michael Kent Jamerson, and marked the two year anniversary of his crime by strangling his 63-year-old cellmate at Wallens Ridge State Prison with bed sheets.
A year later in the maximum security Red Onion Prison, as he waited to be sentenced for the murder of Harvey Watson, Gleason Jr claimed his next victim, 24-year-old Aaron Cooper.
Shockingly, he managed to strangle the younger man to death through a wire fence that kept them apart as they exercised in solitary pens.
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(Image: Virginia Department of Corrections)
The two murders were enough to get Gleason given the death sentence, and he voluntarily waived the opportunity to appeal.
He also voluntarily asked for the electric chair, and was the first person since 2010 to die that way in Virginia, who also offer lethal injection as a method of death.
But even though he had got his much-wanted date with ‘the chair’, he still had to wait a while to die.
Cooper was murdered on August 28 2010, and it wasn’t until January 16, 2013 that Gleason was strapped in to the chair at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.
(Image: Alamy Stock Photo)
Local press reported that he was typically antagonistic and unpleasant, right until he was declared dead at 9:08pm.
After he was strapped in to the wooden chair he was winking, nodding and smiling at his spiritual adviser, Tim ‘Bam Bam’ Spradling, who told prison officials that was his signal that he was ready to go.
Speaking in Irish Gaelic, he told the small group of people at his execution “kiss my a**”, adding “Put me on the highway going to Jackson and call my Irish buddies… God bless.”
A thick leather strap was pulled across his eyes and mouth before a brine-soaked sponge was strapped to his right calf and another fastened to his head. This is to better conduct electricity throughout the body leading to a faster and less painful death.
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Power cables were then connected to Gleason’s head and leg before a key was turned into a wall, activating the system.
With the last push from a button from behind a one-way window, the first cycle of electricity was activated, sending approximately 1,800 volts at 7.5 amps for 30 seconds before it was decreased to 250 volts at 1.5 amps for the next 60 seconds.
This went on for five minutes to make sure the triple murderer was dead.