All PRISONERS EXECUTED in March 2025 (US): Last Meals & Words
A Historic and Harrowing Month for the American Justice System
March 2025 will forever be etched in the annals of the United States criminal justice system as a month of unprecedented reckoning. Across the nation, a chilling wave of executions brought closure to decades-old nightmares, pulling back the curtain on the darkest corners of the human psyche. From a firing squad in South Carolina to the controversial use of nitrogen hypoxia in Louisiana, the methods of execution were as varied—and debated—as the horrific crimes that warranted them.
For the victims’ families, these executions marked the agonizing end of a grueling wait. For the condemned, it was the final countdown. We are taking an unflinching, comprehensive look into the lives, the unimaginable crimes, and the surreal final moments—including last words and last meals—of every prisoner executed in the US during this historic month.
South Carolina’s First Firing Squad: The Execution of Brad Keith Sigman
On March 7, 2025, the state of South Carolina crossed a historic threshold. Brad Keith Sigman, 67, became the first person in the state to be executed by a firing squad. But to understand the gravity of this moment, one must look back at the bloody trail of obsession and violence he left behind.
The Crime of Obsession
In April 2001, Sigman’s three-year relationship with Rebecca Barbara came to an end. Unable to accept the rejection, his behavior rapidly spiraled into severe stalking and obsession. The night before the tragedy, fueled by a dangerous cocktail of alcohol and cocaine, Sigman plotted to take Rebecca by force.
On April 27, 2001, in Taylor, South Carolina, he broke into the home of Rebecca’s parents, David and Glattis Lark. Armed with a baseball bat, Sigman brutally attacked the elderly couple, repeatedly striking them until their skulls were crushed. He then stole a firearm and waited in the shadows for Rebecca to return. When she walked through the door, she stepped into a nightmare. Held at gunpoint, she was forced into a car, with Sigman intending to kidnap her and cross state lines into North Carolina.
Miraculously, Rebecca fought for her life, jumping from the moving vehicle. Though Sigman fired a shot at her, he missed, allowing her to escape and trigger a massive, 11-day multi-state manhunt that ended with his capture in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
The Final Protocol
Despite his defense team arguing that drug use and emotional distress should spare his life, a jury sentenced him to death in July 2002. After exhausting all appeals—ending with a Supreme Court rejection in 2021—Sigman faced the firing squad.
The Execution Details:
The Method: Strapped into a metal chair in a room that also houses the electric chair. A hood was placed over his head, and a physical target was pinned directly over his heart.
The Executioners: Three voluntary corrections officers armed with loaded rifles stood 15 feet away behind a wall with a concealed opening.
The Last Meal: Four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake, and sweet tea. (Prison officials notably denied his request for three massive buckets of KFC to share with fellow inmates).
The Final Words: Sigman used his final moments to advocate against capital punishment. “I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty. ‘An eye for an eye’ was used as justification… At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. We are now under God’s grace and mercy.”
At 6:08 p.m., the officers fired. Brad Sigman was pronounced dead moments later.
Louisiana’s Controversial Return: Nitrogen Hypoxia for Jesse Dean Hoffman Jr.
Just a week later, the spotlight shifted to Louisiana. On March 18, 2025, the state carried out its first execution in over 15 years. But it wasn’t just the return of the death penalty that shocked the public; it was the method. Jesse Dean Hoffman Jr. was executed using nitrogen hypoxia, an invisible, odorless gas that deprives the body of oxygen.
A Thanksgiving Nightmare
The tragic story began on Thanksgiving morning, November 28, 1996, when a duck hunter stumbled upon a horrifying scene in St. Tammany Parish. Lying near a makeshift dock in the Middle Pearl River was the naked, lifeless body of Mary Molly Elliot, a 28-year-old advertising executive who had been reported missing by her frantic husband the night before.
Police investigations quickly uncovered chilling ATM security footage. It showed a visibly terrified Mary withdrawing cash, standing next to an 18-year-old man wearing a valet jacket. That man was Jesse Hoffman, a valet at the Sheraton parking garage where Mary parked daily.
Under interrogation, Hoffman’s lies quickly unraveled. He eventually confessed to a horrifying ordeal: he kidnapped Mary at gunpoint, forced her to withdraw money, and then ordered her to drive to a desolate area. Despite promising not to hurt her if she cooperated, he sexually assaulted her in the back of her own car. He then forced the terrified, naked woman to walk down a dirt path to the river’s edge, where he made her kneel and shot her execution-style in the back of the head.
To cover his tracks, Hoffman tossed her belongings and went right back to work, claiming he had just taken a long lunch break.
The Decades of Limbo and a New Method
Convicted in 1998, Hoffman sat on death row for 25 years, trapped in legal limbo as Louisiana struggled to procure lethal injection drugs. The introduction of nitrogen hypoxia changed his fate.
His legal team fought desperately against it, arguing it violated the Constitution and his religious Buddhist breathing practices. They also claimed the tight industrial mask would trigger severe PTSD and claustrophobia stemming from childhood abuse. The appeals failed.
On execution day, the 46-year-old Hoffman accepted his fate in absolute silence. He declined a final meal and offered no final statement, becoming the first inmate in Louisiana to die by this highly controversial method.
The Man Who Demanded Death: Aaron Brian Gunches in Arizona
While most inmates fight tooth and nail to delay their executions, Aaron Brian Gunches was a rare and disturbing anomaly. Executed on March 19, 2025, for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, Gunches spent years demanding the state kill him as quickly as possible.
A Drive into the Dark Desert
In November 2002, Ted Price was staying with his ex-wife, Katherine, in Mesa, Arizona. After escalating tensions resulted in Katherine smashing a telephone into Ted’s face, Gunches—a friend of Katherine’s—arrived and decided to handle the situation his own way.
Gunches convinced Katherine’s roommates to help load a dazed Ted into a car, claiming he was taking him to the bus station. But the destination was a lie. Driving deep into the dark, desolate Arizona desert off the Beeline Highway, Gunches ordered the car to stop. Ted, sensing the imminent danger, tried to flee. He was met with four gunshots. Gunches stood over his body, gun in hand, before returning to the car and discarding Ted’s belongings in a dumpster.
Gunches managed to stay on the run for two months until a routine traffic stop in 2003. When pulled over by Arizona State Trooper Robert Flannry, Gunches shot the officer twice and fled. A massive 50-officer manhunt ensued, ending with Gunches found hiding in a haystack, exhausted and out of options.
A Legal Rollercoaster of His Own Making
Gunches pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in 2004. Defending himself, he offered zero defense and was sentenced to death in 2008. When the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the sentence (ruling the instant death did not meet the legal standard for “cruelty”), Gunches again represented himself in the 2013 retrial, again refusing to fight for his life.
In 2022, he petitioned the court to issue his execution warrant, citing a desire for justice and closure. But in 2023, after reading gruesome reports of botched lethal injections in Arizona, he withdrew his request, calling the method “torture.” His execution was paused by Governor Katie Hobbs pending a protocol review.
By 2025, however, his patience had run out. Tired of the endless delays, he demanded his death warrant be reinstated.
The Execution Details:
The Method: Lethal Injection.
The Last Meal: A massive feast of onion rings, a spicy gyro, a barbecue gyro, baklava, and a double western bacon cheeseburger with fries.
The Final Words: Gunches remained steadfast in his apathy, refusing to speak any final words. At 53 years old, he was pronounced dead.
The Hitchcock Home Invasion: Wendell Ardan Gryom in Oklahoma
Just one day later, on March 20, 2025, Oklahoma carried out the execution of Wendell Ardan Gryom. His crime was a masterclass in senseless brutality that tore two families apart.
A Joyride Turned Bloodbath
On November 2, 2005, Gryom picked up a homeless hitchhiker, Jesse Johns, while driving his truck. As they drank whiskey, their conversation shifted to making quick money through robberies. They purchased brown cotton gloves at a convenience store and drove deep into rural Blaine County, hunting for a target.
They found it in a secluded home near Hitchcock, Oklahoma. Inside, Lauren Drew-Cop was caring for her two babies alongside her best friend, Amber Matthews.
Gryom knocked on the door, asked if Lauren’s husband was home, and walked away when Amber said no. But seconds later, he turned back, raised his .44 caliber black powder pistol, and shattered the glass door. He shot Lauren in the hand as she lunged to protect her family, shoved her onto the couch, pressed the gun to her head, and fired. Miraculously, she survived the blast, only for Gryom to shoot her again in the hip.
“He just laughed. He kept shooting and laughing like it was all a game to him. There was no panic, no sign of regret, just pure cruelty.”
While Gryom hunted Amber through the house, eventually executing her, a bleeding Lauren managed to crawl to the garage and run outside. Jesse Johns, waiting by the truck, alerted Gryom that someone was escaping. Gryom fired at Lauren as she fled down the road, but she managed to flag down passing truckers, gasping, “My friend and my kids are dead.”
The Clumsy Escape and Final Justice
Gryom and Johns fled on a stolen four-wheeler, which quickly ran out of gas. They hitched a ride from a farmer to a local diner, where their jittery behavior prompted clerks to call the police. Gryom was found hiding in a rock pile, his clothes and weapons soaked in the victims’ blood. Inside the house, police discovered that by some miracle, Lauren’s two babies had survived the massacre.
Despite fighting his sentence for 19 years, filing endless appeals claiming lethal injection was inhumane, Gryom’s time ran out on March 20, 2025.
The Execution Details:
The Last Meal: A Canadian bacon supreme pizza, a pint of vanilla ice cream, and a pint of Coca-Cola.
The Final Words: “I apologize to all of you that I’ve hurt.”
At 10:13 a.m., the 56-year-old was pronounced dead by lethal injection.
A Family’s Betrayal: Edward Thomas James in Florida
The bloody month concluded later that same evening in Florida. Edward Thomas James, 63, was executed by lethal injection after spending 30 years on death row for a crime that defines the phrase “biting the hand that feeds.”
The Ultimate Betrayal
Eddie James had a troubled life. Introduced to drugs by his own father at age 11, he spiraled into addiction and violence. After burning every bridge, he was taken in by Betty Dick, a kind-hearted matriarch in Castleberry, Florida. Betty gave him a room in her home, treating him like family. To Betty’s grandchildren, he was the “fun uncle.”
But behind the facade was a monster fueled by crack, PCP, and LSD.
On September 19, 1993, after swallowing 10 tabs of LSD, James returned to Betty’s quiet house. The grandchildren were asleep in the living room. James grabbed 8-year-old Tony Neiner by the neck, crushing her windpipe until her bones cracked. Believing her dead, he dragged the little girl to his room, sexually assaulted her, and threw her behind his bed, where she suffocated.
His bloodlust unsatiated, he marched into Betty’s bedroom. Before the woman who had sheltered him could even open her eyes, he bludgeoned her head with a heavy pewter candlestick. When she cried out, “Why, Eddie? Why?”, he continued the assault. Nine-year-old Wendy woke up to the horrific sight. James tied the terrified child up, locked her in the bathroom, and returned to the kitchen for a butcher knife, which he plunged into Betty’s back.
Covered in the blood of his benefactors, James calmly took a shower, stole Betty’s jewelry and car, and fled into the night.
Justice Delayed, But Not Denied
James was a fugitive for weeks until a viewer of America’s Most Wanted spotted him in a California unemployment office. Upon arrest, he calmly detailed his atrocities in two videotaped confessions.
His defense team blamed his actions on a lifetime of severe substance abuse that destroyed his brain. The jury was unmoved. Sentenced to death in 1995, James spent exactly three decades locked in a cell.
On March 20, 2025, Eddie James faced the ultimate penalty. He had no visitors on his final day. He declined to give any final statement. He was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m.
The surviving family members expressed a profound sense of relief. As one relative stated, “Tony never got to live, and we just wish you guys could understand the power that he had over this family for 31 years.”
A Dark Chapter Closed
March 2025 will go down in history as a stark reminder of the devastating ripple effects of violent crime. Five men, five horrific stories, and five brutal ends. While the methods of execution continue to spark intense ethical and constitutional debates across the nation, for the families of David and Glattis Lark, Mary Molly Elliot, Ted Price, Amber Matthews, Betty Dick, and little Tony Neiner, this month offered something the legal system rarely provides: finality.
