Death Row man gets pizza wish
A man executed on Death Row got his final wish from beyond the grave.
A convicted murderer put to death in Tennessee this week got his last meal wish after he died.
Philip Workman, 53, requested that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person near the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee.
Prison officials refused to send out a pizza saying it was not permissible for them to donate taxpayer’s money to charity and Workman died on Wednesday by lethal injection.
The £10 budget for his’special meal request’ went unspent.
But news accounts of his request touched a nerve with the public.
Dozens of local residents stepped in to ensure shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas hours after Workman, a convicted murderer, was put to death.
‘I was like,’Wow, Jesus!'” said Marvin Champion, an employee of Nashville’s Rescue Mission, which provides
‘I used to be homeless, so I know how rough it gets. I seen some bad times – not having enough food, the cupboards are bare. But we got pizza to feed enough people for a while.’
One resident, Donna Spangler, heard about Workman’s request and immediately called her friends.
They all pitched in for the £600 bill to buy 150 pizzas, which they sent to the Rescue Mission.
‘Philip Workman was trying to do a good deed and no one would help him,’ said the 55-year-old.
‘I knew my husband would have a heart attack – I put some of it on the credit card. But I thought we’ll find a way to pay for them later,’ she said.
‘I just felt like I had to do something positive.’
Seventeen pizzas also arrived at Nashville’s Oasis Centre, a shelter that helps about 260 teenagers in crisis.
Executive director Hal Cato said:’We talked to the kids and they understand what this is tied to and they know that this man [Workman] wanted to do something to point out the problems of homelessness.’
Workman was homeless and high on cocaine when he robbed a Wendy’s diner in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1981, and killed Memphis police lieutenant Ronald Oliver.
His lawyers argued his gun’involuntarily discharged’ when he was hit on the head by a police officer with the bullet killing Lt Oliver.
But it was not enough to convince a court to overturn the death sentence.
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