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Carman Deck: Death row murderer gets ribeye steak and shrimp for his final meal

Carmen Deck was served the slap-up feast at 1:00 p.m., and was given a lethal injection five hours later at the state jail in Bonne Terre, Missouri

Carman Deck, a double murder death row convict was offered ribeye steak and shrimp as his final meal before being executed by lethal injection. Deck, 56, was served the slap-up feast at 1:00 p.m., and five hours later, he was executed at the state jail in Bonne Terre, Missouri, on May 3, Tuesday evening. After having his sentence for the 1996 homicides of elderly couple James and Zelma Long overturned three times since the gruesome deaths in July 1996, his execution was clouded in controversy.

Deck, then 30 years old, was accused of fatally shooting James and Zelma Long in the back of the head and robbing them in 1996. Deck's defense claimed at the trial that he confessed to the killings, while the police said it was a false confession. He was given a lethal injection and was proclaimed dead 10 minutes later at the state prison. 

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The murderer's final meal featured ribeye steak, prawns, asparagus, salad with Italian dressing, cottage cheese, and V-8 Juice, among other things, according to reports. He is the fifth person in the United States to be executed this year, and his fate was sealed when Missouri Governor Mike Parson refused to grant him any clemency.

Parson said in a statement, "Mr. Deck has received due process, and three separate juries of his peers have recommended sentences of death for the brutal murders he committed. The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Deck's sentence according to the Court's order and deliver justice."

Deck's first conviction was overturned on appeal due to jury instructions that were incorrect. Deck was condemned to death a second time, but the US Supreme Court overturned it, claiming that his being shackled in court throughout the sentencing phase affected the jury. In 2008, a third jury returned death verdicts, but the sentence was annulled by a federal judge who agreed with Deck's defense that there was insufficient evidence in the third penalty phase to sustain a death sentence. 

In 2020, a federal appeals court overturned the judge's judgement, restoring the death penalty. Additional appeals to the United States Supreme Court were turned down. "Tonight, justice was served," Missouri Department of Corrections Director Anne Precythe said. At 6:10 p.m. CT, after Deck was pronounced dead.

Deck's attorney, Elizabeth Carlyle, termed his execution "unjust and immoral," claiming that Deck "endured a pattern of abuse, neglect, and abandonment, which was mitigating evidence the Missouri Supreme Court called 'substantial.'" According to Carlyle, close family members trained him to steal, resulting in a prison sentence that "transformed him from a nonviolent thief into the person who committed two terrible murders."

Carlyle added that the third jury did not hear from anyone who could speak about his "horrific childhood." "Due to the passage of time caused by the State of Missouri, the jury did not hear from a single live witness who knew Carman before the crime," Carlyle stated. "This botched process simply provides insufficient guardrails to support taking Carman's life. Life imprisonment without parole would have been a just and adequate punishment for him." According to a corrections department official, members of the Long family were there throughout the execution, but no members of Deck's family were.