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Feguer wanted a single olive as his last meal in prison. (Representative Image)
Victor Harry Feguer was convicted for the murder of a doctor and was sentenced to death.
It has become a tradition for death row inmates to make last requests for years now. While some of them are usually mundane, others are downright strange, bringing up a lot of questions about such requests. Of course, not all requests are granted. When it comes to having that one last meal, people’s choices differ. Some inmates ask for a full course meal before their sentence, while some of them make unusual requests. So was the case of Victor Harry Feguer, who was executed by hanging in 1968 at the age of 28. Following the murder of a doctor, whom he randomly found through the Yellow Pages, Feguer was sentenced to death.
Oddly, for his last meal, Feguer asked for a single olive with its pit inside. Henry Hargreaves, who photographed the inmate’s meal, said, “It’s just such a polarising image. We think about the last meal and whether it’s something that’s going to be totally gluttonous, and then he just has a single olive. You know, it’s so simple, beautiful, and kind of final. It’s like a full stop at the end of his life,” as quoted by the Daily Star.
It is believed that he wanted to have one olive because he hoped an olive tree would grow from his corpse, as the “tree of peace.” His last words before his death were reportedly, “I sure hope I am the last one to go.”
The Case of Victor Harry Feguer
According to official data, Victor Harry Feguer was looking for some sort of drug when he randomly picked Dr Edward Bartels’ name from the Yellow Pages and called him up under the disguise of a patient, reporting a fake case at an address. While the doctor immediately reached the spot, Feguer misled him to a different location, where he was eventually kidnapped. Later, the doctor was killed, with many believing that he refused to provide the accused with the drugs.
Days after the crime, the killer tried to sell the doctor’s car when he was caught by the FBI. Despite all the evidence against him, including the car, murder weapon and Bartel’s body, Feguer pleaded not guilty. After multiple appeals, he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.