Death row murderer used his final three words to give secret message to his family before being executed

A death row murderer once used his final words to send a message to his family.

In countries that still have the death penalty when a person is executed, they are often permitted to have a last meal and speak some final words before they die.

Some of them say some absolutely chilling things, while others encourage the people carrying out the execution to get on with it.

There are those who apologise to their victims and their families, while some continue to protest their innocence and affirm their religious beliefs in their final moments.

One man sentenced to death row for murder confused many with his final words until it was revealed that he used them to send a message to his family.

Getty Stock Photo

Robert Charles Towery was sentenced to death after killing 68-year-old Mark Jones when he robbed his home.

Towery and accomplice Randy Barker went to the home of Jones, who had previously loaned him money and hired him as a mechanic.

Letting them inside because they'd claimed their car had broken down and they needed help, Jones was then handcuffed by Barker as Towery had a gun trained on him before the pair stole valuables from his home.

Towery then injected the 68-year-old with battery acid and strangled him to death with plastic ties.

Mark Jones' body was found the next day, and Towery and Barker were caught when a security guard said he'd seen them trying to dump the 68-year-old's car.

Barker testified against his accomplice and was released from prison in 2001 after agreeing a plea deal.

Towery was sentenced to death and his execution carried out in 2012 when he was 47-years-old.

Clark Prosecutor

In his final words, he apologised to his victim's family and then sent a 'secret message' to his family.

Before his execution, he said: "I would like to apologise to Mark's family and friends for what I did to them. I would like to apologise to my family.

"So many times in my life I went left when I should have gone right and I went right when I should have gone left. It was mistake after mistake.

“I love my family. Potato, potato, potato."

As final words go 'potato, potato, potato' is particularly strange, but according to his attorney, Dale Baich, it was a message to his nephew which was supposed to refer to the sound a motorbike makes - as the two were 'Harley Davison buffs'.

According to the Arizona Mirror, Baich said that saying the vegetable's name three times in a row was his way of saying that 'everything was OK'.

Topics: US News, Crime, True Crime

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker