By all accounts, Ronnie Lee Gardner was a violent criminal. In 1980, he was given a 30-year jail sentence for robbery; in 1984 he escaped custody, killing barman Melvyn Otterstrom while on the run. In 1985, while on trail for Otterstrom’s murder, he again attempted to escape the courthouse, shooting and killing Michael Burdell with a gun slipped to him by a female accomplice. The firearms that Gardner used in his crimes against humanity were turned on him last night, when Gardner became the first person put to death via firing squad since 1977.
Only Utah and Oklahoma still have the firing squad as an option for execution. Gardner requested the firing squad in April. Gardner’s daughter Brandie explained her father’s choice this way: “He told me: ‘I lived by the gun, I murdered with a gun, so I will die by the gun‘.” Gardner’s last meal was steak, lobster, vanilla ice cream, apple pie, and 7Up; he spent his last hours watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy and reading thriller novel Divine Justice.
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