Skip to content

Top Navigation

PEOPLE.com PEOPLE.com
  • News
    • Coronavirus
    • Crime
    • Human Interest
    • Politics
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Country
    • Awards
    • Sports
    • Theater
    • Books
  • Coronavirus
  • Royals
  • Lifestyle
    • Style
    • Fashion
    • Beauty
    • Health
    • Parents
    • Home
    • Real Estate
    • Pets
    • Food
    • Shopping
    • Tech
  • PeopleTV
  • Shopping
    • Coupons

Profile Menu

Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription

More

  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Premium
Login
Logout
Subscribe

Explore PEOPLE.com

PEOPLE.com PEOPLE.com
  • Explore

    Explore

    • Every Tiara Worn at a Royal Wedding

      From Princess Beatrice to Meghan Markle Read More Next
    • Engineer Creates App To Translate Your Cat

      Find out what your cat is trying to tell you with a new cat app Read More Next
    • The Sweetest Photos of Princes Harry with Diana

      Princess Diana died when Harry was just 12 years old Read More Next
  • News

    News

    See All News

    Sean Connery's Cause of Death Revealed Weeks After He Dies at Age 90

    Sean Connery died on Oct. 31 at age 90
    • Coronavirus
    • Crime
    • Human Interest
    • Politics
  • Entertainment

    Entertainment

    See All Entertainment

    Coyote Ugly Turns 20: Where Is the Cast Now?

    • Celebrity
    • TV
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Country
    • Awards
    • Sports
    • Theater
    • Books
  • Coronavirus
  • Royals
  • Lifestyle

    Lifestyle

    See All Lifestyle

    Introducing ... PEOPLE's Products Worth the Hype

    • Style
    • Fashion
    • Beauty
    • Health
    • Parents
    • Home
    • Real Estate
    • Pets
    • Food
    • Shopping
    • Tech
  • PeopleTV
  • Shopping

    Shopping

    • Coupons

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription

More

  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Premium
Login
Logout
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

People is on Community!
Text us for exclusive photos and videos, royal news, and way more.
Text: 212-479-1704
  1. People.com
  2. Crime
  3. The Last Words of Infamous American Killers: 'It's a Good Day to Die'

The Last Words of Infamous American Killers: 'It's a Good Day to Die'

These convicted murderers had one final thing to say
By Jeff Truesdell
March 18, 2020 02:54 PM
Skip gallery slides
FB Tweet

1 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Clarence Ray Allen: 'Hoka Hey, It’s a Good Day to Die'

Credit: Splash News

While serving life in California’s Folsom Prison for the 1974 murder of his son’s girlfriend, who’d snitched on a robbery Clarence Ray Allen committed, Allen solicited hits on eight witnesses against him. A paroled fellow inmate later killed three of them, and was arrested carrying Allen’s list of names. His conviction for those added killings made Allen, age 76 when he died by lethal injection on Jan. 17, 2006, the second-oldest inmate executed by the U.S. in 30 years. 

His last words: “My last words will be, Hoka Hey, it’s a good day to die,” he said. “Thank you very much, I love you all. Good-bye.”

1 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

William Bonin: 'Think About It Seriously'

Credit: AP/REX/Shutterstock

Dubbed the “Freeway Killer” after many of his victims’ bodies were discovered along Southern California roadsides in 1979 and 1980, William Bonin was convicted for 14 murders of boys and young men — although he is suspected in the rape and murder of many more. Bonin, 49, died Feb. 23, 1996, at San Quentin State Prison by lethal injection. 

His last words: “I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law, that before they did that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously.”

2 of 10

3 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

George Bernard Harris: 'Somebody Needs to Kill My Trial Attorney'

Credit: Clark County Prosecutors Office

After a winning big in a Kansas City, Missouri, craps game on March 11, 1989, George Bernard Harris gave $500 to a man in exchange for two machine guns, then enlisted a second man to hold the guns for safekeeping. 

The second man enlisted a third — but when Harris wanted the guns back later that night, the third man couldn’t find them, and Harris shot him dead with a revolver. He later was picked up for a robbery, then charged and convicted for the murder, and executed on Sept. 13, 2000.

His last words: “Somebody needs to kill my trial attorney.”

3 of 10

Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

4 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Ted Bundy: 'Give My Love to My Family and Friends'

Credit: Getty

The exact number of rapes, murders and kidnappings carried out by Ted Bundy is unknown. He was convicted for killing two Florida State University sorority sisters in January 1978, and a 12-year-old girl three weeks later, all committed after he’d escaped from jail — twice — in Colorado, where he was facing charges in the 1975 murder of a nurse. Before being executed in Florida’s electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989, he confessed to 30 homicides across seven states between 1974 and 1978. 

His last words: “I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.”

4 of 10

Advertisement

5 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Aileen Wuornos: 'I’ll Be Back'

Credit: PETER COSGROVE/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Aileen Wournos was a sex worker along Florida's highways and claimed she only killed in self defense. But her shooting of several men in 1989 and 1990 – Wuornos was convicted in six of the murders – landed her on the state’s death row. Before she died by lethal injection on Oct. 9, 2002, she invoked the film Independence Day. Her last words:

“I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6th. Like the movie, big mothership and all. I’ll be back.”

5 of 10

6 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

John Wayne Gacy: 'Kiss My Ass'

Credit: Des Plaines Police Department/Tim Boyle/Getty

A killer who dressed as Pogo the Clown for kids’ parties and charity events around Chicago, John Wayne Gacy was convicted of murdering at least 33 teen boys and young men between 1972 and 1978. All were killed in his suburban Norwood Park ranch house, most of them strangled or asphyxiated, and Gacy buried 26 of the bodies in the crawl space beneath his home. In 1980 he was sentenced to die for 12 of those killings, and he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994. 

His last words: “Kiss my ass.”

6 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

7 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Westley Allen Dodd: 'Any Way Sex Offenders Could Be Stopped'

Credit: AP Photo/REX/Shutterstock

After several arrests and court-ordered therapy for child molestation convictions, Westley Allen Dodd pleaded guilty to the 1989 sexual assault and murder in Washington state of two brothers, 11 and 10 years old, and the subsequent abduction and murder of a 4-year-old boy in Oregon. He was executed by hanging on Jan. 5, 1993 — the first legal hanging in the U.S. in 28 years. 

His last words: “I was once asked by somebody, I don’t remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said no. I was wrong.”

7 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement

8 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Kimberly McCarthy: 'This Is Not a Loss, This Is a Win'

Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Pretending she was borrowing sugar, Kimberly McCarthy entered the home of a 71-year-old neighbor in Lancaster, Texas, stabbing and killing her during a 1997 robbery to support a crack-cocaine addiction. (She was accused of killing two other elderly women in 1998 but never faced trial in those cases.) Her June 26, 2013 death by lethal injection became the 500th execution in modern Texas history.

Her last words: “This is not a loss, this is a win. You know where I am going. I am going home to be with Jesus. Keep the faith. I love y’all. Thank you, chaplain.”  

8 of 10

Advertisement

9 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Jack Jones Jr.: 'I Love You Like a Child'

Credit: Splash News

In 1995, Jack Jones Jr. entered a county tax office in Bald Knob, Arkansas, where Mary Phillips worked, strangled her daughter Lacy, 11, then raped and murdered Phillips, 34. Investigators who arrived to document two homicides were startled when, after the flash of a camera, Lacy opened her eyes, showing she was still alive. Jones was convicted of murder and attempted murder, and executed by lethal injection on April 24, 2017.

His last words: “I hope over time you can learn who I really am and I am not a monster. There was a reason why those things happened that day. I am so sorry Lacy, try to understand I love you like a child.”

9 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

10 of 10

FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Rosendo Rodriguez III: 'I Have Run the Good Race'

Credit: AP/REX/Shutterstock

Rosendo Rodriguez III confessed to killing a 16-year-old girl in 2004, then packing her body in a piece of luggage and dumping it at the city landfill in San Antonio, Texas. He was convicted of murder for doing the same to a 29-year-old woman in 2005, and was linked to at least five other sexual assaults, before he was executed in Texas by lethal injection on March 27, 2018.

His last words: “I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race. Warden, I’m ready to join my father.”

10 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Jeff Truesdell

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 10 Clarence Ray Allen: 'Hoka Hey, It’s a Good Day to Die'
2 of 10 William Bonin: 'Think About It Seriously'
3 of 10 George Bernard Harris: 'Somebody Needs to Kill My Trial Attorney'
4 of 10 Ted Bundy: 'Give My Love to My Family and Friends'
5 of 10 Aileen Wuornos: 'I’ll Be Back'
6 of 10 John Wayne Gacy: 'Kiss My Ass'
7 of 10 Westley Allen Dodd: 'Any Way Sex Offenders Could Be Stopped'
8 of 10 Kimberly McCarthy: 'This Is Not a Loss, This Is a Win'
9 of 10 Jack Jones Jr.: 'I Love You Like a Child'
10 of 10 Rosendo Rodriguez III: 'I Have Run the Good Race'

Share options

Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Login

PEOPLE.com

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Advertise
  • Content Licensing
  • Sitemap
  • Student Offer this link opens in a new tab

Connect

People is on Community!
Text us for exclusive photos and videos, royal news, and way more.
Text: 212-479-1704
Newsletter Sign Up
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • Parents this link opens in a new tab
  • People en Español this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
  • Travel & Leisure this link opens in a new tab
© Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporationthis link opens in a new tab. People is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab Manage Push Notificationsthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab

Manage Push Notifications

If you would like to opt out of browser push notifications, please refer to the following instructions specific to your device and browser: Google Chrome and Android, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge.
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://people.com

View image

The Last Words of Infamous American Killers: 'It's a Good Day to Die'
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.