UPDATE: Dead Man Joking – Death Row Inmate FAILS To Tell Joke As Last Words

Patrick Knight, 39, had been soliciting jokes on the Internet, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said on Monday.

But when the moment came, Knight thanked God for his friends and asked for help for innocent men on death row. He named several he said were innocent. His voice shaking and nearly in tears, he said, “Not all of us are innocent, but those are.”

After expressing love to some friends, he said, “I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That’s the biggest joke. I deserve this.”

“And the other joke is that I am not Patrick Bryan Knight and y’all can’t stop this execution now. Go ahead, I’m finished.”

Nine minutes later at 6:21 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

Knight was sentenced to die for the August 1991 murder of his two elderly neighbors in Amarillo, Texas.

Lyons said a friend of Knight’s set up a page on the social networking website MySpace.com to solicit jokes, and “hundreds” of suggestions have arrived in the mail.

“I’ll be enjoying my last days on Earth,” Knight wrote on the Web site. “I’m not asking for pen pals, but I’m asking you to spread the word that I am holding a contest. I want people to send me their best jokes, and to keep me and others with (execution) dates laughing.”

Texas leads the nation with 396 executions. None of those put to death have ever joked about it, Lyons said.

“We’ve certainly had some people who have recited a poem or a Bible verse, some people who have asked forgiveness or who pray,” she said. “This is, to my knowledge, the first time anybody has told a joke as their last words.”

JOKESTARTERS:

• So this guy’s guilty of killing two neighbors in 1991. And he’s going to die. And he wants to go out by telling a joke? I got a joke for you buddy – who’s a killer, an idiot and soon to be dead? YOU.
• What a relief that this guy didn’t try using Jokestarter…they prolly woulda killed him much faster!

SOURCE:

• Reuters