{"id":12018,"date":"2025-11-19T10:42:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=12018"},"modified":"2025-11-19T10:42:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:42:47","slug":"bizarre-reason-death-row-inmate-requested-a-lump-of-dirt-for-his-last-meal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=12018","title":{"rendered":"Bizarre reason death row inmate requested a lump of dirt for his last meal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"54\" data-end=\"439\">James Edward Smith was executed in 1990 for fatally shooting insurance agent Larry Rohus during a 1983 robbery in Houston. Although the murder was disturbing, Smith became most infamous for his bizarre final-meal request: a pile of <em data-start=\"286\" data-end=\"298\">rhaeakunda<\/em> dirt used in voodoo rituals. He hoped to use it in a reincarnation ritual, but prison staff refused because it wasn\u2019t an approved food item.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"441\" data-end=\"674\">Smith, who had also claimed\u2014but never proven\u2014participation in six ritualistic killings, received a last-minute stay of execution in 1984 and again requested the dirt, but was denied both times. He eventually settled for plain yogurt.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"676\" data-end=\"920\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">Before his 1990 lethal injection, Smith proclaimed his innocence and refused to beg for his life. His final words were \u201cHare Krishna.\u201d An assistant attorney general later called the last-minute delays in his case \u201ccruel and unusual punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Edward Smith was executed in 1990 for fatally shooting insurance agent Larry Rohus during a 1983 robbery in Houston. Although the murder was disturbing, Smith became most infamous for his bizarre final-meal request: a pile of rhaeakunda dirt used in voodoo rituals. He hoped to use it in a reincarnation ritual, but prison staff&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=12018\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Bizarre reason death row inmate requested a lump of dirt for his last meal&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12020,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12018\/revisions\/12020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}