Last meals

No doubt you heard the news. The commonwealth of Virginia executed two killers in the past two weeks: John Allen Muhammad - The Beltway sniper and Larry Bill Elliott who killed two people to win the love of his stripper girlfriend.

No doubt you know how they died, too. Muhammad opted for lethal injection, while Elliott asked for the electric chair.

Only thing left is to know is what they ate at their last meals.

Sorry. That's classified.

In a darkly amusing note on The Washington Post's "Post Partisan" blog today, Jo-Ann Armao expressed outrage over the decision not to unveil the menus.

"Why should these men get privacy?" she demanded. " ...Who cares what they think? Don't public tax dollars pay for this food?"

Armao has a point. To find out why the last meals were a state secret, I went to Larry Traylor of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Traylor told me that condemned prisoners are allowed to pick anything they want to eat - off the prison menu, that is - without regard to a balanced diet.

"If they want four pieces of cake, we give it to them," he said.

The prisoners are also asked if they want the contents of their last meal released to the public. In both of the cases, the men declined. The department honors their wishes.

Why give them a choice at all? I asked.

"In the 11, going on 12 years I've been here we've always done it that way," Traylor said. "I guess it's a tradition."

As it turns out, we do know what Muhammad ate.

Seems one of his attorneys didn't get the secrecy memo. Moments after Muhammad was executed the loquacious lawyer blabbed to CNN's Larry King that his late client had "chicken and red sauce and he had some cakes."

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