Texas Inmate Wants To Deliver Joke At Execution

(AP) LIVINGSTON, Texas -- Condemned prisoner Patrick Knight wants to leave them laughing.

Knight acknowledges there's nothing funny about his likely execution later this month for the fatal shooting of his neighbors, Walter and Mary Werner, almost 16 years ago outside Amarillo. But to help him come up with his final statement, Knight is accepting jokes mailed to him on Texas' death row or e-mailed to a friend who has a Web site for him. The friend then mails him the jokes.

Knight said the joke he finds the funniest will be his final statement the evening of June 26.

"I'm not trying to disrespect the Werners or anything like that," he told The Associated Press from death row. "I'm not trying to say I don't care what's going on. I'm about to die. I'm not going to sit here and whine and cry and moan and everything like that when I'm facing the punishment I've been given.

"I'm not asking for money. I'm not asking for pen pals or anything like that. All I'm asking for is jokes."

"Lawyer jokes are real popular," he said. "Some of them are a little on the edge. I'm not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn't be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool."

Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson thinks the whole idea is anything but cool. As chief deputy at the time of the Werners' killings, Richardson investigated the case and intends to witness Knight's execution. He said the Werners' family has already been through enough, and that Knight's attempt to make a joke at the execution is sick.

"The whole thing is not a joke to anybody here unless it is to him," Richardson said of Knight. "This tells you a little bit about the guy's character, anyway."

Richardson said that the Werners' son, who has since moved out of Texas, has said he won't speak about the case anymore.

"They don't want to draw any more attention to this guy than is possible," Richardson said.

Knight, 39, would be the last of five condemned inmates set to die in Texas over three weeks this month as the state embellishes its notoriety as the nation's most active in carrying out capital punishment.

Fourteen executions already have happened in Texas this year and if all five take place in June, the pace will be just shy of the record of 40 executions set in 2000. At least 10 other inmates already have execution dates set for the second half of the year.

Besides Knight, among those set to die this month is Cathy Lynn Henderson, who would be the fourth woman executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982 and the 12th nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume.

This month's series of executions is to begin Wednesday with Michael Griffith, 56, a former Harris County sheriff's deputy convicted of the October 1994 rape, robbery and fatal stabbing of Deborah Jean McCormick, 44, who worked at her family's Houston flower shop and wedding chapel where Griffith was a regular customer.

Henderson, 50, is set to die June 13 for the 1994 slaying of Brandon Baugh, a 3-month-old Austin-area child she was babysitting. Henderson has insisted the child's skull was fractured when she accidentally dropped him while trying to calm the cranky infant. His body was found 18 days after she and the child disappeared and about 60 miles to the north, buried in a field in a wine cooler box. She said she panicked and fled to her native Missouri.

On June 20, Lionell Rodriguez, 36, faces injection for the fatal shooting of a Houston woman, Tracy Gee, 22, in 1990. Rodriguez was 19 at the time of the slaying and on parole only three weeks after serving three months of a seven-year sentence for burglary. She was gunned down and her car taken as she waited at a stoplight a few blocks from home.

The following day, June 21, Gilberto Reyes, 33, is set for execution for the 1998 beating death of his ex-girlfriend, Yvette Barraz. The 19-year-old woman was hit at least six times in the head with a claw hammer, raped and strangled. She was abducted after leaving her job as a waitress at a restaurant in Muleshoe in Bailey County, a sparsely populated county northwest of Lubbock along the Texas-New Mexico border.

"I know I'm not innocent," said Knight, who believes his appeals have been exhausted. "They think they're killing me. They think they're punishing me. They've already punished me. I've already had 16 years of punishment. They're releasing me. They're letting me go. That's helping me out. That's the way I look at it."

Knight said he got the idea for a joke as his last statement after a friend, Vincent Gutierrez, was executed earlier this year and laughed from the death chamber gurney: "Where's a stunt double when you need one?"

"I'm going to go up there and tell them I'm the stunt double guy," Knight said. He said he's sharing the jokes he gets with his fellow inmates "to try to keep their hearts right and things like that."

With my wife I don't get no respect. I made a toast on her birthday to 'the best woman a man ever had.' The waiter joined me.

I'm not a sexy guy. I went to a hooker. I dropped my pants. She dropped her price.

I tell you, I'm not a sexy guy. I was the centerfold for Playgirl magazine. The staples covered everything!

What a childhood I had, why, when I took my first step, my old man tripped me!

Last week I told my psychiatrist, "I keep thinking about suicide." He told me from now on I have to pay in advance.

I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!

Oh, when I was a kid in show business I was poor. I used to go to orgies to eat the grapes.

When I was a kid I got no respect. The time I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers sent my parents a note they said, "We want five thousand dollars or you'll see your kid again."

I tell ya, my wife was never nice. On our first date, I asked her if I could give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek - she bent over!

I tell you, with my doctor, I don't get no respect. I told him, "I've swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills." He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.

Some dog I got too. We call him Egypt because he leaves a pyramid in every room.

With my dog I don't get no respect. He keeps barking at the front door. He don't want to go out. He wants me to leave.

What a dog I got. His favorite bone is in my arm!

Last week I saw my psychiatrist. I told him, "Doc, I keep thinking I'm a dog." He told me to get off his couch.

I worked in a pet store and people kept asking how big I'd get.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

I'll tell ya, my wife and I, we don't think alike. She donates money to the homeless, and I donate money to the topless!

One night I came home. I figured, let my wife come on. I'll play it cool. Let her make the first move. She went to Florida.

I asked my old man if I could go ice-skating on the lake. He told me, "Wait til it gets warmer."

My doctor told me to watch my drinking. Now I drink in front of a mirror. I drink too much. Way too much. My doctor drew blood. He ran a tab.

When I was born the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm very sorry. We did everything we could...but he pulled through."

I come from a stupid family. During the Civil War my great uncle fought for the west!

My father was stupid. He worked in a bank and they caught him stealing pens.

My mother had morning sickness after I was born.

My mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.

My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.

When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.

I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

One year they wanted to make me poster boy... for birth control.

I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.

My uncle's dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair.

Once when I was lost I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, "Do you think we'll ever find them?" He said, "I don't know kid. There are so many places they can hide."

I remember I was so depressed I was going to jump out a window on the tenth floor. They sent a priest up to talk to me. He said, "On your mark..."

When my old man wanted sex, my mother would show him a picture of me.

I had a lot of pimples too. One day I fell asleep in a library. I woke up and a blind man was reading my face.

My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.

Last week my tie caught on fire. Some guy tried to put it out with an ax!

I met the surgeon general. He offered me a cigarette.

One time I went to a hotel. I asked the bellhop to handle my bag. He felt up my wife!

This morning when I put on my underwear I could hear the Fruit of the Loom guys laughing at me.

I'm a bad lover. Once I caught a peeping tom booing me.

My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.

It's tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won't drink from my glass!

My wife isn't very bright. The other day she was at the store, and just as she was heading for our car, someone stole it! I said, "Did you see the guy that did it?" She said, "No, but I got the license plate."

Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.

A girl phoned me and said, "Come on over. There's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home!

A hooker once told me she had a headache.

I went to a massage parlor. It was self service.

If it weren't for pick-pocketers, I'd have no sex life at all.

I was making love to this girl and she started crying. I said, "Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?" She said, "No, I hate myself now."

I knew a girl so ugly that she was known as a two-bagger. That's when you put a bag over your head in case the bag over her head breaks.

I knew a girl so ugly, they use her in prisons to cure sex offenders.

I knew a girl so ugly, I took her to the top of the Empire State building and planes started to attack her.

I knew a girl so ugly, the last time I saw a mouth like hers it had a hook on the end of it.

I knew a girl so ugly, she had a face like a saint--a Saint Bernard!

I was tired one night and I went to the bar to have a few drinks. The bartender asked me, "What'll you have?" I said, "Surprise me." He showed me a naked picture of my wife.

During sex my wife always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.

My marriage is on the rocks again. Yeah, my wife just broke up with her boyfriend.

One day as I came home early from work, I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy, "Hey buddy...why are you doing that for?" He said, "Because you came home early."

I went to see my doctor... Doctor Vidi-boom-ba. Yeah...I told him once, "Doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror I feel like throwing up. What's wrong with me? He said, "I don't know, but your eyesight is perfect."

I told my dentist my teeth are going yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie.

My psychiatrist told me I'm going crazy. I told him, "If you don't mind, I'd like a second opinion." He said, "All right. You're ugly too!"

I was so ugly, my mother used to feed me with a slingshot!

When I was born the doctor took one look at my face, turned me over and said, "Look, twins!"

And we were poor too. Why, if I wasn't born a boy, I'd have nothing to play with!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.