THE LAST SUPPER

LOBSTER, ice cream and a single olive make up some of the strange last meal requests of prisoners on death row.

Now a photographer has put together a collection of pictures recreating some of the oddest requests inmates made hours before they were executed.

Henry Hargreaves made the spreads before photographing them from a prisoner's eye view.

One inmate, Victor Feguer, 28, asked for a single unpitted olive to be served with a knife and fork.

Meanwhile, serial killer Timothy McVeigh, 33, jailed for 168 counts of murder ditched mains for TWO PINTS of mint and chocolate chip ice cream.

Ronnie Lee Gardener, 49, who was killed by firing squad in Utah watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy as he wolfed down a lobster tail, steak, apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

Snapper Henry, from Brooklyn, New York, said: "When you read about the death row inmates they were just names and statistics.

"But once I found out about what they ate as their last meal they began to come to life. I could see a little corner of their personality."

Henry restaged each meal in his studio, with everything down to the table cloth and cutlery matching the era of the execution. It cost him hundreds of dollars to buy ingredients needed to rustle up the meals.

But the inmates themselves, who were refused alcohol could only receive a meal costing up to £25.

Henry added: "I tried to recreate the meals as if the prisoner had just sat down to eat and they are looking into their plate. Different prisons, different states and different eras all meant I had to create very different settings for each one. It's a new look at the traditional ritual to grant a condemned person a final meal of their request and to receive religious right."

Henry focused on death row inmates in America, where an estimated 3,000 people are currently waiting to be executed picking the oddest requests recorded.

And the powerful work has received rave reviews after being displayed online.

Henry said: "I was showing the series to an older gentleman and I could see tears welling in his eyes.

"Although he didn't say anything I knew right then that he had a personal connection at some point with this ritual.

"I only picked the most bizarre last meals such as the guy who ordered just a single olive, which easily had to be the strangest.

"There has been some speculation on the significance of this as an olive is believed to be a symbol of rebirth, so to be buried with an olive pit in your stomach is an interesting notion." (thesun.co.uk)