Killer who murdered child rapist orders final meal ahead of being executed today

A killer on death row has ordered his last meal as he is expected to be executed today.

In 1985 Nicholas Todd Sutton was found guilty of murdering a child rapist and fellow inmate in Tennessee, US and was condemned to die in an electric chair nicknamed "Old Smokey", reports the Daily Mirror.

Sutton, 58, was already serving a life sentence for drowning his grandmother when he was 18 and murdering two men in 1979, when he killed the inmate.

According to the Tennessee Department of Correction, Sutton ordered fried pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits and peach pie with vanilla ice cream.

Sutton chose to die by electrocution rather than lethal injection and will receive the meal ahead of his scheduled execution, Knox News reported.

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But his supporters argue he is a changed man who has saved lives behind bars.

And the great-niece of Charles Almon, one of Sutton's victims, Anna Lee, a Methodist pastor, said executing the convicted killer won't bring his victims back or make Tennessee safer.

She told Newsweek: "For our family, the grief for that missing person in our life, that will never go away

"We look at Nick's life and we think that it still has meaning and value. We know that he has changed as a person and we also know he is going to still have consequences.

"He'll be in prison for his whole life, but we just feel like his death would do nothing to erase an earlier tragedy, but would just add a tragedy on top of the first one."

Sutton killed his grandmother, Dorothy, in 1979, by knocking her unconscious and throwing her into a river in Tennessee's Hamblen County.

He was convicted of murder and then confessed to beating to death his high school friend John Large, 19, from Waterville, North Carolina and fatally shooting Mr Almon, 46, from Knoxville.

Mr Large's body was found in a shallow grave and Mr Almon's body was dumped in a flooded rock quarry.

Sutton agreed plea deals and received two more life sentences for killing the men, Knox News reported.

He has chosen to die by electrocution rather than lethal injection.

Supporters, in a last-ditch attempt to save his life, sent a clemency petition to Governor Bill Lee.

They include correctional staff at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville, where Sutton has been a maintenance man for 20 years.

He is allowed to carry tools such as hammers and screwdrivers because the guards trust him, said Kevin Sharp, a former judge who is working pro-bono on the clemency petition.

The petition asked the governor to commute Sutton's sentence to life without parole and claims Sutton has saved the lives of at least three prison staff members.

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Former guard Tony Eden wrote in an affidavit that Sutton saved his life when he stopped other inmates from taking him hostage during a riot in 1985.

Mr Eden added: "Nick risked his safety and well-being in order to save me from possible death. I owe my life to Nick Sutton.

"If Nick Sutton was released tomorrow, I would welcome him into my home and invite him to be my neighbour.

"It is my opinion that Nick Sutton, more than anyone else on Tennessee's death row, deserves to live."

In 1979, Sutton is said to have protected a guard who was trying to break up a fight and in 1994 he rushed to help a former manager who slipped and hit her head on the floor. He retrieved her keys and used her radio to alert other staff.

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