Fact Check

Death Row Inmate Requests a Kitten as Last Meal

Rumor: A woman on death row in North Carolina has requested a live kitten for her last meal.

Published April 8, 2015

Claim:

Claim:   A woman on death row has requested a live kitten for her last meal.


FALSE


Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2015]


I read an article where a NC death row female inmate requested a kitten for her last meal. It goes on to explain how they have to grant any and all last requests. I seriously hope this article is bogus.

Origins:   On 5 April 2015, the entertainment web site Stuppid published an article reporting that a woman on death row in North Carolina had requested a live kitten for her last meal:


Serial husband killer and North Carolina death row inmate, Blanche Taylor Moore, requested this weekend that her last meal be a kitten — a live kitten.

The prison administration is required to accept all last meal demands of any kind. Thus, they will obtain a kitten from a local animal shelter or pet shop.


Although this Stuppid article was shared widely across social media, there is no truth to the claim that a North Carolina woman will be eating a live kitten for her last meal because the state is obligated to comply with her request.

As we noted in our examination of another (fake) article of similar ilk, the practice of allowing a condemned prisoner to choose his final meal is merely a courtesy that has traditionally been extended to those about to be executed for their crimes; no state mandates that all such requests must be fulfilled, no matter how unusual, impractical, or costly they might be. (The state of Texas ended the provision of last meal requests to inmates back in 2011 due to this issue.)

Moreover, Stuppid is a fake news web site that does not publish factual articles. Previous bogus news stories put out by that site include articles about a 14-year-old giving birth to Jesus, a mother-daughter lesbian relationship, and a Neo-Nazi woman being inseminated with sperm from a black donor.

Stuppid's disclaimer states that the site aims to publish the "stupidest, craziest stuff we can find" on the internet.

Last updated:   8 April 2015

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.