While some last remarks might seem a little weird on their own, they become a lot creepier when you learn about the context around them.
Aileen Wuornos
Serial killer Aileen Wuornos didn’t leave the execution chamber with a quiet goodbye. No, on October 9, 2002, just before she was put to death by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, she spoke about how she was going to come back.
She said, ‘I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I’ll be back.’ She was pronounced dead shortly after making that prediction.
George Appel
George Appel made an equally creepy statement when he was about to be executed. Appel, however, went for humor instead, although that doesn’t make his words any less creepy. He was set to be electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison on August 9, 1928.
Appel made a pun on his own last name by saying, ‘Well, I’ll be a baked apple soon.’ Yes, really. He used his last breath on Earth to make that kind of joke. He was executed moments later after that little quip.
Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard was the writer who created Conan the Barbarian. He committed suicide in Cross Plains, Texas, on June 11, 1936, and left some words on his typewriter before doing so. He quoted a poem by Viola Garvin and wrote, ‘The feast is over and the lamps expire.’
Howard had just found out that his seriously ill mother wasn’t going to regain consciousness. He then went outside to his car and shot himself, although he managed to survive for several hours afterward. He died aged 30.
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline didn’t need to die. She had just finished performing at a benefit show in Kansas City in March 1963 when singer Dottie West encouraged her to skip the flight home. She told Cline to travel by car, but no, Cline wasn’t interested.
She actually responded by saying, ‘Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.’ Those words became a lot creepier in hindsight. Cline boarded a small plane heading toward Nashville on March 5, despite the poor weather. The plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee, and killed all four people aboard.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The timing is really what makes Martin Luther King Jr.’s words so creepy. He gave a speech at Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3, 1968, and toward the end, he talked about having ‘seen the Promised Land.’ He then admitted that he ‘may not get there with you.’
King was assassinated less than 24 hours later on the balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel. It’s kind of unsettling to think that, actually, his words came true. He didn’t get to the Promised Land with those around him. He got there earlier.
Adolf Eichmann
Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann had been sentenced to death. He was due to be hanged at Ramle prison in Israel in 1962 after all sorts of crimes against humanity, and he had some chilling words for those who had imprisoned him.
Eichmann said, ‘I hope that all of you will follow me’ just before the execution. At least, that’s what Mossad officer Rafi Eitan claimed Eichmann said. Some people claim he said something different, but still, it was pretty creepy.
George Hennard
George Hennard didn’t leave any mysteries behind with his final words. He drove his pickup into a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, and then opened fire. Hennard killed 23 people. The police eventually entered and exchanged gunfire with him, pushing him toward the restroom area.Â
They ordered him to surrender. But Hennard refused and said, ‘No, I’m going to kill more people.’ Hennard shot himself and died inside the restaurant as police closed in. He wasn’t lying, he really did kill one more person. It just happened to be himself.
O. Henry
Writer O. Henry spent years writing endings with little twists in them. His own final words were some of the spookiest of all. Henry had been suffering from various illnesses and was seriously ill in New York in June 1910. He said he wanted more light in the room.
He wanted it so much, in fact, that one account says his last words were, ‘Pull up the shades; I don’t want to go home in the dark.’ It’s one thing to talk about wanting more light, it’s another thing to talk about death as ‘going home.’ Truly creepy stuff.
Reddy Foster
‘Watch me do a trick.’ Those words seem so ordinary, but the context of when Oscar ‘Reddy’ Foster said them makes them chilling. He was a former baseball player who briefly appeared for the New York Giants in 1896. He was in Richmond, Virginia, in December 1908 when he said these words.
Foster was speaking to a man nearby, and he had a shotgun in his hand. He deliberately fired the gun at himself after saying those oh-so-ordinary words. So much for a ‘trick.’
Cromwell Dixon
Cromwell Dixon was only nineteen years old when he passed away. He became the first aviator to fly across the Continental Divide in September 1911. The following month, he was flying again at the Spokane Interstate Fair when things went badly. Very badly.
His biplane started failing while he was still fairly low to the ground, and witnesses said Dixon cried out, ‘Here I go,’ repeatedly as the plane dropped. He survived the crash, but died shortly after from his injuries. It’s really quite scary to think that he was narrating his own death.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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