Philip Workman: Pizza wish fulfilled

A man executed on Death Row got his final wish from beyond the grave.

A convicted murderer put to death in Tennessee this week got his last meal wish after he died.


Philip Workman, 53, requested that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person near the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee.

Prison officials refused to send out a pizza saying it was not permissible for them to donate taxpayer’s money to charity and Workman died on Wednesday by lethal injection.

The £10 budget for his ‘special meal request’ went unspent.

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But news accounts of his request touched a nerve with the public.



Dozens of local residents stepped in to ensure shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas hours after Workman, a convicted murderer, was put to death.

‘I was like, ‘Wow, Jesus!'” said Marvin Champion, an employee of Nashville’s Rescue Mission, which provides overnight shelter, food and assistance to more than 800 homeless people a night.

‘I used to be homeless, so I know how rough it gets. I seen some bad times – not having enough food, the cupboards are bare. But we got pizza to feed enough people for a while.’

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One resident, Donna Spangler, heard about Workman’s request and immediately called her friends.

They all pitched in for the £600 bill to buy 150 pizzas, which they sent to the Rescue Mission.

‘Philip Workman was trying to do a good deed and no one would help him,’ said the 55-year-old.

‘I knew my husband would have a heart attack – I put some of it on the credit card. But I thought we’ll find a way to pay for them later,’ she said.

‘I just felt like I had to do something positive.’

Seventeen pizzas also arrived at Nashville’s Oasis Centre, a shelter that helps about 260 teenagers in crisis.

Executive director Hal Cato said: ‘We talked to the kids and they understand what this is tied to and they know that this man [Workman] wanted to do something to point out the problems of homelessness.’

Workman was homeless and high on cocaine when he robbed a Wendy’s diner in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1981, and killed Memphis police lieutenant Ronald Oliver.

His lawyers argued his gun ‘involuntarily discharged’ when he was hit on the head by a police officer with the bullet killing Lt Oliver.

But it was not enough to convince a court to overturn the death sentence.