Florida Executes Man Who Says He Controlled Sun

Court didn't buy insanity argument
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 6, 2013 3:03 AM CDT
Florida Executes Man Who Says He Controlled Sun
John Errol Ferguson, in a prison file photo.   (AP Photo/Florida Department of Corrections, File)

“I just want everyone to know that I am the prince of God and I will rise again." Those were the last words of mass killer John Errol Ferguson yesterday and a prime example of why his lawyers say he shouldn't have been executed in the first place—they say he was insane. Ferguson had been on death row for 35 years for the murder of eight people in the Miami area, but his legal fight came to an end after the Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal, reports the Miami Herald. Among other things, the 65-year-old claimed to have powers derived from the sun, and thus could control it, and he said the state wanted to kill him as part of a Communist plot to keep him from ruling the world.

Ferguson "has a 40-year history of paranoid schizophrenia," one of his lawyers tells the Guardian. "We have more than 30 doctors diagnosing him as that over four decades." Victims' families say it was all an act. “I think he got off easy compared to what he did to the victims," says the sister of a 17-year-old girl who was raped and shot. The state's supreme court never bought the argument that Ferguson wasn't rational enough to be executed. He might think he's immortal, but millions of Christians similarly believe in an afterlife, it reasoned. Ferguson's last meal, for the record: A meat and vegetable patty, white bread, stewed tomatoes, potato salad, carrots, and iced tea, reports the AP. In other words, he made no special request. (More Florida stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X