The final chapter of one of America’s most chilling prison sagas was written in a small, windowless death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center shortly after 9 p. m. on January 16, 2013.
Robert Charles Gleason Jr. , a man who coldly murdered two cellmates while already serving a life sentence, was executed by electric chair. He did not tremble, did not pray, did not beg.
He smiled. He sang. He cursed his executioners in Gaelic.
And then he died with his fists clenched and smoke rising from beneath the hood.
Gleason’s journey to the chair was like no other. He did not fight to stay alive. He fought to die.
When courts moved too slowly, he turned into a killer inside prison walls, strangling two men in cold blood just to force the state’s hand. “If you don’t kill me, I’ll keep killing,” he warned. He meant every word.
His was a case that left legal scholars, psychiatrists, and death penalty opponents grappling with a terrifying question: What do you do with a prisoner who cannot be deterred, contained, or rehabilitated, and who treats execution not as punishment but as victory?
Gleason’s first murder behind bars came on May 8, 2009, the second anniversary of the ambush shooting that first put him away. Inside Wallens Ridge State Prison, he strangled his 65-year-old cellmate, Harvey Watson Jr. , a mentally impaired inmate serving 100 years for a past shooting spree.
Gleason tricked Watson into letting his hands be tied, pretending it was part of an escape plot. Then, using strips of bed sheets, he hogtied, beat, and choked the man. Afterward, he sat next to the corpse for 15 hours before guards even noticed.
When asked why, Gleason shrugged. “He was annoying. Should have never been put in a cell with me.”
That murder was not an act of rage. It was a message. Gleason told the court he had planned the killing to fall on the anniversary of his original murder.
He warned that he had lined up more victims. “If I don’t get the death penalty, I’ll kill again,” he said. The system did not listen.
He was transferred to Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility. There, he singled out Aaron Cooper, a 26-year-old robber serving 30 years. Gleason befriended the younger man, passing notes, offering a religious necklace.
The necklace was a noose. On July 28, 2010, Gleason slipped the loop around Cooper’s neck through the wire fence of the recreation yard and strangled him until he collapsed. He laughed while guards tried to resuscitate his victim.
“I told you I’d kill again,” he taunted.
After that second prison murder, the state finally gave him what he demanded. On September 6, 2011, Gleason was sentenced to death. He immediately fired his lawyers and waived all appeals.
He chose the electric chair over lethal injection. “Lethal injection is for cowards,” he said. “Give me old Sparky.
It fits me.” Prison officials and psychiatrists questioned his sanity, but Gleason insisted he was not insane. He told reporters he wanted his sons to see that actions have consequences.
“I wasn’t there for them,” he admitted. “But I can still teach them something: that actions have consequences.”
His final 24 hours were as surreal as his life. On the afternoon of January 15, 2013, he was moved to a holding cell near the death chamber. He requested a final meal but ordered prison staff not to disclose what it was.
To this day, the contents remain secret. He declined a spiritual adviser. No last rites, no Bible.
He made five phone calls, all monitored, but their contents were never made public. Prison staff reported that he appeared calm, almost cheerful. He smiled, sang, and joked with guards.
He did not sleep.
On the morning of January 16, he showered and shaved. He dressed in the beige uniform of the condemned. At 8:30 p.
m. , the warden came to his cell to ask for final words. Gleason nodded.
“I’ll save it for the chair.” He was shackled and walked steadily down the corridor. Witnesses described his gait as relaxed, almost strutting.
He entered the execution chamber at 8:55 p. m. The room smelled of metal and disinfectant.
Eight witnesses sat behind a thick glass window: victim family members, reporters, prison staff.
He was strapped into the chair: ankles, wrists, chest, and head. A black mask was pulled over his face, leaving only his nose exposed. The sponge was placed under the skull cap to ensure conductivity.
At 9:06 p. m. , the execution order was read.
Gleason leaned forward slightly and spoke his final words: “Well, I hope Percy ain’t going to forget to wet the sponge. Put me on the highway to Jackson and call my Irish buddies. Pogue mahone.
God bless.” The Gaelic phrase translates to “kiss my ass.” It was a final act of defiance, a curse hurled at the state that had finally granted his wish.
At 9:07 p. m. , the switch was flipped.
A crackling surge tore through his body. His fists clenched violently. Smoke rose from beneath the mask.
His body tensed and convulsed. Then silence. At 9:08 p.
m. , he was pronounced dead. Robert Charles Gleason Jr.
became the last man executed by electric chair in Virginia and the first person put to death in the United States in 2013. He spent only 18 months on death row, an astonishingly short time given the years of appeals typical in capital cases.
Gleason’s execution did not bring closure. It ignited a firestorm of debate. Civil rights groups called it state-assisted suicide.
They argued that Gleason was mentally ill, that he had manipulated the system into killing him, and that the state should not act as an instrument of a killer’s death wish. “He could have killed himself in prison,” critics said. “He wanted the government to do it so his sons could see the state was responsible, not him.”
But prosecutors and victim families saw it differently. Aaron Cooper’s mother, Kim Strickland, who had sued the prison system for ignoring warnings, said simply: “He got what he deserved. But why did my son have to pay the price?”
Others pointed out that if Gleason had not been executed, he would likely have killed again. He had made that clear. He told the court, “If you give me life, I’ll go to population.
Someone else, staff or inmate, will die. That’s on you.”
The case raised profound ethical questions. Should the state execute a prisoner who actively seeks execution? Does that make the state a partner in suicide?
Or does the state’s duty to protect other prisoners and staff outweigh any concerns about the inmate’s motives? Gleason himself dismissed the debate. In a letter from death row, he wrote: “I’m not suicidal.
I’m just done. I’ve lived my life. I don’t want to die old and forgotten in a cell.
This is my choice. No one forced me.”
In the years after his death, Gleason’s name continued to surface in legal and academic discussions. His case became a textbook example of the limits of incarceration. If a prisoner is already serving life without parole, and he murders again inside, what more can the system do?
The only remaining punishment is execution. And if that prisoner demands it, the system becomes complicit in fulfilling his wish.
Virginia eventually answered that question in its own way. On March 24, 2021, Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill abolishing capital punishment in the state, making Virginia the first southern state to end the death penalty. At the signing ceremony, Northam said, “We’ve come too far to keep killing people as a form of justice.”
Robert Gleason became the last man executed in Virginia. In death, he took the electric chair and the entire death penalty apparatus with him.
But the debate does not end there. Gleason’s story forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about punishment, deterrence, and the human will to control even the final moment of existence. He was not a victim.
He was not insane. He was a calculating, remorseless killer who used murder as a negotiation tactic and the state as his executioner. His final meal remains a mystery.
His final words were a curse. His final act was a smirk.
Yet his legacy is not just about one man’s twisted quest to die. It is about what society does when it faces a prisoner who cannot be contained by any punishment short of death. Gleason himself summed it up best in a courtroom statement: “I only kill criminals like me.
Not innocent people. Never have, never will. But that don’t make it right.
It just makes it what it is.”
For the families of Harvey Watson Jr. and Aaron Cooper, there is no justice that can undo the horror. For the prison staff who had to stop his body and clean the chair, there is no closure.
And for the rest of us, there is a story that reads like a script from a dark thriller, but one that was all too real. Robert Charles Gleason Jr. forced the state to kill him.
And in doing so, he made sure that no one would ever forget his name.
