Sebastian Stephanous Bridges

Sebastian Stephanous Bridges, a 37 year-old South African national male, was voluntarily executed by lethal injection at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nevada on April 21, 2001. Bridges was found guilty of the October, 26,1997 murder of 27 year old Hunter Blatchford, who was boyfriend of Bridges's estranged wife. At the time of the murder Bridges age was 34 and he waived all his appeals and volunteered for execution. He struggled at the time of execution, calling his execution a murder. However, he did not asked to file appeal, which could have saved his life, at least for a while. He was 24th inmate executed in United States in the year 2001, whereas, he was the first one in Nevada for that year. Overall, he was 707th inmate executed in United States since 1976, and he was 9th inmate executed by the state of Nevada.
Crime
Bridges estranged wife was a prison nurse in California. After the troubled relationship, Laure (his ex-wife) left him and moved on in life with her new boyfriend the murdered Hunter Blatchford. Bridges called her wife and her boyfriend for some reason and upon meeting he pistol whipped his ex-wife, who survived. However, Blatchford was not that lucky and he died after several gun shots.
Conviction and Execution
Bridges represented himself in the court of law after the court checked that he is competent enough to represent himself. Poverty was not the reason for this decision, as it was reported that at the time of arrest he had $56,000 in his possession. He claimed that Blatchford death was the result of an accident. Jury didn't buy and he was sentenced to death. He never filed any appeals and was executed in 2001, after serving less than three years on the death row.
His execution was rather a wild one as he struggled violently on the gurney, but never asked to file an appeal. His execution is notable for two reasons, first he wore brown double-breasted Pierre Cardin suit and shiny, new black shoes, instead of regular prison dress . Secondly, the chaplain was with him in the chamber, which was unique for Nevada, though it is the common practice in many other states in which capital punishment is still in practice.

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