The Final Hours of Linda May Harper

They called her the Widowmaker, though she never married.Her real name was Linda May Harper — and on a warm October night in 1992, she took her final walk down the “last mile,” into the jaws of South Carolina’s old electric throne.

Convicted of murdering her boyfriend, David Lyle, for the promise of his life insurance and a fistful of his cash, Harper spent years in appeals. The papers painted her as a cold-eyed Southern siren with a smile like broken glass. Prosecutors said she poisoned him first, then finished the job with a length of cord while he lay half-conscious on the floor of their

Columbia apartment. She swore she didn’t do it — right up until the state strapped her down.

But before the current hissed and the room filled with the smell of burning hair, Harper endured two long days of quiet unraveling — and the state made sure to watch every second of it.

Death Watch

Two Days Before the Chair

They moved her just before midnight, from the women’s block to the death watch cell — a claustrophobic cube of concrete painted a gray so pale it looked like bone. A fluorescent bulb hummed overhead, never dimming, and an industrial fan rattled from somewhere behind the walls.

A camera’s red eye blinked in the corner, and beyond the bars, two uniformed officers sat stone-still, writing in clipped block letters every time she stood, sat, turned her head. She was alone but never unwatched.

She spent most of the first night pacing tight ovals in her cell, whispering to herself, palms dragging along the cold cinder blocks. By morning she sat on her cot, knees drawn up like a child’s, staring at the opposite wall. The chaplain stopped by, offered her scripture; she shook her head. She didn’t want to be saved. She wanted to be remembered.

The Final Supper

The Day Before the Execution

Late that afternoon, a guard slid a tray through the slot. Linda had chosen her last meal, and the kitchen had delivered like it was Sunday supper:

• Crispy fried chicken, skin blistered and golden

• French fries, greasy and curling at the ends

• A mound of buttered peas

• A thick slab of strawberry shortcake bleeding syrup

• A bottle of Dr. Pepper, sweating cold

• And a steaming mug of black coffee

The officers stood silent while she ate, each bite mechanical, methodical, as if it were evidence she had to consume. She picked the peas one by one with her fingers, set down her fork after the last crumb of cake. When they took the tray, she murmured “thank you,” and then pressed her forehead to the wall until the light faded from afternoon to black again.

Ritual of the Doomed

The Day of Execution

By 6:00 p.m. on execution day, the death machinery creaked to life.

Two matrons came for her. They led her, shackled, to the tiled prison shower, where she was ordered to scrub her body head to toe under their gaze. It wasn’t mercy — it was protocol: clean skin conducts better. Any stray oil or lint might spark or smolder under the current.

After the shower they issued her the final uniform — a starched cotton dress and beneath it, a disposable diaper, standard for the condemned. The fabric hung loose on her shoulders. She refused the sedative offered to calm her nerves, saying only, “No, I want to feel it.”

They placed her in the “last mile” cell just beside the execution chamber — a holding pen no bigger than a closet, close enough that she could smell the ozone and old wood through the steel door. She sat on the bench, silent, as the chaplain read Psalms. At 11:30, the warden appeared, face gray as wax, and nodded once. It was time.

The Last Mile

The Walk to the Chair

At 11:45 p.m., two guards unlocked the door. Harper stood. Her knees quivered but her chin stayed high, defiant. They each took an arm and walked her the twenty steps to the chamber, boots echoing on the tile like drumbeats.

Behind the glass, the witnesses shifted in their seats: journalists with notepads, state officials with arms folded, the family of David Lyle staring daggers through the pane. Cameras clicked. The air felt refrigerated, sterile, like a morgue.

The electric chair sat waiting in the center of the room like a patient predator — oak frame darkened from years of wiped-down scorches, leather straps dangling like tongues. She did not resist as they seated her.

Strap-Down Sequence

The officers moved with choreographed precision, ticking off items on a clipboard as they worked:

1. Wrists strapped with thick brown leather cuffs

2. Biceps bound, pinning her arms to the chairback

3. Chest strap tightened until her shoulders pressed to the oak

4. Waist cinched

5. Thighs lashed down, then ankles buckled to the chair legs

6. Chin strap drawn snug under her jaw

7. Electrode to her shaved crown, padded with a saline-soaked sponge, tightened with a steel skullcap

8. Electrode to her right calf, sponge pressed beneath the copper plate

9. Black face shroud dropped over her eyes and nose

Her breathing came fast now, fogging the inside of the hood. The warden read the death warrant in a flat voice. There were no last words.

The Current

At 12:04 a.m., the warden lowered his hand.

The executioner threw the switch.

• First cycle: 2,300 volts for 8 seconds. Harper’s back arched hard against the chest strap, fists clawing, the room flashing white in the witness’s eyes.

• Pause: 5 seconds. The smell of burning fabric.

• Second cycle: 1,000 volts for 22 seconds. Smoke curled from beneath the headpiece, her body sagging now, movements twitch-like, automatic.

• Third cycle: 208 volts for 60 seconds, the “clean-up current” to stop the heart, cook the muscles into stillness.

When the current cut off, the chamber was silent but for the hiss of the overhead light. The prison doctor stepped forward, stethoscope trembling, and checked for breath.

Time of death: 12:09 a.m.

Aftermath

Ashes in the Wires

They unstrapped her, piece by piece, folding the straps back into place like putting away a deadly instrument. Her body, still faintly steaming, was carried from the room on a gurney under a white sheet. The smell of scorched hair clung to the air.

By 12:30, the chair sat empty again, alone beneath the buzzing lights.

At 9:00 a.m., the Governor of South Carolina, Thomas Walden, faced the press from the marble steps of the State House and delivered his statement with the flat calm of a man announcing the weather:

“Justice has been served. This sentence was carried out under the full weight of the law. The people of South Carolina are safer tonight than they were yesterday. And the soul of David Lyle may rest in peace.”

Then he folded the paper, turned, and walked back inside.

Behind him, the autumn sun blazed over Columbia, burning away the last trace of Linda May Harper —just as the chair had burned the rest.