Texas executed a man with an IQ of 61 last week for murdering a 21-year-old police drug informant in 1992. 
 
 Lawyers for Marvin Wilson, 54, had battled his execution for years, building a mountain of appeals that Texas prosecutors demolished again and again until the executioner finally strapped him down. There, Wilson uttered his last words on Earth: 
 
 “Y'all do understand that I came here a sinner and leaving a saint,” he said. “Take me home, Jesus, take me home, Lord, take me home, Lord. I ain't left yet, must be a miracle. I am a miracle. I see you, Rich. Don't cry, son, don't cry, baby. I love y'all. I'm ready.” 
 
 Then Wilson was dead, the seventh inmate executed in the state this year and the latest in a long line of convicts whose last words have been preserved for posterity by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 
 
 Published on the department’s website, the inmates’ last prayers, apologies and insults form a 30-year database of grief and outrage, studded with protests of innocence and requests for absolution. Taken together, they form a kind of gallows poetry in verses both long and short. 
 
 Charles William Bass, executed April 12, 1986, kept his to eight words: “I deserve this. Tell everyone I said goodbye.” 
 
 “Is the mic on?” Dale Devon Scheanette asked on Feb. 10, 2009. Known as the “Bathtub Killer,” he was convicted of raping and strangling one woman and suspected of raping and drowning another. "My only statement is that … no cases are error free. You may proceed, warden." 
 
 His executioner did, filling Scheanette with lethal poison until his heart stopped. 
 
 On July 9, 1985, Henry Porter faced down his executioners. “From there you call me a cold-blooded murderer,” he said. “I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins from behind a locked door. You call this justice. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers.” 
 
 Kelsey Patterson seemed confused by the invitation to speak. “Statement to what? State what?” Patterson said on May 18, 2004. 
 
 He insisted he was innocent of shooting two people to death. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended clemency to Gov. Rick Perry, who rejected it. Part of Patterson’s protest -- “Go to hell” -- has been redacted from the record because Texas officials deemed his profanity insensitive. 
 
 Patterson's last words: “Get my money. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my life back." 
 
 By and large, however, Texas convicts have gone peacefully. Inmate after inmate has apologized for their crimes, for taking the lives of victims who never got the chance to utter last words of their own. Some convicts used the opportunity to proclaim the glory of God and to tell their families that they loved them. 
 
 “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” Larry Davis said on July 31, 2008. “It is finished.” 
 
 Davis and two other men perpetrated a 1995 robbery-murder in which the victim, Michael Barrow, was hit in the back of the head with a dumbbell, tied up, stabbed with a knife, stabbed with an ice pick, stabbed with a butcher knife, struck with a pipe and kicked. Finally, Davis told an accomplice to step on Barrow’s throat to suffocate him. 
 
 In 2011, Humberto Leal asked for forgiveness, said he was truly sorry, and said: “Let's get this show on the road.” 
 
 Then he added: “One more thing: Viva Mexico. Viva Mexico.” 
 
 An analysis finds “love” is the most common word in Texas’ execution chamber, followed by “family,” “thank,” “sorry” and “God.” 
 
 “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you too bro,” Rogelio Cannady said on May 19, 2010, addressing his family. “Take care of y’all. May God have mercy on my soul.” 
 
 Cannady kept talking as he faded out. 
 
 “I thought it was going to be harder than this," he said. "I am ready to go. I am going to sleep now. I can feel it, it's affecting me now." ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| 
 
 Tonight, Jesse Hernandez will become the 282nd person executed by lethal injection in Texas since 2000. Six more men are scheduled to die at the hands of the state by the end of this year. 
 
 Unlike Troy Davis or Cameron Todd Willingham, whose death penalty cases attracted national media attention, Hernandez does not claim to be innocent—he admitted to beating 10-month-old Karlos Borjas with a flashlight before the child died of head injuries. But like the vast majority of people in Texas and across the country who admitted committing horrendous crimes, his execution is likely to go widely unnoticed. 
 
 But no matter how much attention his case receives, every death row inmate has the chance to express his thoughts before the poison courses through his veins. On its website, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice prints every offender's last statement, which contain expressions of love, prayer, apology, defiance, confession, and silence. Taken together, they comprise a heartbreaking snapshot of nearly 300 lives lost. 
 
 "Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice," Napoleon Beazley said just before he was executed on May 28, 2002. "Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right… No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious." 
 
 Click to enlarge the infographic to see the most common words used in final statements, as well as information about the people executed in Texas over the past dozen years.
– You know you have just minutes to live. What do you say? If you're about to be executed in Texas, you most often mention love, family, life, or God—and that you're "sorry." Those are the words that most frequently pop up in the farewells of inmates before they're put to death in the state. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice preserves every offender's final statement from the last 30 years on its website, and there are plenty of statements to read through, because Texas has executed nearly 500 people since 1982. The Los Angeles Times takes a look. A sampling: "Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice," killer carjacker Napoleon Beazley said before he was executed in 2002.Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right. No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious." Before 54-year-old Marvin Wilson, a man with an IQ of 61, was executed last week for killing a police informant, he said: “Y'all do understand that I came here a sinner and leaving a saint. Take me home, Jesus. I love y'all. I'm ready." In 1985, cop killer Henry Porter asked: "You call me a cold-blooded murderer? I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers.” Another cop killer, Charles William Bass, executed in 1986, was much harder on himself. "I deserve this," he said. "Tell everyone I said goodbye." Double murderer Rogelio Cannady told everyone present from his family that he loved them, then added as he faded: "I thought it was going to be harder than this. I am ready to go." But killer rapist Rodrigo Hernandez said as he was being executed earlier this year: "This stuff stings. God almighty."