Joseph Paul Jernigan was a Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 murderer who was killed by lethal injection

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...

 at 12:31 a.m.

In 1981, Jernigan was sentenced to death for stabbing and shooting 75-year-old Edward Hale, who discovered him stealing a microwave oven

Microwave oven

A microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that heats food by dielectric heating, using microwave radiation to heat polarized molecules within the food...

. Jernigan spent 12 years in prison before his final plea for clemency was denied. At the prompting of a prison chaplain, he agreed to donate his body for scientific research or medical use. His cadaver was sectioned and photographed for the Visible Human Project

Visible Human Project

The Visible Human Project is an effort to create a detailed data set of cross-sectional photographs of the human body, in order to facilitate anatomy visualization applications. A male and a female cadaver were cut into thin slices which were then photographed and digitized. The project is run by...

 and the University of Colorado School of Medicine by Dr. Vic Spitzer and associates. He is the subject of an HBO documentary Virtual Corpse and also appeared on the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 video game TV series, GamesMaster

GamesMaster

GamesMaster was a British television show, screened on Channel 4 from 1992 to 1998, and was the first ever UK television show dedicated to computer and video games.-Origins:...

's gore special.

See also

• List of individuals executed in Texas
• Capital punishment in Texas
  Capital punishment in Texas
  Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...
  
  
• Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
  
  

External links

• Offender Information. Texas Department of Criminal Justice
  Texas Department of Criminal Justice
  The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is a department of the government of the state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails and private correctional facilities, funding and certain...
  
  . Retrieved on 2007-11-20.
• Final Meal Requests. Texas Department of Criminal Justice
  Texas Department of Criminal Justice
  The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is a department of the government of the state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails and private correctional facilities, funding and certain...
  
  (2003-09-12). Archived from the original on 2003-12-02. Retrieved on 2007-11-20.