Jesse Bishop

Jesse Walter Bishop (March 1, 1933 – October 22, 1979) was convicted of the murder of David Ballard, aged 22.

In 1977, Bishop was in the process of robbing El Morocco Casino, a Las Vegas Strip casino, when he was interrupted by Ballard, who had left his nearby wedding reception to intervene. According to a witness, Bishop shot Ballard "like a dog".[1]

He voluntarily waived appeals following his conviction and was executed in 1979 by the State of Nevada by gas chamber at the age of 46. He became the first person to be executed in Nevada since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated, and the third person to be executed in the United States since 1976, after Gary Gilmore and John Arthur Spenkelink. He was also the last inmate in Nevada to be executed by the gas chamber. Executions thereafter have been carried out by lethal injection in the same chamber.

Bishop had spent twenty years of his life incarcerated for various felony offenses and bragged about having committed an estimated eighteen homicides, most of them drug related.