Twenty-five inmates have been executed in the US this year - from serial killers and rapists to murderous fathers.
The tally - two more than 2017's total of 23 - is the highest number of executions since 2015, after a steady decline from 2009.
All those executed on Death Row in 2018 were men.
Texas was the country's top executioner once again, with 13 executions, followed by Tennessee's three.
The oldest inmate was 83, while the youngest was 31. Most were given lethal injections, but some were electrocuted.
It comes in a year when Pope Francis toughened the Vatican's stance on the death penalty and called for it to be abolished worldwide.
However, at least 14 prisoners currently have dates for 2019, with more than 2,000 men and women sitting on Death Row.
These are the full details of this year's executions - including what the inmates picked as their last meals, what their final words were, and why they were there in the first place.
It is worth noting that Texas nowadays doesn't allow its lags to pick a last meal. They are, instead, fed the usual prison fare.
Anthony Shore, 55, Texas
Date: January 18
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Standard prison fare - chicken patty, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, carrots, and cornbread
Dubbed the "Tourniquet Killer" for his method of murder, serial killer Anthony Shore, 55, was the first inmate to be put to death in 2018.
The former telephone repairman and tow truck driver killed a young woman and four girls in Houston, Texas, between 1986 and 1995.
Shore was executed for the murder of Maria del Carmen Estrada, 21, a nanny from Mexico who was raped and strangled with a nylon cord from a Venetian blind in April 1992 after he offered her a ride to work.
He was arrested in 2003 and convicted the following year after previously untested scrapings from underneath Ms Estrada's fingernails matched his DNA, which was in a database after he admitted sexually abusing two girls.
After the murder arrest, Shore admitted strangling three other Hispanic girls - Laurie Lee Tremblay, 15, in 1986, Dana Sanchez, 16, in 1995, and Diana Rebollar, nine, in April 1994.
Moments before he was executed, he said in his final statement: "No amount of words or apology could ever undo what I've done. I wish I could undo the past, but it is what it is."
William Rayford, 64, Texas
Date:January 30
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Spaghetti with beef sauce, green beans, black beans, corn, and garlic bread
William Rayford, 64, was put to death for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Carol Hall, in November 1999, while he was on parole for fatally stabbing his estranged wife in 1986.
He stabbed Ms Hall's 11-year-old son, Benjamin, during an argument, then chased the 44-year-old out of her Cliff Oak, Texas, home.
He dumped the Sunday school teacher's body 300ft inside a drainage pipe behind the house after beating, stabbing and strangling her.
Rayford's lawyers claimed he had brain damage caused by lead poisoning from a decades-old bullet fragment in his body and exposure to contaminated water when he was a child, but they failed to get him off Death Row.
John Battaglia, 62, Texas
Date:February 1
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Chicken patty, mashed potatoes with country gravy, green beans, corn and cornbread
John Battaglia, 62, shot dead his two little girls in 2001.
The ex-accountant was put to death for the killings, after last-ditch appeals to spare his life were rejected in February.
His former wife, Ms Pearle, watched from the death chamber's viewing area.
In a final statement, Battaglia smiled at the mum and said: "No, well, hi Mary Jean, I'll see y'all later," according to local media and prison officials.
It had taken jurors approximately 20 minutes to convict the father - around the same time it took for him to die.
Eric Branch, 47, Florida
Date: February 22
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Pork chop, a T-bone steak, french fries, two pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and ginger ale
Eric Branch, 47, earned his death sentence for the 1993 rape and murder of a college student whose car he wanted to steal.
He screamed "murderers" as he was executed by lethal injection.
The dad was arrested after Susan Morris's battered and strangled body was found in a wooded area on the campus in Pensacola.
He was found guilty at his trial and sentenced to death.
He had maintained his innocence over the years, claiming another man also named Eric was the person who killed Ms Morris.
As witnesses, including Ms Morris's family and journalists, looked on, he said to the warden and two other officials in the execution chamber: "My last statement is for you guys. I ask you to step out of line of duty and not participate in this.
"The governor wishes to be senator, and [Florida Attorney General] Pam Bondi wishes to be governor. Let them come down here and do it. I’ve learned that you are good people and this is not what you should be doing."
Michael Eggers, 50, Alabama
Date: March 15
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Chicken creole, dirty rice, turnip greens, cornbread, cream corn, cake, and a grape drink
Michael Eggers, 50, admitted the murder of 67-year-old Bennie Francis Murray in 2000.
He had worked for Mrs Murray who ran a carnival concessions stand with her husband.
Eggers had asked the victim to pick him and his son up from a bus station.
After dropping off the boy, Eggers said he got into an argument with Mrs Murray and beat her unconscious.
He then dragged her body into woodland and used a tree branch to choke her and make sure she was dead.
The state put him to death with a lethal injection in March.
Carlton Gary, 67, Georgia
Date: March 15
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal:Grilled hamburger, a hot dog, white beans, coleslaw and a grape beverage
"Stocking Strangler" Carlton Gary strangled three elderly women with their stockings in a fit of rage.
He was convicted of his horrific crimes in 1986 and sentenced to death, but spent a staggering 32 years on Death Row.
On the day of his execution in March, he offered no last words.
Strapped to a gurney with his arms extended to each side, he didn't even open his eyes before he died, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Rosendo Rodriguez, 38, Texas
Date: March 27
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal:Pepper steak, steamed rice, brown gravy, vegetable blend, black-eyed peas, cornbread, chilled pasta salad
Rosendo Rodriguez, 38, sexually assaulted and killed pregnant prostitute Summer Baldwin in 2005.
He then disposed of her body by stuffing it inside a suitcase. It was later found folded inside the case at a landfill.
After his arrest for that gruesome crime, Rodriguez confessed to killing another woman and disposing of her body the same way.
Dubbed the “suitcase killer” of Lubbock, Texas, he was executed one day after his birthday, after his final appeal was denied.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, he said: "Yesterday was my birthday. Today is the day I join my God and father."
He added: "The state may have my body but not my soul."
Walter Moody, 83, Alabama
Date:April 19
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Two Philly cheese sandwiches and Dr Pepper
Walter Moody became the oldest Death Row inmate to be executed this year when he was put to death in April aged 83.
Moody was convicted of mailing a bomb in 1989 that killed US Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance, 58, and another that killed Georgia civil rights attorney Robert Robinson.
Prosecutors have said Moody sent the bomb to the judge in anger over a 1972 bomb conviction that the killer felt derailed his career and sent another to the civil rights lawyer to confuse investigators.
The pensioner spent more than 20 years on Death Row.
Erick Davila, 31, Texas
Date:April 25
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Salisbury steak, steamed rice, brown gravy, vegetable blend, pinto beans, cornbread and butterscotch brownies
Erick Davila was convicted of opening fire at a children's birthday party in 2008, believing a rival gang member was present.
In a spray of bullets, he killed Annette Stevenson, 48, and her granddaughter, Queshawn Stevenson, court documents showed.
Little Queshawn was only five. Davila, 31, also wounded three other children and one woman, according to the documents.
In his last statement, the killer was quoted by prisons officials as saying: "I might have lost the fight but I'm still a soldier.
"I still love you all. To my supporters and family, y'all hold it down."
Prosecutors said Davila was a member of the Bloods street gang.
He drove by the party in Fort Worth, believing that members of the rival Crips gang were there, it was said.
Using a semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope, he then fired numerous shots into the group while attendees ate cake and ice cream.
Robert Butts, 40, Georgia
Date:May 4
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal:Bacon cheeseburger with American and cheddar cheese, a ribeye steak, six chicken tenders, seasoned fries, cheesecake and strawberry lemonade
Robert Butts, 40, was given the lethal injection for the 1996 armed robbery and murder of off-duty police officer Donovan Corey Parks.
Butts was 18 when he asked the copper for a lift outside a Walmart, only to direct him to a semi-secluded spot.
There, he shot him in the back of the head with a sawed-off shotgun.
When asked if he had any final words, Butts said: "Yeah, I've been drinking caffeine all day," CBS News reported.
Then, shortly after being administered the drugs that would kill him, the prisoner groaned and said: "It burns, man."
He was put to death after the US Supreme Court denied his final appeal.
Juan Castillo, 37, Texas
Date: May 16
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Chicken patty, mashed potatoes, country gravy, carrots, pinto beans, green beans, cornbread
Juan Castillo, 37, robbed and murdered an aspiring rapper in 2003.
The killer was asked if he had any final words.
He replied: "To everyone that has been there for me, you know who you are. See y'all on the other side."
According to one witness, he later added, "S*** does burn."
Castillo's execution had been postponed three times in just a year.
He died after being given a lethal dose of pentobarbital in the Huntsville death chamber, the Texas Department of Justice said.
Danny Bible, 66, Texas
Date: June 27
Method: Lethal injection
Last meal: Chicken patty, sweet potatoes, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, biscuits, country gravy and a sugar cookie bar
Danny Bible, 66, was executed for the rape and murder of a young woman who was stabbed 11 times with an ice pick.
Dubbed the "Ice Pick Killer", he also admitted to other rapes and killings, including the murder of a baby.
Speaking at his execution, one of his victim's family members said: "Danny Paul Bible is as a vile and evil a person that has ever drawn breath."
Bible, who was in a wheelchair, had claimed his veins would not handle a lethal injection. His attorneys had asked for the state to execute him by firing squad or gas.
He gave no final words before he died, the Texas Tribune reported.
Christopher Young, 34, Texas
Date: July 17
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Standard prison fare - the exact details of which are not known
Christopher Young shot dead a convenience store owner in 2004.
Aged 21 at the time, he gunned down 55-year-old Hasmukh Patel during a robbery in November that year.
His victim's family opposed his execution, which protesters desperately tried to get quashed in July.
However, Young was given the lethal cocktail of chemicals on the evening of July 17.
He said he could "taste it in his throat" before he took his final breath.
In his final statement, Young expressed his love to his victim's relatives.
He reportedly said: "l want to make sure the Patel family knows I love them like they love me. Make sure the kids in the world know I'm being executed and those kids I've been mentoring keep this fight going.
"I'm good, warden."
Robert Van Hook, 58, Ohio
Date:July 18
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Double cheeseburgers, fries, strawberry cheese cake with whipped cream, a vanilla milkshake and grapefruit juice.
Robert 'Bobby' Van Hook, 58, was executed 30 years after he stabbed a man to death in his Hyde Park apartment.
David Self, 25, was found nearly disemboweled in 1985. The pair had met at a Downtown Cincinnati gay bar.
Before he was put to death, Van Hook broke down in tears. He also said the words, "I'm no good", before drugs were injected into his veins.
Billy Irick, 59, Tennessee
Date:August 9
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: A combo of a "super deluxe" burger, onion rings and a Pepsi
Billy Irick, 59, murdered seven-year-old Paula Dyer.
He raped the youngster and watched her gasp for air as he strangled her to death during the horrific attack in April 1985.
Irick spent three decades on Death Row , but was executed at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee in August.
He "coughed and turned purple" before his own final breaths.
His final words were "I just want to say I'm really sorry".
Irick ate a burger and onion rings before he died - a far cry from his young victim's last meal of canned corn and peas for supper.
Carey Moore, 60, Nebraska
Date:August 14
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Pizza Hut slices, shared with his twin brother
Carey Dean Moore died after being injected with a new, lethal cocktail of four drugs - 50 times stronger than heroin - on August 14.
During his execution, the 60-year-old reportedly looked at his loved ones, started breathing heavily and coughed before his chest stopped moving.
However, after going "still", his face turned red then purple. Moments later, his eyelids "cracked open very slightly", according to a media witness.
And a minute after this, at 10.39am, the curtain went down.
It was 14 minutes later, at 10.53am, that the curtain lifted again, with Moore's body entirely covered except for his face, a news conference heard.
The prison director said his time of death was recorded as 10.47am.
Moore, who was on Death Row for nearly four decades, shot and killed Omaha cabbies Reuel Van Ness Jr and Maynard Helgeland in 1979.
According to the Lincoln Journal Star, he and his twin brother, David, shared slices of Pizza Hut pizza as his final meal.
They also had Pepsi and ate strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
Troy Clark, 51, Texas
Date: September 26
Method: Lethal injection
Last meal: Pepper steak, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, pinto beans, cornbread, black-eyed peas, pork noodle casserole and carrot cake
Troy Clark, 51, was convicted and sentenced to death over the 1998 kidnapping and murder of young mum Christina Muse.
He drowned her and stuffed her body in a barrel with concrete.
Clark maintained he didn't commit the brutal crime against his former housemate, but was executed in late September.
"I'm not the one who killed Christina," he reportedly said.
"But hey, whatever makes you happy."
He also apparently laughed and giggled during the execution.
Daniel Acker, 46, Texas
Date:September 27
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Chicken patty, steamed rice, country gravy, black beans, corn bread, chili mac, corn, and pinto beans
Daniel Acker, 46, was executed at Huntsville’s death chamber hours after the US Supreme Court denied his last appeal.
He had been sentenced to die over the 2000 East Texas murder of his girlfriend, 32-year-old Marquetta George.
Her body was found on the side of the road several miles away from their home.
Rodney Berget, 56, South Dakota
Date:October 29
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Pancakes, waffles, maple syrup and butter, breakfast sausages, scrambled eggs, fries, Pepsi and Cherry Nibs liquorice.
Rodney Berget, 56, uttered the words “is it supposed to feel like that?” after he was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs.
He also groaned and said “ah” before breathing heavily, snoring, then finally succumbing to the substances.
The prisoner had been sentenced to death for his part in the brutal murder of a corrections officer in 2011.
He was already behind bars for attempted murder and kidnapping.
Despite fighting his sentence for years, Berget reportedly decided to give up, not wanting to face another 30 years behind bars.
He was pronounced dead at 7.37pm on October 29 at the South Dakota State Penitentiary, 12 minutes after the injection.
Edmund Zagorski, 63, Tennessee
Date:November 1
Method: Electric chair
Last meal:Pickled pig knuckles and pigtails
Edmund Zagorski, 63, chose to be executed by electrocution because he believed it wouldn't be as agonising as the lethal injection.
He had been on Death Row since 1984.
Zagorski was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of two men - John Dotson, 35, and Jimmy Porter, 32 - in 1983.
He claimed the electric chair would only cause him "excruciating pain" for 15 to 30 seconds, while the injection would result in him spending the final 10 to 18 minutes of his life in "utter terror and agony".
However, the man who built the chair, Fred Leuchter, had earlier revealed he feared it wouldn't work properly and would be just as inhumane as the injection.
According to witnesses, Zagorski uttered "let's rock", before sponges and a helmet were placed on his head.
Before the execution, the chair had only been used once in the state in the previous 47 years - to kill convicted child killer Daryl Holton.
Roberto Ramos, 64, Texas
Date:November 14
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Pepper steak, steamed rice, mixed greens, pinto beans, sliced bread, oven-fried potatoes, country gravy with sausage, mixed fruit, biscuits
Robert Moreno Ramos was executed 26 years after the murders of his wife Leticia, 42, and children Abigail, seven and Jonathon, three.
The victims were beaten to death with a small sledgehammer and buried under the bathroom floor of their home in Progreso, Texas.
Ramos was killed by lethal injection for the February 1992 crimes.
When asked if he had any last words, the 64-year-old responded as if he was at a retirement party instead of an execution.
“I’m getting my gold watch that it took the governor 30 years to forge,” he said. “Thank you, God. Lord, send me a chariot. I’m ready.”
The Mexican national was put to death following two decades of appeals and a last-minute plea that was rejected.
Joseph Garcia, 47, Texas
Date:December 4
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Baked pork chop, pepper steak, sweet potatoes, pinto beans, steamed rice with brown gravy, corn, vegetarian beans, cornbread, sliced bread
Joseph Garcia was a member of the so-called "Texas 7", a gang of escaped prisoners involved in the fatal shooting of a cop.
Officer Aubrey Hawkins, of Irving, Texas, was gunned down during a robbery on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Garcia, 47, offered a brief prayer before he was executed.
He said: "Dear Heavenly Father, please forgive them for they know not what they do."
He was pronounced dead 13 minutes after the lethal dose began.
Garcia wasn't the one who shot Hawkins, 29, during the sport goods store robbery, but he was convicted of capital murder under a controversial "law of parties".
Before he died, he wrote to the Houston Chronicle: "I am on Death Row because of the actions and intent of others and because I am one of the Texas Seven, case closed.
"Is it right that I should be murdered for something that I did not do?"
He was the fourth "Texas 7" member to be executed. Six group members were arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
A seventh member killed himself as police closed in.
David Earl Miller, 61, Tennessee
Date: December 6
Method:Electric chair
Last meal: Pepper steak, steamed rice with brown gravy, ranch style beans, cornbread, spaghetti with beef sauce, corn, pinto beans, and garlic toast
David Earl Miller was Tennessee's longest serving Death Row inmate when he was put to death earlier this month.
Miller, who had been locked up for 36 years, said "beats being on Death Row" before he died, according to the Tennessean.
He had eaten a final meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and was pronounced dead at 8:25pm local time (2.25am UK time).
The electric chair was on for four minutes during the execution.
Miller, 61, had been convicted of murdering of 23-year-old Lee Standifer - who suffered from a mental impairment - in Knoxville.
The pair had gone on a date before Miller repeatedly beat and stabbed his victim before dumping her body in woodland.
Execution witnesses said the killer was emotionless and expressionless during the execution process, Fox 17 reported.
Alvin Braziel, 43, Texas
Date: December 11
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Unknown
Alvin Braziel murdered newlywed Douglas White and raped his bride Lora White during a botched robbery 25 years ago.
He attacked the pair at gunpoint as they walked on a jogging trail at Eastfield College campus, near Dallas, in September 1993.
The couple told Braziel, who was 18 at the time, that they had no money before Douglas was fatally shot and Lora sexually attacked.
The crime was unsolved for eight years.
Brazie was sentenced to death in 2001 and killed on December 11, despite his lawyers' last-ditch pleas to halt the execution.
He used his last words to apologise to Lora.
Jose Jimenez, 55, Florida
Date: December 13
Method:Lethal injection
Last meal: Cuban sandwich, eggs, French fries and ice cream
Jose Antonio Jimenez, who died by lethal injection this month, stabbed a 63-year-old woman to death during a burglary.
Court clerk Phyliss Minas was home alone when Jimenez broke in and stabbed her eight times, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
She suffered two fatal thrusts to the heart.
Jimenez, 55, was executed by Florida on the evening of December 13 after a last-minute appeal to the US Supreme Court was declined.
He was pronounced dead at 9.48 pm.
In a written statement released by the Florida Department of Corrections, Phyliss's nephew said: "Mr Jimenez has shown no remorse or repentance for his crime.
“His execution will allow closure to a painful memory of the vicious murder ... My family hopes he has made peace with himself and to whatever power he may or may not believe in.
"We pray for his soul and feel justice has been rightfully served."
Jimenez, who also beat Phyllis during the sickening attack, ate a Cuban sandwich, eggs, French fries and ice cream before he died.