BREAKING: Aaron Brian Gunches Execution | Crime, Last Meal + Final Words | US Death Row Arizona –
On March 19th, 2025, after spending 22 years on death row, Aaron Brian Ges was executed by lethal injection at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. As state officials confirmed, he was injected with pentobarbatital at 10:14 a.m. and pronounced dead at 10:33 a.m. In this video, we explore Gun’s story, the crime that sent him to death row, the two decade legal saga that followed, and the details of his final hours, his last meal, and whether he had any final words.
This is the story of a man who spent over two decades asking the state to end his life. A man who refused to fight for his freedom, who waved nearly every legal right design to protect him, and who famously told the courts his death sentence was long overdue. Aaron Gunches didn’t just accept his fate on death row. He demanded it.
What drives someone to advocate for their own execution? What happened in November 2002 that set this extraordinary chain of events in motion? And what were the final moments like for a man who had been waiting more than 20 years for this day to arrive? The crime itself was brutal and personal. In November 2002, Aaron Gunches kidnapped and murdered Ted Price in the desert east of Phoenix.
But Ted Price wasn’t a stranger. He was the ex-husband of Gunches’s girlfriend. The details of what transpired that day paint a picture of a crime born from personal conflict, jealousy, and rage. Gunches took Price out into the remote Arizona desert, a landscape of endless sand and rock where few people venture, and even fewer would hear a gunshot.
There, miles from civilization, he shot Ted Price and left him to die. The Arizona desert has been the setting for countless crimes over the years. Its vast emptiness offers both beauty and darkness. For someone looking to commit murder, it provides isolation, no witnesses, no cameras, just the sun, the sand, and silence.
Ges used that isolation to his advantage. After shooting Price, he left the body in that desolate stretch of land. Perhaps believing it might never be found or that by the time it was discovered, any evidence would be long gone. But bodies tell stories. Evidence has a way of surfacing. And soon enough, law enforcement connected the dots.
They arrested Aaron Gunches and the legal process began. What happened next though was anything but typical. Most people facing murder charges fight back. They hire the best attorneys they can afford. They challenge evidence. They appeal verdicts. They exhaust every possible legal avenue to avoid conviction or at least to reduce their sentence.
The American legal system is built on this principle of vigorous defense. Even those who are clearly guilty often spend years, sometimes decades, fighting their cases through the courts. Aaron Gunches did the opposite. In 2007, 5 years after the murder, Gunches pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
He didn’t just plead guilty. He refused to offer any defense whatsoever. He represented himself in court, acting as his own attorney, and then essentially told the jury to sentence him to death. One judge who observed this spectacle called it suicide by jury. Gunes wasn’t just accepting responsibility for his crime. He was actively pursuing the harshest possible punishment.
Think about that for a moment. Imagine standing in a courtroom, your life literally on the line and choosing not to defend yourself. Choosing not to present mitigating evidence. choosing not to explain the circumstances or your state of mind or anything else that might persuade a jury to spare your life. Gunes made that choice deliberately.
He looked at the death penalty and said in effect, “Yes, that’s what I want.” The jury obliged. They sentenced him to death and Gunches was transferred to death row at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. For most inmates, this would mark the beginning of a long legal battle. Appeals would be filed. New attorneys would take up the case.
Every aspect of the trial would be scrutinized for errors, constitutional violations, or new evidence that might overturn the sentence. But Gunches had other plans. Over the next 22 years, he became known as the death row inmate who spent his time not fighting his execution, but demanding it. He scrapped most of his appeals.
When lawyers tried to help him, he rejected them. When the legal systems builtin protections tried to slow down his path to the death chamber, he fought against those protections. He filed petitions asking the courts to speed up his execution. He called his death sentence long overdue. This behavior is extraordinarily rare. Death row inmates typically do everything possible to delay execution.
[PART 2]
They file appeal after appeal. They seek clemency. They look for any procedural error, any constitutional question, any reason to keep living. The system itself is designed to move slowly in capital cases precisely because the stakes are so high. Taking someone’s life is irreversible. The courts want to be absolutely certain they’re getting it right. Gunes rejected all of that.
For 22 years, he sat on death row, not desperately clinging to life, but instead asking why it was taking so long to die. Media outlets began calling him the death row inmate who advocated for his own execution. Legal experts debated whether someone could truly consent to their own execution or whether mental illness might be driving his choices.
But evaluations found him competent to make these decisions. He understood what he was doing. He understood the consequences and he wanted to die. Try to imagine those 22 years, day after day, month after month, year after year in a small cell on death row. The monotony of prison routine, the isolation, the knowledge that you’re waiting to be executed.
For most people, that would be psychological torture. The uncertainty alone would be crushing. But for Gunches, the torture seemed to be the waiting itself. Not the prospect of death, but the delay. What was going through his mind during those two decades? Did he feel remorse for k!lling Ted Price? Did he think about Price’s family and the pain he had caused them? Or was his focus entirely on himself and his own desire to end his life? He never publicly expressed remorse.
He never apologized to the victim’s family. His silence on these matters was as notable as his insistence on being executed. The years dragged on. 2010 came and went. Then 2015, then 2020. Arizona’s death penalty system, like many across the country, moved slowly. There were legal challenges to execution methods.
There were difficulties obtaining the drugs used in lethal injections. There were changes in political leadership and public opinion. All of these factors contributed to delays. For the family of Ted Price, those 22 years must have felt endless. His sister Karen Price and other family members waited for justice. They attended hearings.
They watched as the case dragged through the courts. They saw gunes continue to live year after year while their loved one remained dead. The American justice system promises closure to victim’s families, but that closure often takes decades to arrive, if it arrives at all. By early 2025, circumstances had aligned.
Arizona hadn’t carried out an execution since late 2022. The state had a new governor, a Democrat, which made this execution politically significant. It would be the first execution carried out under a Democratic governor in Arizona in over a decade, and at the national level, it would be notable as well. The death penalty had become increasingly controversial with several states imposing moratoriums or abolishing it altogether.
for Arizona to move forward with an execution in 2025 was a statement. The date was set March 19th, 2025. After 22 years, Aaron Gunes would finally get what he had been asking for. The night before his execution, March 18th, Gunches was allowed to order a final meal. This tradition exists in most states that carry out executions.
It’s a small gesture of humanity, a last opportunity for the condemned to choose something they enjoy. Some inmates order simple comfort food. Others request elaborate feasts. Some refused to eat at all. Gunches went for the feast option. His final meal was described by reporters as hearty and elaborate.
He ordered a double westernstyle burger loaded with bacon. He ordered not one but two spicy euro sandwiches. He wanted crispy onion rings on the side. And for dessert, he chose baklava. That sweet flaky pastry made with layers of filow dough, honey, and nuts. The night passed. Morning came. March 19th, 2025. At 10:02 a.m.
, corrections officers entered Gunas’ cell. They escorted him from death row to the execution chamber. This walk, known in some prisons as the last walk or the final walk, is short but heavy with meaning. Every step takes the condemned person closer to death. The hallways of the prison, which Gunes had seen countless times over 22 years, now led to a room he had never entered, but had been waiting to enter for over two decades.
The execution chamber at Florence Prison is a clinical space. There’s a gurnie in the center of the room designed to secure the inmate during the procedure. There are windows through which witnesses can observe. There’s medical equipment for administering the lethal injection. Everything is designed to make the process as efficient and controlled as possible.
Correction staff secured gunes to the gurnie. They strapped down his arms, his legs, his torso. He was immobilized, unable to move. Medical personnel then inserted intravenous lines into both of his arms. These intravenous lines would deliver the pentobarbatital, the drug that would stop his heart and end his life. In the witness room, people gathered to watch.
There were media representatives there to report on the execution for the public record. There were family members of Ted Price who had waited more than 22 years for this moment. There were prison officials and legal observers. All of them looked through the glass at Aaron Gunches strapped to the gurnie waiting to die. At 10:14 a.m.
the warden stepped forward. He asked Gunches if he had any final statement. This is standard protocol in executions. It’s the condemned person’s last opportunity to speak, to say anything they want the world to hear. Some inmates apologize to their victim’s families. Some proclaim their innocence. Some offer religious statements or messages to their own families.
Some speak for several minutes. Aaron Gunches shook his head. He said nothing. His silence was absolute and final. After 22 years of insisting on his own execution, he had nothing more to say, no apology to Ted Price’s family, no explanation of his actions, no last words of any kind, just silence, the execution proceeded. At 10:14 a.m.
, the same moment the warden finished asking for final words, the lethal injection began. Pentoarbatital flowed through the eye. V lines into Gunches’ veins. This drug is a barbiterate, a powerful sedative that in the doses used for execution causes death by suppressing the central nervous system and stopping the heart. Witnesses reported that Gunches took several deep breaths. His chest rose and fell.
Then they heard a brief snoring type sound, a noise that some medical experts say is common during pentobarbatital executions. As the body systems begin to shut down, there were no visible convulsions. No signs of struggle. To the observers, it appeared peaceful, clinical, controlled. But beneath the surface, something more complex was happening.
Some legal observers noted signs they believed were consistent with pulmonary edema, a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs. This can cause a sensation of drowning, though from the outside it may not be visible. The debate over whether lethal injection is truly humane has raged for years with some arguing that what appears peaceful from the outside may mask significant suffering.
For 19 minutes, witnesses watched Aaron Gunches on that gurnie. His breathing slowed, his body stilled. Medical personnel monitored his vital signs. At 10:33 a.m., his heart stopped beating. A prison official checked for signs of life and found none. Aaron Brian Gunches was pronounced dead. The witnesses filed out of the chamber.
The media representatives prepared their reports. Prison officials began the process of releasing Gunches’s body. The machinery of the justice system had completed its work. Outside the prison, reactions to the execution were somber and divided. Arizona Attorney General Chris Maize released a statement emphasizing the perspective of Ted Price’s family.
She said they had been waiting for justice for more than two decades and deserve closure. The message was clear. This execution was about giving the victims family peace after years of waiting. Karen Price, Ted Price’s sister, echoed this sentiment. She described the execution as the final chapter in a process that had spanned nearly 23 years.
for her and other family members. Gunes’s death meant they could finally close the book on this tragedy. They could stop attending hearings, stop reliving the worst day of their lives in courtrooms, stop watching the man who k!lled their loved one continue to breathe while Ted remained in the ground. But even in their statements, there was an acknowledgment that no execution can truly erase the loss. Ted Price was still dead.
He was still gone. The family still had to live with that absence every day. The execution didn’t bring Ted back. It didn’t undo the murder. It was simply an ending, not a restoration. Beyond Arizona, the execution drew national attention. Gunes became the second person executed in the United States that week.
Arizona became the first state under a Democratic governor to carry out an execution since 2017. These facts highlighted the political complexities surrounding capital punishment. The death penalty has traditionally been associated with conservative states and Republican leadership. But Arizona’s execution under a Democratic governor showed that the issue doesn’t always follow partisan lines.
Legal experts and activists debated the case. Some pointed to Gunches’s insistence on his own execution as evidence that the death penalty is fundamentally different from other punishments. Unlike prison sentences, which can be challenged and potentially reversed, execution is final. Once carried out, there’s no going back.
And when an inmate actively seeks execution, it raises questions about whether the state should comply or whether there’s an ethical obligation to preserve life even when the condemned person doesn’t want to preserved. Others focused on the victim’s family and their right to see justice carried out. From this perspective, Gunes’ wishes were irrelevant. He had committed murder.
He had been convicted and sentenced to death. The justice system had run its course and the sentence was appropriate regardless of whether Gunches wanted it or not. Prison officials declared that the execution had gone according to plan without any incident. The protocols had been followed.
The process had been orderly. From the state’s perspective, this was a successful execution. But success in this context is a strange word. A man was dead. the state had deliberately ended a human life. Whether that success depends entirely on your perspective on capital punishment, on justice, on the value of human life, and on what society owes to both victims and perpetrators of violent crime.
The story of Aaron Gunches is marked by its unusual elements. A murder motivated by personal conflict between romantic rivals. A defendant who not only failed to fight his charges, but actively sought the death penalty. A justice system that despite his wishes still took 22 years to carry out the sentence. And finally, an execution carried out on a spring morning in Florence, Arizona, witnessed by officials, media, and the family of the man Gunches had k!lled.
Aaron Gunches spent 22 years on death row asking to die. On March 19th, 2025, the state of Arizona granted his request.
