JUST IN: Aaron Gunches Execution + Last Meal and Words Death Row US

On March 19th, 2025, Aaron Brian Gunches was executed for the 2002 murder of his girlfriend’s ex-husband, Ted Price. Keep watching as this video uncovers the disturbing details of his crime, his final meal, his last words, and how his execution was carried out. What’s surprising about this case is that unlike most death row inmates, Aaron didn’t spend years fighting for his life. He demanded that the state carry out his sentence as fast as possible. But before we dive into this, let’s take a look at how he got into this mess in the first place.

In November 2002, Ted arrived at his ex-wife Kathryn Leer’s apartment in Mesa, Arizona, planning to stay for a while as he waited for a school grant to come through. But things didn’t go as planned. For the first few days, everything seemed fine, but as time passed, tension started to rise. The past they had tried to leave behind was still there, boiling beneath the surface. After about 10 days, Kathryn snapped. She told Ted to leave, and the argument quickly escalated. Then, at some point, she grabbed a telephone and smashed it into his face.

Ted didn’t collapse, but something was off. He was still conscious, but he looked dazed, unsteady, like he wasn’t fully there. That night, Aaron showed up at Kathryn’s apartment. He listened to what had happened, and instead of calling for help, he took control of the situation in his own way. He told Kathryn and her two roommates, Michelle Beck and Jennifer Garcia, to help load Ted into Kathryn’s car, and Jennifer was told to drive. Aaron claimed he was taking Ted to the bus station, that he’d buy him a ticket and send him away for good. But Aaron had no intention of letting Ted leave town.

When they arrived at the station, Aaron realized he had a problem. He didn’t have the money to buy Ted a bus ticket, and just like that, the plan changed. Instead of letting Ted go, Aaron told Jennifer to keep driving out of Mesa, out into the desert. The city lights faded behind them, and the further they went, the clearer it became: this trip wasn’t about putting Ted on a bus anymore. Eventually, Aaron told Jennifer to turn onto a dirt road, taking them deeper into the dark, empty desert off the Beeline Highway. No traffic, no witnesses, no way out.

The car rolled to a stop in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but darkness and the eerie emptiness of the desert. Aaron stepped out and walked toward the trunk. But at that same moment, Ted saw his chance and made a desperate attempt to escape. Despite his injuries, he managed to climb out, stumbling as he tried to run. But before he could get far, gunshots shattered the silence. Jennifer later recalled hearing three sharp cracks ring out before she saw Ted collapse, followed by a fourth shot that left no doubt about what had happened.

When she looked again, Aaron was standing over his body, the gun still in his hand, as if it was just another task completed. Without a word, Aaron climbed back into the car, and Jennifer did what she was told. She turned the car around and drove back to Mesa. Along the way, they stopped at a dumpster where they tossed out Ted’s belongings, erasing any sign that he had ever been with them.

A few days later, Ted’s body was found in the desert, and it didn’t take long for police to turn their attention to Kathryn and her roommates. When investigators began questioning them, the story started to unravel, and under pressure, Michelle finally admitted what they had all been too afraid to say. Aaron had told her that he killed Ted. But by then, Aaron was already gone.

For two months, he managed to stay on the run, but on January 15th, 2003, his luck finally ran out. Arizona State Trooper Robert Flannery pulled him over for what should have been a routine traffic stop, but he had no idea that the man behind the wheel was a killer. Before Robert could react, Aaron pulled out a gun and fired twice, hitting the officer before speeding off into the night.

Officer Robert collapsed to the ground, bleeding on the side of the road, but luckily, he survived. And this set off an immediate and massive response. Within hours, more than 50 law enforcement officers were on the hunt for the man who had just shot a cop and killed another man in cold blood. Aaron had managed to disappear into the wilderness, but he couldn’t hide forever.

Officers spread out across the state, searching every possible hideout, and by the next day, they had him cornered. When they finally found him, he was curled up inside a haystack in Wenden, Arizona, cold, exhausted, and completely out of options. There was no more running. His time on the outside was over, and from that moment on, the countdown to his execution had already begun.

Aaron was taken into custody and faced multiple charges, including the attempted murder of Officer Flannery. But when it came to Ted Price’s murder, he didn’t put up a fight. There were no drawn-out legal battles or desperate pleas for leniency. In 2004, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping, fully accepting the consequences of what he had done.

But rather than allowing a defense attorney to argue for his life, Aaron made another bold decision. He chose to represent himself in court, and instead of fighting for a lesser sentence, he did nothing. He offered no defense, no argument, no emotion. With nothing standing in their way, the jury found him guilty, and in 2008, he was sentenced to death.

But his execution wouldn’t come as easily as he had expected. The Arizona Supreme Court overturned the sentence, ruling that the crime, while brutal, didn’t meet the legal standard for cruelty. Prosecutors had argued that Ted’s murder was cruel and heinous, but the court disagreed. Because Ted never saw the attack coming and died instantly, they stated that he hadn’t experienced fear or prolonged suffering, meaning the crime didn’t legally meet the criteria required for the death penalty.

Aaron had been sentenced to die, but now the state would have to put him on trial all over again. With the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to overturn his sentence, Maricopa County put Aaron back on trial in 2013. But just like before, he refused to fight for his life. Once again, he chose to represent himself, and once again, he refused to put up any defense.

The court assigned attorney Elizabeth Crowder as his advisory counsel, but Aaron wanted no part of it. Every attempt she made to help was met with resistance. “We argued every single day,” she later recalled. Elizabeth Crowder believed the case should never have been a death penalty trial. In her view, the evidence could have supported second-degree murder, which would have spared him from execution. But Aaron had already pleaded guilty. That meant the jury had only one decision left to make: would he spend the rest of his life in prison, or would he be sentenced to die? What do you think should have happened?

While most death row inmates spend years fighting to escape execution, Aaron did the opposite. In November 2022, after spending 14 years awaiting execution, he took an extraordinary step. He asked the Arizona Supreme Court to issue his execution warrant. He claimed he didn’t want delays, saying he wanted justice to be served and for the victim’s families to have closure. The Arizona Attorney General agreed, and the process to carry out his death sentence was officially set in motion.

For the first time in decades, it looked like his execution would finally happen. But then, in early 2023, Aaron changed his mind. After years of demanding to die, he suddenly wasn’t so sure. He had watched how other executions in Arizona had gone horribly wrong, and what he saw disturbed him. Reports showed that lethal injections were failing, prisoners were gasping for air long after they were supposed to be unconscious, and executioners struggled to insert IV lines, leaving inmates writhing in pain for minutes before they finally died. Aaron called it torture.

And at the same time, public pressure against the death penalty was growing. As concerns about Arizona’s execution methods escalated, Governor Katie Hobbs made a bold decision. She halted all executions and ordered a full review of the state’s protocols. With that decision, Aaron’s case was thrown into limbo.

The courts approved his execution for April 2023, but when the time came, officials admitted they weren’t ready to go through with it. His warrant expired, and the process fell apart once again. But Ted’s sister, Karen, wasn’t going to let it slide. She petitioned the court to force the state to carry out the execution, arguing that justice had already been delayed long enough.

Arizona’s prison officials, however, pushed back. They claimed they weren’t prepared to conduct an execution in a constitutionally sound manner and that they lacked staff with the proper expertise to ensure everything was done correctly. With no way forward, Aaron’s execution warrant expired once again, and the process that had dragged on for decades hit yet another roadblock.

But this time, things would be different. By 2025, Aaron had grown tired of the delays, and once again, he demanded to be executed, making it clear that he wanted no more legal obstacles. This time, the state didn’t hesitate. The Arizona Supreme Court set March 19th as his official execution date, and there would be no last-minute changes.

Aaron was determined. He never asked for mercy and never tried to stop it. He criticized the court system for taking too long and even tried to speed up his own execution by skipping legal steps. Now, after more than two decades, it was finally happening.

On March 19th, 2025, Aaron was strapped to a gurney inside the Arizona State Prison in Florence. The same lethal injection process he once called torture was now being used to end his life. His final meal consisted of onion rings, a spicy gyro, a barbecue gyro, baklava, and a double western bacon cheeseburger with fries. He refused to speak any final words. At 53 years old, Aaron Brian Gunches was dead.