Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  For an instant there was dismay, both upon and below the scaffold. The executioner was for a moment bewildered. He ran down the steps and, beneath the platform, he found Collier upon his feet, but leaning against the side of the boarding, the cap still over his face and the rope round his neck. He seemed to be unconscious, and the hangman turned again, not knowing what to do.

  A new rope, delivered to the prison belatedly the previous evening, was immediately brought to the scaffold in order that the prisoner could be hanged again. A second time did the halter sway to and fro in readiness, again did the priest, turnkeys, culprit and hangman appear in the sight of the crowd. Their reappearance [on the scaffold] was the signal for an outburst of popular indignation. The hoots and calls were repeated until the drop again fell.’

  When Dick Hughes, a housebreaker, was going to execution in 1709, he happened to meet his wife at St Giles where, the cart stopping, she stepped up to him and, whispering in his ear, said, ‘My dear, who must supply the rope to hang you, we, or the Sheriff?’ Her husband replied, ‘The Sheriff, for who else is obliged to find him the tools to do his work?’

  Replied his wife, ‘Ah! I wish I had known so much before, ’twould have saved me tuppence, for I have been and bought one already.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Dick. ‘Perhaps it mayn’t be lost, for it may serve for a second husband!’

  Quoth his wife, ‘Yes; with my usual luck in husbands, so it may!’

  Hannah Dagoe

  Hannah was born in Ireland but had settled in London where she had obtained employment working in the fruit and vegetable market in Covent Garden. She became acquainted with a poor but hard-working widow by the name of Eleanor Hussey who lived by herself in a small apartment, and the unscrupulous Irish girl broke in while Eleanor was absent and stripped the apartment of every article it contained. Blame immediately falling on her due to her friendship with the owner, her rooms were searched and, the evidence immediately being forthcoming, Hannah was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, found guilty and sentenced to death.

  She was a strong masculine woman, the terror of her fellow prisoners, and had actually managed to stab one of the men who had given evidence against her. By contrast, when eventually en route in the cart to the Tyburn gallows she showed little concern over her rapidly approaching fate and paid no attention to the exhortations of the priest who accompanied her.

  When the little convoy was halted beneath the gallows beam, however, somehow she got her hands and arms free and seized Thomas Turlis, the hangman; struggling wildly with him, she delivered a blow so violent that she nearly felled him. Shouting at the top of her voice, she dared him to hang her, declaring that come what may, he would not have her clothing afterwards, the garments to which he was entitled, and before he could restrain her, she tore off her clothes and threw them into the crowd, thereby adding considerably to their entertainment.

  Hannah Dagoe En Route To Tyburn

  During the hectic fight, it was reported that the escort of constables made no attempt to come to Turlis’ assistance; one can hardly blame them for deciding not to take on this wildcat within the confines of a small cart. Eventually, Turlis, bruised and battered, managed to overpower his prisoner and get the rope round her neck, but as soon as she felt the rough fibres touch her skin and the noose start to tighten, she threw herself out of the cart with such force that she died instantly, perishing more mercifully in fact than had she been hanged in the usual way, writhing for an interminable length of time at the end of the rope.

  Margaret Dickson

  The Newgate Calendar & Malefactors’ Bloody Register, published in 1891, devoted many pages to the crime and apparently miraculous recovery of Margaret Dickson after being hanged, though not without expressing a hint of Victorian doubt as to whether she really deserved it. Born early in the eighteenth century, Margaret Dickson was born in Musselburgh, about five miles from Edinburgh, and on reaching maturity she married a fisherman, by whom she had several children. Her husband was called up into the Navy and while he was away Margaret had an affair with a neighbour, by whom she became pregnant.

  The Calendar explained:

  ‘In those days it was the law in Scotland that a woman known to have been unchaste should sit in a distinguished [conspicuous] place in the church on three Sundays, to be publicly rebuked by the minister; and many poor infants have been destroyed because the mother dreaded this public exposure, particularly as many Scotch ladies went to church just to be witnesses of the frailty of another woman, but were never seen there on any other occasion.

  Margaret’s neighbours averred that she was with child, but this she constantly denied, though there was every appearance that might warrant the discrediting of what she had said. At length, however, she was delivered of a child; but it is uncertain whether it was born alive or not. Be that as it may, she was taken into custody and lodged in the gaol of Edinburgh. When her trial came on, several witnesses deposed that she had been frequently pregnant; others proved that there were signs of her having been delivered and that a new-born infant had been found dead near the place of her residence. The jury, giving credit to the evidence against her, brought in a verdict of guilty; in consequence of which she was doomed to suffer.’

  In her favour it was subsequently reported that she behaved in a most penitent manner, confessed that she had been guilty of many sins and even admitted that she had been disloyal to her husband, but she steadfastly and constantly denied that she had murdered her child. She agreed that the fear of being exposed to the ridicule of her neighbours in the church had tempted her to deny that she was pregnant, and she said that when she went into labour, she was unable to summon the assistance of her neighbours; moreover she had lapsed into unconsciousness so that it was impossible she should know what became of the infant.

  At the execution site she continued to protest her innocence, and expressed her sorrow for all her other sins. After being hanged for the requisite length of time her body was cut down and handed over to her friends, who put it in the coffin they had brought, and loaded it onto a handcart to be conveyed back to Musselburgh for burial. But, the weather being sultry, the cortège stopped at a village called Pepper-Mill, about two miles from Edinburgh, so that the mourners could refresh themselves at the local tavern. While they were drinking, one of them looked up to see the lid of the coffin move. Forcing himself, he cautiously and slowly slid the lid right back – whereupon Margaret Dickson immediately sat up and the rest of the company dropped their flagons and fled.

  We have the Calendar to thank for describing what happened next: ‘It happened that a person who was drinking in the public house had recollection enough to bleed her [a universal ‘cure’ for just about everything in those days]. In about an hour she was put to bed, and by the following morning she was so far recovered as to be able to walk to her own home.’

  Others in that century who recovered after being hanged were almost invariably re-hanged, but by Scottish law, ‘a person against whom the judgement of the Court has been executed can suffer no more in future, but is thenceforth totally exculpated; and it is likewise held that the marriage is dissolved by the execution of the convicted party; which indeed is consistent with the ideas that common sense would form on such an occasion.’

  Half-Hanged Meg

  So Margaret Dickson, having been convicted and executed, could not be prosecuted again, although the king’s advocate did file a suit alleging failure of duty against the Sheriff, the official directly responsible for executing her, even though that gentleman subcontracted the job out to the public hangman.

  For once we have a happy ending, for Margaret was reunited with her former spouse, thousands turning up to witness the unique spectacle of a legally dead woman remarrying her own widower! Given the name ‘Half-hanged Meg’, she later had several more children and obtained a job selling salt in Edinburgh marketplace, her second and final death not occurring until 1753.

  In 1811 it was recorded that ‘on
Friday night, the evening before the execution of William Towneley at Gloucester, a reprieve for him was put into the post office at Hereford, addressed by mistake to the Under-Sheriff of Herefordshire instead of Gloucestershire; the letter was delivered to Messrs Bird and Wolloaston, Under Sheriffs for the County Hereford, about half past eleven on the following day. As soon as the importance of its contents were realised, a courier was humanely sent off with the utmost celerity to Gloucester, but the messenger arrived too late – the unfortunate man had been turned off twenty minutes before and was even then still suspended on the drop.’

  William Duell

  Under eye-catching headlines, the London Magazine of November 1740 gave a detailed account of a macabre incident which followed the hanging of 16-year-old William Duell for ravishing, robbing and murdering Sarah Griffin at Acton.

  After being hanged by John Thrift (not the most dependable of hangmen), Duell’s body was, in accordance with a law designed to deter other wrongdoers and also to provide specimens for medical students, brought to Surgeons’ Hall to be anatomised,

  ‘but after it had been stripped and laid on the board and one of the servants was washing him in order to be cut into, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to be coming quicker and quicker, on which a surgeon took some two ounces of blood from him. In two hours he was able to sit up in his chair and groaned very much and seemed in great agitation, but could not speak, tho’ it was the opinion of most people that if he had been put in a warm bed and proper care taken, he would have come to himself. The surgeons attributed his recovery to ‘a full flow of vital blood which enabled his system to resist tightening of the veins.’

  He was kept at Surgeons’ Hall until twelve o’clock at night, the sheriff ’s officers, who were sent for on this extraordinary occasion, attending. He was then conveyed to Newgate Prison, to remain there until he is proved to be the very identical person who had been ordered for execution on 24 November [i.e. that Duell himself hadn’t somehow escaped, his place having been taken by a substitute]. The next day he was in good health in Newgate, ate his victuals heartily, and asked for his mother. Great numbers of people resorted continually to see him. He did not recollect being hanged but said that he had been in a dream; that he had dreamt of Paradise, where an angel told him his sins were forgiven.’

  At least he didn’t ‘go west’ again (the direction from Newgate to Tyburn, hence the saying), for on appearing at the next session at the Old Bailey he was sentenced to be transported to the American colonies for life.

  When sentenced to die by the guillotine, M. Moyse, having been found guilty of murdering one of his sons, exclaimed indignantly, ‘What – would you execute the father of a family?’

  David Evans

  In 1829, the first year of his being appointed hangman, William Calcraft ran into considerable difficulties when he was ordered to travel to Carmarthen in Wales and hang David Evans, a young man found guilty of killing his sweetheart. On the scaffold it immediately became evident that a hangman’s lot is not a happy one, for the crowd wasted no time in directing their abuse when, on operating the drop, the rope suddenly snapped and the victim fell to the boards, unhurt but not unnaturally in a severe state of shock. At the distressing sight the onlookers chorused, ‘Shame! Let him go!’ and the victim, staggering to his feet, gasped, ‘I claim my liberty – you’ve hanged me once and you have no power or authority to hang me again!’

  Nor was that all; as the crowd surged forward, crushing up against the scaffold, the gallows were seen to sway dangerously, threatening to come crashing down on those gathered below, and it was then discovered that the carpenter responsible had failed to secure the crossbeam sufficiently. Evans, now distraught, was heard to shout, ‘It is against the law to hang me a second time!’ But Calcraft, determined to impose his authority as executioner on the situation, said firmly, ‘You are greatly mistaken. There is no such law as that, to let a man go if there is an accident and he is not properly hanged.’ He clinched the argument by declaring, ‘My warrant and my order are to hang you by the neck until you are dead. So up you go, and hang you must, until you are dead.’ And with the assistance of two warders

  – and risking attack by the now infuriated mob – he proceeded to dispatch the still-protesting Evans into the next world.

  Sentenced to death for murdering a policeman, James Murphy was held in York Castle. The night before his execution, while having his dinner, he was informed that the hangman was coming to have a look at him. Totally unperturbed, Murphy commented, ‘Oh, show him in!’ and continued to chew on a mutton bone as the executioner entered the cell.

  On mounting the scaffold the following day, he noticed that the hangman was far from being calm and collected. To encourage him, Murphy exclaimed, ‘Now then, you’re trembling – don’t be nervous, or you’ll bungle the whole thing!’

  Champ Ferguson

  During the American Civil War the Confederates organised bands of their men to harass the enemy by attacking their lines of supplies and isolated units in much the same way as the British Army’s Long Range Desert Group operated in North Africa in World War II. Most of the American guerrillas were well-trained and disciplined, but others were little more than thieves and murderers, one of their leaders being Champ Ferguson, a man known to have killed at least twenty-two people in cold blood, including an officer lying wounded in a hospital. On 24 May 1865 he was captured, court-martialled and found guilty, the death sentence being passed on him.

  On 20 October everything had been prepared for his execution, which was to take place in the courtyard of the Penitentiary; sentries were on duty at the gates, soldiers paced the walls, and a hearse was parked within containing a coffin (despite Ferguson expressing a wish for one made of cherry wood, the one awaiting his body was of stained poplar). At ten o’clock it was taken out of the hearse and deposited in front of the gallows with its lid removed.

  There were about three hundred spectators gathered around the scaffold. There had been a new crossbeam fitted and to the ring in the centre of it a four-strand manila rope had been attached, its strength having previously been tested with a two-hundred-pound weight. Ominously, the rope had been adjusted to permit just a two-foot drop.

  The Nashville Daily Press published on the following day described the events as they unfolded:

  ‘At twenty minutes past eleven Ferguson, his elbows and hands pinioned, was escorted out, to ascend the six steps which led up on to the scaffold, calmly and without assistance, apparently paying no heed to the coffin as he walked past it. He was dressed with scrupulous neatness in a black frock coat with vest and pants of the same material and black gloves and new gaiters.

  The noose was then placed around his neck and for the first time he showed signs of emotion. His face flushed a deep scarlet, the perspiration broke forth profusely and his lips closed with a convulsive quiver. The realisation of his awful predicament seemed to have flashed over his mind in all its fullness, overpowering his fortitude. Colonel Shafter wiped the sweat away for him and the prisoner gradually recovered, then said, ‘I want to be sent home to my family; I don’t want to be buried in this soil.’ After another pause he continued in an excited tone, ‘Don’t give me to the doctors. I don’t want to be cut up here.’ Colonel Shafter answered, ‘You shan’t, Mr Ferguson.’

  A short silence followed and then the prisoner again said, ‘I want to be put in that thing,’ pointing to his coffin, ‘and taken to White County, where I can have my family around me. If I had only had my way I wouldn’t have been here. Whenever you are ready I am done. My last request is to be sent away with my wife.’ The white cap was then drawn over his face. His last words were, ‘O Lord, have mercy on me!’

  As he uttered the last word, Detective Banville, at one blow of a hatchet, severed the rope which sustained the drop and the body fell some two feet with a heavy thud. He died easy, there being no death struggle as is often the case. Twice he slightly shrugged his shoulders and soon the
desperate guerrilla whose crimes and cruelties had made his name a terror, was a corpse.

  The first examination of the body took place thirteen minutes after the drop fell. The surgeon opened Ferguson’s coat and vest and applied his ear to his chest. The heart was still beating forcibly. Five minutes subsequently, faint and indistinct murmurs of the heart were still heard. In four and a half minutes more, life was gone. The neck was not broken by the fall, but the rope had completely embedded itself in the front part of the neck, the knot having slipped to the rear. Considerable extravasation of blood occurred from the nostrils, as shown by the cap which covered his head.

  At twenty-four minutes past twelve the body was cut down. The remains were placed in the coffin, the lid was screwed down and the spectators dispersed. In accordance with the opinion of the attending surgeons the immediate cause of death was cerebral apoplexy, the fall not being enough to break the neck. It is probable that he suffered little or none, though life was not extinct for some time, yet sensation ceased the moment the body dropped.’

  But did it? One wonders, because his heart continued to beat for more than twenty minutes, whether he was still alive for that length of time.

  In 1859, John Brown, the ardent American opponent of slavery (he whose body ‘lies a-mouldering in the grave’), stood on the scaffold with the noose around his neck and then had to wait for ten minutes while the troops on parade marched and countermarched as they took up their correct formation. John Brown, on being asked by the gaoler whether he was tired, replied, ‘No – but don’t keep me waiting longer than necessary!’