Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  At the subsequent inquest the Governor absolved Berry from all blame, confirming that the drop was not considered excessive. Dr Robinson, the prison surgeon, agreed, pointing out that although Goodale was tall and heavy, he had a very thin backbone; moreover his head had been cut off as if by a knife, and not torn off, and he concluded his evidence by saying, ‘The sentence was that he should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. He was hanged and he is dead through being hanged.’

  James Botting was executioner from 1817 to 1820 but had to retire after having a severe stroke. Confined to his bed, he suffered from hallucinations, probably the worst being the nightmare in which he saw all his 175 victims slowly marching past him, their faces concealed behind the mandatory white caps, their heads all tilted to the right.

  ‘Damn their eyes!’ he used to complain. ‘If only they’d hold their heads up and take off their nightcaps, I wouldn’t give a damn about any of them!’

  Hangman Botting’s Nightmare

  Anne Greene

  This young lady, just like Half-Hanged Meg Dickson mentioned earlier, cheated the gallows, but finished up in a much more bruised and battered condition.

  The account of her seemingly miraculous recovery appeared in Dr Plot’s The Natural History of Oxfordshire:

  ‘In the year 1650 Anne Greene, a servant in the household of Sir Thomas Reed, was tried for the murder of her newborn child, and found guilty. She was executed in the castle yard at Oxford, on 14 December, where she hung for about half an hour, being pulled by the legs, sometimes so hard that the Under-sheriff forbade them, lest the rope break; and also struck on the breast, as she herself desired, by divers [several] of her friends, to reduce her suffering; and, after all, also had several strokes given her upon the stomach with the butt-end of a soldier’s musket.

  Being then cut down, she was put into a coffin and brought away to a house to be dissected; where, when they opened it, notwithstanding the rope still remained unloosened, and strait about her neck, they perceived her breast to rise; whereupon one Mason, a taylor, intending only an act of charity, set his foot upon her breast and belly, and, as some say, one Orum, a soldier, struck her again with the butt-end of his musket.

  Notwithstanding all which, when the learned and ingenious Sir William Petty, the anatomy professor of the University, Dr Wallis and Dr Clarke, then president of Magdalen College and Vice-Chancellor of the University came to prepare the body for dissection, they perceived some small rattling in her throat; hereupon desisting from their former purpose, they presently used means for her recovery by opening a vein, laying her in a warm bed, and causing another woman to go into bed with her for warmth; also using divers remedies respecting her senselessness, insomuch that within fourteen hours she began to speak, and the next day she talked and prayed very heartily.

  During the time of her recovering, the officers concerned in her execution would needs have had her away again to have completed it on her; but by the mediation of the worthy doctors and some other friends with the then Governor of the City, Colonel Kelsey, there was a guard put on her to hinder all further disturbances till he had sued out her pardon from the powers then in being; thousands of people in the meantime coming to see her, and magnifying the just providence of God in thus asserting her innocence.’

  Anne made a complete recovery and was invited to recuperate in the countryside with friends who lived in Steeple Barton, and among her luggage loaded into the coach was a macabre memento of her ordeal – her coffin! She later married one of the local villagers, having three healthy children by him, and died some nine years later.

  In 1780, executioner Ned Dennis was accused of being one of a mob attacking property in London during the Lord Gordon riots. Despite protests that he had been forced to join in, the court sentenced him to death. Dennis, mindful of the poverty of his family, begged the authorities to award the vacant executioner’s job to his son ‘a youth of sobriety and ability, who would be a credit to the profession.’ The application was rejected, it being pointed out that should it be granted, the son would then have to hang his own father.

  Dennis was subsequently reprieved in order to hang his fellow rioters.

  Charles Julius Guiteau

  Following the election of James Abram Garfield as the new American president in 1881, scores of job-seekers applied for jobs in the new administration, most being disappointed. Charles Guiteau put himself forward as a candidate for sundry important political posts, but was rejected out of hand. He was convinced that the President bore a grudge against him – so he shot him.

  The assassin was born in 1841 in Freeport, Illinois, and studied law in Chicago. However, he switched to the other side of the law and took to swindling clients, but scenting further, more lucrative possibilities in the political world, he ingratiated himself with the committee members engaged in the 1880 election campaign of the Republican Party.

  Upon the election of President Garfield, he travelled to Washington and, full of his own importance, considered that he merited being appointed to the Austrian Mission or the Paris Consulate-General. Not being awarded either of these prestigious posts, he came to the conclusion that his lack of success was due entirely to the opposition of the President and, learning that he was leaving Washington for a holiday in the North, Guiteau went to the railway station and lingered in the waiting room. As the President walked past, he fired his gun, seriously wounding his unsuspecting quarry.

  The would-be assassin was immediately arrested and held in jail pending the result of the treatment being administered to the President. However the badly injured man lingered until 19 September and then died; whereupon Guiteau was put on trial charged with murder, found guilty and sentenced to death.

  On 1 July 1882 the New York Tribune devoted many column inches to the killer’s last hours:

  ‘Guiteau ate a good breakfast and at ten o’clock took a bath in his cell. He then wrote the doggerel which he read on the scaffold. He was busy a good deal of his time copying his speech and poem, signing autographs on his pictures, and the like. As the hour of his execution approached he seemed to show more and more emotion and appeared to believe himself that he would need help at the gallows. During this time predictions were freely made among those waiting that he would collapse when the dreaded hour arrived and have to be carried to the gallows.

  About 11 o’clock there was an unexpected sensation. His sister, Mrs Scoville, appeared at the door of the jail and demanded admission. She had no pass and the guards refused to let her in. Her other brother John went out to see her and the two met in the vestibule with a gaping crowd about them and every window in the jail which commanded a view of the scene was crowded with eager faces. She had flowers with her which she had brought to put on her brother’s grave. She obviously had some excited notion that he would be safer and happier if she were at the execution, but General Crocker refused to admit her to the jail until it was all over, so she took up the flowers and walked through the crowd and over the dusty field to where some friends were in a carriage, to sit there until she should be called in to look on the body of her brother.

  By 11.30 there was a crowd of 150 people scattered through the rotunda, chatting, laughing and smoking. As the hour of noon drew near, the crowd increased, both inside and outside. Within the rotunda the crowd now exceeded two hundred people and began to crystallise into two sections. One was massed about the opening in the corridor in which the gallows stood, in order to have the first chance in the rush which would follow close on the heels of the prisoner; the other was about the grating through which Guiteau would emerge from his cell. Near the entrance to the gallows corridor stood Officer Kearney, the good-natured and garrulous policeman who was the first to seize Guiteau after he had fired the fateful shot. He was busy today, telling his story and showing the card he took from the assassin’s pocket and which first revealed his name.

  At 11.45 a detachment of soldiers filed down the iron stairway at the back and drew themselves up int
o a single line stretching almost the full width of the rotunda. ‘Attention,’ came the order in low tones. ‘Front face, ground arms,’ and the muskets came down on the flagging with a heavy thud. The sound smote on the ears of the assassin in his cell and he fainted. Dr Hicks at once endeavoured to revive him by fanning him and soon brought him round but he was plainly full of terror, and weak. From that time until he was summoned to hear his death warrant read, he passed most of the time lying on his bed while Dr Hicks fanned him and spoke encouraging words to strengthen him for the final ordeal.

  When the hands of the little wooden clock on the wall pointed to 12 there was a visible stir in the crowd and much comparing of watches. It is difficult to say just what the scene presented by the crowd was like – it was not exactly like a horse sale or an auction sale; the crowd was eager but cheerful and the only tension was that of curiosity.

  While the crowd was thus eagerly waiting, the assassin sent out from his cell a characteristic request to have his boots blacked, which was of course granted.

  Just before half past twelve word ran through the crowd that he had been crying, and predictions ran high that the last scene would be one of collapse and cowardice. The story had hardly travelled through the crowd when the procession appeared and it became known that the death warrant had been read in the cell. First came General Crocker and one of the guards, then Dr Hicks, followed by Guiteau with guards. The assassin’s appearance sent a murmur of astonishment through the crowd. He was deadly pale and his eyes roved from side to side as he walked along, but his bearing was erect and firm and he seemed to wear a look of pride in his own courage and resolution.

  Dr Hick’s voice trembled as he uttered a few preparatory words and then he turned to Guiteau and held up an open Bible so that the assassin could read from it. The latter’s voice was clear and loud, filling the whole corridor. There was not a tremor in it. He read a dozen verses in the same slow, unwavering voice. He read with a sing-song intonation, the same childish emphasis here and there, as he had at his trial, the same cheap actor’s ranting pronunciation and the same curl of the upper lip. His body swayed from side to side in the easy manner of a speaker on any commonplace occasion and he looked away from the book at his audience at every other sentence.

  After prayers had been said, Dr Hicks handed the book to General Crocker and unfolded before the eyes of the pinioned man a sheet of foolscap.

  ‘My dying prayer on the gallows,’ said Guiteau in the same firm, loud voice, looking at the crowd, who were watching him with amazement. This, like the former reading, was a representation of all his mannerisms. He closed his eyes as he said, ‘I tremble for the fate of my murderers.’ His voice rose to a shout when he continued, ‘This nation will go down in the blood,’ and again, ‘My murderers, from the executive to the hangman, will go to Hell.’

  When he had finished reading his prayer he surveyed the crowd and said, still with a firm voice, ‘I am now going to read some verses which are intended to indicate my feelings at the moment of leaving this world. If set to music they may be rendered more effective. The idea is that of a child babbling to his mama and papa. I wrote it this morning about ten o’clock.’

  He then began to chant these verses in a doleful style; ‘I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad, I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad. I am going to the Lordy, Glory, Hallelujah! Glory, Hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy.’ Here Guiteau’s voice failed and he bowed his head and broke into sobs. But he rallied a little and went on with his chant, ‘I saved my party and my land, Glory, Hallelujah. But they have murdered me for it, and that is the reason I am going to the Lordy. Glory, Hallelujah! Glory, Hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy.’

  Here again his feelings overcame him and he leaned his head on the shoulder of Dr Hicks and sobbed pitifully and then went on with two more verses. When he had finished his chant, Dr Hicks stepped forward and, laying his hand upon Guiteau’s forehead, pronounced his benediction in a low voice.

  The hangman, Strong, lifted the rope and put the noose in a calm, business-like way about Guiteau’s neck and fitted it snugly in the manner of a tailor trying a coat on a customer. He turned it a little, this way and that, and looked it over with a critical eye. Guiteau’s voice, coming with a ghostly sound through the black cap, was heard to cry, almost defiantly, as if with a last effort of the will, ‘Glory, Hallelujah! Glory!’ General Crocker then said, ‘Are you ready?’ in a low tone and, turning, waved his handkerchief at the cell window below.

  He had hardly raised his hand before a sharp click of the bolts shooting back was heard and the trapdoors flew down and backwards in a flash. The rigid body of the assassin leaped into the gulf and jerked the rope as straight and as stiff as a bar of iron. There was no rebound, no swaying and no struggle beyond a quivering of the feet. The ghastly thing hung as still as a black bag of clothes.

  Execution Of Charles Guiteau

  The fall had hardly been made before a shrill and exulting cry rang through the jail from all the convicts in their cells, some of them murderers. It was a strange and thrilling sound as it echoed and re-echoed through the long corridors and was caught up by the waiting crowd outside, who knew what it meant and answered with cheers.

  When the body had hung with the feet just touching the ground for over half an hour, it was lowered into the coffin which was waiting for it under the scaffold. The physicians decided at once that the neck had been broken. Those who desired could pass along the side of the scaffold and view the body. As the crowd filed past, John Guiteau fanned his dead brother’s face to keep away the flies. At 1.40 p.m. the lid of the coffin was put in place and the body borne to the jail chapel, where the physicians who were to make the autopsy were assembled.’

  The newspaper later struck a bizarre note:

  ‘A visit to the jail will no doubt be a regular feature in the sightseeing of bridal couples hereafter. Several of them have been there and seemed to enjoy their visit. The guards and officers say it will probably be only a few days before the sightseers begin to stream in, and before another year is over, they expect to see the gallows hacked to pieces by the relic-hunters.’

  In 1895 Sunday School Superintendent Theodore Durrant murdered two young women, Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams, in San Francisco. Among the spectators at his execution in San Quentin Gaol was his father, his mother having to wait in a nearby room. Both parents were bitterly disappointed at having been refused permission by the authorities to film their son being hanged. After the execution the body was taken into an adjoining room and, it being assumed that the parents would be upset at the sight of their son’s corpse, they were asked whether they would like a cup of tea. They accepted, but instead of tea, a full meal arrived, so a table was set up a few feet from the coffin, and the father and mother sat down and ate a hearty meal. A newsman seated nearby reported to his editor that he overheard Mrs Durrant say brightly, ‘Papa, give me some more of the roast!’

  John Haley

  Most hangmen took great care to bind their victims securely, which is more than can be said for the executioner in charge of John Haley when that felon was due to be hanged on the Tasmanian gallows. Not that Haley was innocent and so might have deserved a chance to escape his fate; on the contrary, for he had recently confessed to two murders in addition to the one with which he had been originally charged.

  After the reverberations had died away following the parting of the trapdoors, and Haley swung, his upper half visible above the level of the surrounding boards, it was seen that somehow he had managed to get one pinioned arm free and was now scrabbling at his neck in a vain attempt to loosen the noose’s stranglehold. The executioner didn’t hesitate to take instant remedial action; raising one foot he proceeded to kick the victim’s hand away. For a moment Haley’s hand dropped, but then he raised it again; at that the hangman, obviously irritated by the murderer’s refusal to die quietly and without further fuss, grabbed the rope and, while kicking out again at the man’s hand and nec
k, started to shake the rope violently, uttering expletives as he did so.

  Onlookers reported that Haley’s struggles were frightful to behold, but eventually terminated, and the local newspaper included an article deploring the whole affair, saying that although the man was a self-confessed multiple murderer, such butchery on the part of the state was hardly compatible with the stage of civilisation a British colony might have expected to reach by 1861.

  William Palmer, found guilty of poisoning his friend with strychnine and believed to have similarly disposed of at least a dozen others including his own wife and brother, was hanged in public outside Stafford Prison on 14 June 1856 before a crowd exceeding 50,000 spectators. On mounting the scaffold he became aware of the trapdoor on which he had been positioned. Testing it with his foot, he turned to the executioner, Smith of Dudley, and asked quizzically, ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

  Adam Hislop and William Wallace

  Both Scotsmen were sentenced to death for robbery in 1785. It is likely that the latter man had been named after the Scots’ national hero, and although he didn’t suffer the same appalling fate as Sir William (who, after being captured by the English, was ‘hanged, bowelled and quartered’ in August 1305 at Smithfield, London), he still had a hard time of it. For, at the very moment the trapdoors opened beneath their feet, the ropes by which he and his companion were suspended suddenly broke, causing each man to lurch sideways in their descent, and instead of falling straight down through the aperture, came into violent contact with the edges of the platform. Both men also sustained further severe injuries on hitting the ground at the bottom of the pit, but there they had to lie until new ropes had been obtained, when they were once again assisted to mount the scaffold steps, once again to be noosed – and this time to be successfully dispatched.