Old Sparky

by Anthony Galvin

  Houdini had begun his career in the carnivals and freak shows in places like Coney Island and had always retained a love for that form of entertainment. He used to visit shows all the time, even when he became a world-famous name. One day, after performing with his wife and assistant, Bess, at Huber’s Dime Museum on Coney Island, he mingled with the freaks and specialty acts—Big Alice, the Fat Lady; Emma Schaller, the Ossified Girl; and Unthan, the Legless Wonder were among the company. That day, the company was fascinated with a new exhibit, an electric chair. They were told that it was the original chair from Auburn, which had been used in Kemmler’s execution. Houdini was fascinated with death and with new technology. It appealed to him on both counts. So when Huber’s Dime Museum closed in 1910, he stepped in and purchased the chair, which he put in his Manhattan home. Bess hated the chair and put it out of sight whenever he was away.

  After a number of years, Houdini gave the chair as a gift to a fellow magician. Walford Bodie was a Scottish showman who did a bit of everything—hypnotism, ventriloquism, and magic. But he was best known for his electric show. As part of this show, he would stage a mock execution in a replica electric chair. While the current was supposedly flowing through him, his hair would stand on end and sparks would fly. He would hold bulbs and they would light. He was a close friend of Houdini and, perhaps at Bess’s insistence, Harry gave Bodie the Auburn chair in 1920. The Scottish man exhibited the chair, and during his show he condemned the practice of electrocuting prisoners, instead urging people to return to the humanity of the English gallows.

  What neither Houdini nor Bodie realized was that the chair from the Huber Dime Museum was not the original chair. That was still in Auburn. During its years of use, it claimed the lives of fifty-four men and one woman. It was stored in the prison, unused, after 1914. But during a prison riot in 1929, it was destroyed by fire. Houdini’s chair was a well-made fake.

  In all, New York electrocuted 686 men and 9 women, with the last victim going to the chair in 1963. That was Eddie Lee Mays, an African-American from North Carolina. He had shot to death a female customer at a bar in New York during an armed robbery on March 23, 1961. She was slow to open her purse and once opened, it was empty. So he calmly put the gun to her head and killed her. He was executed on August 15, 1963, by State Electrician Dow Hover, who had held the position for a decade. A reserved man (who died by suicide several years after his retirement), Hover oversaw forty-four executions in Sing Sing, as well as a number of outside jobs for neighboring states. He was paid $150 per execution, the same as his predecessors. Not only had the chair not changed with advancing technology, the executioner’s fee had not kept pace with the modern world either.

  In 1965, New York removed the death penalty. It was not put back on the statute books until 1995, after a thirty year absence. But Old Sparky was never used again in the state. Now the death chamber is located at the Clinton Correctional Facility at Dannemora and lethal injection is the approved method. Since 1971, Old Sparky has been lying idle in storage at the Green Haven Correctional Facility. It will never be used again.

  Throughout the United States, more than 4,300 people have been electrocuted via the chair. Through most of the twentieth century it was the most popular form of execution. But since the lifting of the moratorium on executions in 1976, it has gradually been replaced by lethal injection, which is seen as a more humane alternative. Every time someone opts for electrocution—some states give prisoners the choice of either that or the needle—the press speculation grows that this might be the last judicial electrocution. A betting man would not wager on Old Sparky ever being fired up in anger again.

  A colorful though brutal period of American history is now almost certainly consigned to the past.

  8

  A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES—SIX NOTABLE AND UNUSUAL EXECUTIONS

  Each execution follows a well-worn path. Procedures are laid down and followed by officials. Prisoners are prepared in roughly similar ways, and no matter what the method of execution—hanging, electrocution, needle, or bullet—the officials do their best to ensure that the process runs as smoothly as possible and that the prisoner meets a swift and relatively humane end.

  But within these parameters, every execution is unique. Each prisoner has his or her own story, and the ripples of every action spread wide. In this chapter we will look in detail at some of the more unusual executions in the century-long history of Old Sparky. These are the stories of the youngest, the earliest, and the most unusual victims of the electric chair, from a fourteen-year-old boy to a three-ton elephant.

  ONE: WILLIE FRANCIS, THE MAN WHO WAS ELECTROCUTED TWICE

  One of the objectives of the electric chair was to produce an execution machine that would not permit revival. There were occasional stories of convicts being cut from the gallows and revived by their friends or families after the execution. That had to be made impossible.

  Yet, in this, the electric chair failed at least once. One man survived his execution, battered, bruised, and badly burnt, but very much alive. But the story of the man who survived the electric chair had no happy ending. His execution was merely rescheduled, his survival buying him nothing more than a year of extra time.

  Willie Francis was born in Louisiana in 1929. A poor African American, he finished high school early and became a clerk in a local drug store in St. Martinville. There is some suspicion, based on his later statements, that while he was employed there the store owner, Andrew Thomas, may have sexually abused the young teen. He did not remain long in the job, eventually moving on. But in 1946, an intruder broke in the home of Thomas and shot him five times as he lay in his bed.

  Local cops investigated the crime but no leads showed up. Nine months passed and the crime became a cold case, unlikely ever to be solved. But then Willie Francis was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had moved to Texas and was in the vicinity of a drug bust. He was arrested and searched. While it was obvious that he had no connection to the drugs, the cops found a wallet in his possession which belonged to Andrew Thomas. The police in St. Martinville were called, and Francis was sent home.

  During the course of an extensive interrogation, Francis, a quiet man with a pronounced stutter, tried to implicate several other local youths in the killing. But eventually he made two written statements confessing that he was the gunman. In one statement, he wrote, “It was a secret about me and him.” This ambiguous statement was taken by later researchers to imply that there had been some sexual abuse, though this has no other foundation than the statements of Francis.

  One bit of evidence did not point to Francis: the gun used in the killing had been recovered and belonged to a cop, a deputy sheriff, who had a grudge against Thomas and who had once threatened to kill him. Conveniently, this gun, along with the bullets, disappeared from evidence shortly before the trial. To this day, motive is unclear and there is speculation that the deputy sheriff gave his gun to Francis or left it where Francis could get his hands on it. The victim was a well-known womanizer who had slept with the deputy sheriff’s wife.

  The trial lasted eight days. This was a lengthy trial in that era, slowed in part by the fact that Francis pleaded not guilty, despite his two written confessions. Francis could not afford proper legal representation so was represented by a court-appointed lawyer who offered no witnesses and presented no rebutting evidence. The jury had no difficulty convicting Francis and he was sentenced to the electric chair. He would not turn seventeen until close to the execution date.

  Louisiana used a chair nicknamed Gruesome Gertie. During the war years the state made the decision to make Gertie mobile, so that the chair would be brought to the prison where the condemned man was being held, rather than having all the condemned men waiting on death row in one facility. The chair was a 300-pound monstrosity of heavy oak construction. It was dismantled and transported by truck from prison to prison. Two men accompanied it—an experienced guard and a prison trustee who helped with the construction. Stat
e prison warden Dennis Bazer normally traveled from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola with the chair, but couldn’t this time as he had an important meeting with the state governor the same day as the execution. So he sent Captain Edward Foster, a prison officer, and Vincent Vinezia, an Angola prisoner who was a trustee.

  The two arrived in St. Martinville two days prior to the execution and set up the chair, connecting it to a generator running off the van engine. They tested it, and it was delivering sufficient power to get the job done. Then they adjourned to a nearby tavern and went on a two-day bender. By execution day, according to witnesses, the two men reeked of whiskey, but they seemed to be methodically connecting all the wires and electrodes and all seemed to be in order.

  On the morning of the execution, a prison barber came into the New Iberia Courthouse, which had a prison wing. This was where Francis had been held since the trial. The barber shaved Francis’s head. As he put away his scissors and razor afterward, he joked: “I guess that’s one haircut you won’t have to pay for.”

  Francis laughed loudly. He knew that the barber, a fellow prisoner, was trying to break the tension and put some normality into the day, and he appreciated it. Although he was doing his best to make a good show, he was terrified. A few minutes later, the sheriff and a priest arrived and Francis was put in the back of a black Ford sedan for the ride from New Iberia to the St. Martinville Prison, where Gertie had been set up. The prison was a small, red-brick structure. Outside, as the church bells tolled the hour, a large crowd had gathered. The local Weekly Messenger had proclaimed, in large headlines, “Negro Murderer to Die Here Today.”

  The sheriff did not drive directly to the prison, but took a brief detour so that Francis could see the home he had grown up in one last time. His mother was inside, but was in bed sick (perhaps from worry about her son). He did not see her, but he sighed nostalgically as the car cruised past. Then they turned towards the prison, and the final walk. Francis had been given a pair of shiny new leather shoes that morning and realized he was not going to get a chance to wear them for much more than a few yards.

  The car drove past the crowd and into the prison, and then the terrified boy was led to the chair and strapped securely in. A black hood was drawn over his head and the guards left the chamber. The engine of the van outside was fired up to power the generator. The room got noisy. At 12:08 p.m. the switch was thrown and Francis’s body stiffened and convulsed as expected. There was the usual low hissing of the electrical circuits. Then the scene was shattered by a scream from the electric chair.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Let me breathe!” shouted Francis, shocking the witnesses. One shot back: “You’re not meant to breathe.”

  For about thirty seconds this went on. The chair shuddered and began to slide along the polished floor, despite weighing almost 300 pounds. Then the indicators on the voltmeter dropped to zero. Foster frantically shouted to Vinezia for more power and Vinezia gunned the van, but the dials were registering nothing. After a minute, the power was switched off and the prison authorities confirmed what everyone knew. Not only was the prisoner still alive, he was conscious and screaming in agony.

  The first jolt normally produced unconsciousness and no one had ever heard someone cry out from the death chair. But clearly Francis was still very much alive. They decided to try one more time. This time, when they threw the switch Francis stiffened, but it was obvious this was fear. There was no electricity going through his body.

  “I’m not dying!” he bellowed, as he struggled against his restraints.

  It was decided immediately not to proceed with the electrocution. Something had clearly gone wrong. A subsequent examination of the equipment revealed what had happened. Those responsible had neglected to ground the chair. Francis had escaped death, but as Sheriff E. L. Resweber said, “This boy really got a shock when they turned that machine on.”

  The first jolt had been sufficient to cause intense pain, leaving his heart racing. But it had not even burned his skin.

  Following the failed execution, the prison governor informed Francis that they would reschedule the execution for six days’ time, before having the teen led back to his cell. But a local lawyer, Bertrand DeBlanc, stepped in and took over Francis’s case, lodging an immediate appeal. This was unpopular in the small Cajun town, especially as the lawyer had been a good friend of the murder victim. But DeBlanc had a strong sense of duty and knew that the young, black defendant was entitled to a proper defense. He took it all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing violations of Fifth, Eight, and Fourteenth Amendment rights (equal protection, double jeopardy, and cruel and unusual punishment). By a narrow margin his appeal failed. One of the judges who rejected the appeal actually tried to petition the governor for the sentence to be commuted to life in prison but was unsuccessful.

  That Supreme Court ruling set an important precedent. It was not cruel and unusual punishment to have to be executed twice. If someone escaped the chair, the state could try again without violating the prisoner’s constitutional rights.

  On May 9, 1947, Francis was once again prepared for the execution chamber. This time the men responsible were sober and had tested every wire and connection. There was a lot more public scrutiny on the whole procedure. A crowd of five hundred had gathered outside the prison. Most were in favor of the second execution, but some friends and family members of Francis were also there, including his tearful mother. For the first attempt, Francis had been in his prison uniform, despite his shining new shoes. This time he was dressed in formal slacks and a spotless white shirt. He was taken from New Iberia early in the morning and driven straight to St. Martinville Prison, where he was placed in a cell for a few hours. Several members of his family came to say their last good-byes.

  His last meal was prepared mid-morning. He’d have loved to have had fried chicken, his favorite, but he was a Catholic and Catholics are not allowed meat on a Friday. Instead, he asked for fried fish and potatoes and finished the plate.

  When he arrived at the death chamber there were unfamiliar faces in charge. The State of Louisiana was taking no chances and had brought in an expert. Grady Jarrett was a Texan who had overseen dozens of executions, and he would make no mistakes. Local priest Father Hannigan accompanied Francis, but at the last minute the condemned man asked the priest to leave him so that he could walk to the chair unaided. He did not want to show fear or weakness. He crossed the thirteen steps to the bulky wooden structure, turned, and sat. Jarrett quickly began preparing him, tightening the straps and cutting a slit in the new trousers so that he could attach the electrode to Francis’s leg. When all was ready he straightened up, then asked the prisoner if he had anything to say.

  “Nothing at all,” replied Francis.

  Francis had entered the death chamber at 12:02 p.m., two minutes behind schedule. It took three minutes to strap him in and secure the electrodes. At 12:05 p.m. Jarrett threw the switch. They had increased the voltage from the previous time, and 2,700 volts shot through the seventeen-year-old’s body. He stiffened, but nothing more. He didn’t move—didn’t struggle at all. It is probable that death came instantly the second time.

  But the state was taking no chances. After a minute, the power was switched off, and then quickly a second jolt was administered to be sure. At 12:10 p.m. Jarrett pronounced the prisoner dead. The man who had escaped the electric chair was not able to repeat that lucky performance.

  TWO: MARTHA PLACE—FIRST WOMAN TO THE CHAIR

  More than a thousand people have sat in the hot seat but less than thirty have been women. America has always shown glaring bias when it comes to the death penalty. African-Americans were more likely to be executed than whites, though that is changing. Working class are more likely to fry than middle class, poor more than rich. But the most glaring inconsistency is when it comes to women. Only twenty-six have sat in Old Sparky.

  The first was Martha Place.

  Martha Garretson was born in New Jersey in 1849. At the age
of twenty-three she was in an accident, being struck on the head by a sledge. It concussed her and family members said that she never completely recovered from the head injury. She became mentally unstable and was subject to mood swings. But it was not bad enough to seriously affect her life. She married and had a young son. But then she separated from her husband after four years and gave the young boy to an orphanage, unable to raise him herself. The abandonment of her son preyed on her mind for years.

  She set up a dressmaking business with her sister, but upon her sister’s death she gave that up. At the advanced age of forty-four, Martha, a tall, sharp-faced woman, met a widower, William Place, and began working for him as a housekeeper. He had an eleven-year-old daughter, Ida, from his earlier marriage and was struggling to cope. Over the months, a friendship grew between employer and housekeeper and eventually romance blossomed. William asked Martha to marry him and the three set up home together in Brooklyn. He had hoped that Martha would help him raise his girl but from the start there were tensions in the house, and on at least one occasion things grew so tense that William had to call in the police. Martha had threatened to kill Ida. She was jealous of the affection William showed for his daughter, who never bonded with her stepmother.

  That row blew over and William put it out of his head. Tensions remained, but things seemed to be going better. Then, on February 7, 1898, over breakfast there was a blazing row in the house and Ida sided with her father against Martha. William Place picked up his hat and left the house to go to work and didn’t think any more of it. He was growing used to the angry words.

  But once he left the house, Martha turned on Ida, now seventeen. She got some acid and threw it into the face of the young woman, burning her eyes badly. Then she knocked Ida to the ground and tried to force the acid down her throat. When Ida struggled, Martha picked up an axe and used that to finish the job, hacking her stepdaughter to death. She then dragged her body under a bed.