Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  Enquiries were made in the local hospital and surgical schools regarding the possible destination of Catherine Walsh’s body, but without success, and it was eventually decided that it must have been sold to the middlemen who regularly dispatched by sea large numbers of cadavers, packed in barrels labelled as pork, fish, apples, or anything similarly innocuous, to surgical schools in other major cities.

  So although Eliza Ross vehemently denied the charge of murder, and despite there being no body, Ned’s testimony was accepted as valid, reliable and admissible by the Old Bailey judge. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and Eliza Ross was sentenced to death. On 9 January 1832 hangman William Calcraft once again had the distasteful task of hanging a woman although, aware of the shocking details of her crime, no doubt he felt little sympathy for her. On the scaffold she loudly declared her innocence and cursed those witnesses who had testified against her, including her own son. Calcraft didn’t hesitate to position the hood, then drop the noose over her head, the contact of the rough fibrous rope on her throat stilling her outburst; tightening, it also stilled her writhing body.

  Paradoxically, surgical students also received the benefit of her corpse as well as that of Catherine Walsh, on which to practise their skills, for a statute passed in 1752 during the reign of George II was still in force, stating that:

  The body of every person convicted of murder shall, if such conviction and execution shall be in the County of Middlesex or within the City of London, or of the liberties thereof, be immediately conveyed by the sheriff or sheriffs, or their deputy or deputies, and his or other officer or officers, to the Hall of the Surgeons’ Company, or such other place as the said company shall appoint for this purpose, and be delivered to such person as the said company shall depute or appoint, who shall give to the sheriff or sheriffs, his or their deputy or deputies, a receipt for the same; and the body so delivered to the said company of surgeons shall be dissected or anatomised by the said surgeons or such persons as they shall appoint for that purpose; and that in no case the body shall be suffered to be buried unless after such body shall have been dissected or anatomised.

  Accordingly, after being cut down by Calcraft, Eliza’s body was placed in a sack and loaded into a cart. It then became the main attraction in a long procession which consisted of the sheriffs, the City Marshal and a large number of constables, which proceeded at a leisurely pace to Surgeons’ Hall, the crowds lining the route yelling and jeering as they passed. On arrival it was with great difficulty that the body was carried into the Hall, the crowd more than anxious to gain possession of it themselves. Once inside, it was stripped and laid out on a slab, ready to be dissected, although before the lessons started the public were allowed in to view the corpse, long queues of eager spectators forming up outside the building.

  When Irish-born Margaret Harvey was condemned to death for robbery in 1750, her friends smuggled so much strong drink to her before she mounted the scaffold that as the London executioner John Thrift dropped the noose over her head, through a bleary haze she exclaimed drunkenly, ‘I wish to God I’d never stepped on to this evil country!’ Well, at least being hanged saved her from having a hang-over!

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  Sampson, Agnes (Scotland)

  This particular case had it all: witchcraft, the Devil’s Mark, thumbscrews, a skull crusher, bridle, strangling and burning at the stake. Agnes Sampson was a much-respected citizen of Edinburgh, but was accused by a woman named Jilly Duncan of being a member of a conspiracy plot to place the Earl of Bothwell, the King’s cousin, on the throne, in the event of James’ death. Jilly had accused Agnes after being tortured with, among other devices, the pilniwinks, one of the Scottish names given to a type of thumbscrews, the crushing application of which on the victim’s fingernails invariably encouraged him or her to confess anything required of them, whether true or false. And whether Agnes was indeed a witch is open to doubt; she was described in The Historie of King James the Sext as ‘a grace wyff also callit the wise wyff of Keith’, and by Bishop Spotswood, in his History of the Church and State of Scotland, as ‘a woman not of the base and ignorant sort of Witches, but matron-like, grave and settled in her answers, which were all to some purpose.’ She clearly had some practice as a midwife and some said she was a professed witch who was consulted by members of the gentry.

  Agnes was arrested and charged with many offences, some trivial, like having foreknowledge of ‘diseasit persounes’, whether they would live or not; she prophesied that a certain person was ‘bot a deid man’ (and he died), and many she healed with ‘her devilish arts.’ But, of course, by reason of her profession as a midwife, she would recognise the advanced state of some diseases, and would be able to cure folk of others.

  Agnes was taken to the royal palace and questioned by King James himself; she was then handed over to a witch-finder, one of the many self-professed ‘experts’ at identifying those who had close links with the Devil. As it was common knowledge that such women bore his Mark somewhere on their bodies, a spot insensitive to pain, the man would search for it using a long sharp needle resembling a syringe, and prod every birthmark, mole and blemish until finding one to which the victim failed to react. As his prestige – and income – depended on his success, some witch-finders would use a needle which, although apparently piercing the flesh, in reality retracted into the holder, thereby giving the same condemnatory result.

  To obtain the necessary confession from Agnes, she was stripped naked, her whole body being shaved preparatory to the witch-finder starting his search. He eventually claimed success, allegedly locating the Devil’s Mark on her pudenda, and having thus established that she was indeed a witch, it was then necessary to extract a full confession of the plot encompassing the King’s death. She was first tortured by having to wear the Bridle, an iron cage which enclosed her head. The particular type of headgear she endured – there were others (see Appendix 1) – incorporated sharp spikes which pressed on the insides of her cheeks and on her tongue, the latter to stop her from chanting the magic spells by which she could change into a small animal and thereby escape.

  As further persuasion was considered necessary to overcome her obstinacy, Agnes was then tortured by having a length of rope tied round her temples and slowly tightened a fraction at a time. Unable to endure such appalling agony, Agnes admitted that she had consorted with the Devil, and as a sign that she had become his servant, he had made his Mark on her. It is said King James was convinced of her powers as a witch when she said that she was able to repeat the exact words which passed between him and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, on their wedding night. But the words which condemned her to death for witchcraft and high treason were her admission that she, together with others, had sailed in a sieve on All-Hallows Eve 1589 in the sea between Leith and North Berwick, and while afloat the coven had cast a spell invoking a great storm that would sink the ship in which the King was bringing his new bride back to Scotland. As it happened, there was in fact a storm during their journey.

  James, his superstitious beliefs overriding everything else, believed that there was but one way in which to deal with such a would-be traitorous assassin. Agnes Sampson was taken to Edinburgh’s Castle Hill, where she was tied to a stake, tinder and branches being heaped high about her. Some mercy – of a sort – was shown to her, for before the flames caught hold, the hangman strangled her.

  Ralph Gardner, a seventeenth-century author from Newcastle upon Tyne, wrote that ‘he saw Anne Bridlestone led through the streets by an officer of the corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other end fastened to an engine [device] called the Branks, which is like a crown, it being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag or tongue of iron forced into her mouth, which forced the blood out; and that is the punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scolding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others.’

  Schmidtin, Gertrude (Germany)

  In his diary for 20 July 1587, Nure
mberg executioner Franz Schmidt wrote, ‘Gertrude Schmidtin of Fach, a peasant girl and a heretic. She lived in debauchery for four years with her own father and brother, who were burnt alive at Langenzenn a week later. I beheaded her with the sword as a favour.’ No doubt she appreciated his kindness.

  In Salem, America, in 1651, the wife of one Oliver was sentenced to be whipped for prophesying, it being reported that ‘she stood without tying, and bore her punishment with a masculine spirit, glorying in her suffering. But afterwards she was much dejected by it. She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for reproaching the elders who sentenced her.’

  Schonleben, Anna (Germany)

  One wonders what women of earlier centuries would have done to solve their matrimonial problems or remove their enemies had arsenic not been discovered! Anna certainly had cause to be thankful, at least until the moment when the executioner’s sword removed her head. In the 1790s she was employed as housekeeper to a Bavarian member of the judiciary, Judge Gläser, and forthwith decided to become one of the affluent society in which he mingled and set her sights on marrying him. Unfortunately he was already married, and any plans Anna might have had to permanently remove his wife from the scene were dashed by the fact that he was already estranged from his spouse. Undaunted, Anna was determined to manoeuvre the absent lady into a position where she could be disposed of, and by dint of many gentle hints and solicitous expressions of concern, she eventually managed to restore harmony between the two, the wife returning to the family fold – and to the housekeeper, who had wasted no time in making a welcoming cup of tea, flavoured with a little extra something. And when the judge’s wife died soon afterwards, Anna attempted to make herself indispensable to the judge in more ways than one, but alas, her employer simply wasn’t interested, and Anna moved on.

  She went to work in the household of another judge in the town of Sanspareil; appropriately enough the quality of her arsenic was also sans pareil, without equal, the judge dying in agony when, instead of his new member of staff, he chose to get engaged to someone else. Luckily Anna still had ample supplies of the poison, for a local justice of the peace, whose wife was not in the best of health, was so impressed by Anna’s nursing abilities that he employed the housekeeper to care for her. The JP’s wife passed away far from peacefully – as did some of the servants in the household.

  At that her employer, although unable to prove any involvement on her part, dispensed with her services, but Anna was determined that those she left behind would not remain long in the land of the living, and before she departed for a new job she stirred some of her favourite additive into the coffee she had made for the staff, and deposited a few spoonfuls more in the household supply of salt.

  Shortly afterwards, at the sight of stricken manservants and collapsing maids, the magistrate’s suspicions hardened and he sent for the police who, on examining the kitchen stocks of food, found traces of arsenic. Anna Schönleben now firmly in the frame, the bodies of her previous employers and associates were exhumed, the cause of death by arsenic poisoning being established. And any remaining doubt was dispelled when, on being arrested, Anna was found to have a further supply of the poison in her possession.

  At her trial at Nuremberg in July 1811 she confessed to being a serial killer and, after being found guilty, she was taken to the marketplace, the site of the city’s pillory, stocks, gallows and the wheel. Had she been a man, she would have been condemned to die by being broken on the wheel (see Appendix 2); as it was, she was first hanged, her lifeless body then exhibited to the public by being spread-eagled on the wheel until dusk.

  There is little doubt that colonising a country can bring great benefits to its native population; improved methods of cultivation, education and health, to name but a few. However, the execution of Mary Ann Bilansky in Minnesota in the nineteenth century for the poisoning of her husband provided some of the native inhabitants with a different insight into the ways of the newcomers, the local newspaper describing how a few Sioux women among the spectators seemed especially interested in the manner in which the whites dealt with their criminals. The editor went on to cynically express his doubts as to whether they had been particularly impressed by what they had witnessed of the new civilisation which was being imposed on them.

  Schroeder, Irene (USA)

  Shoot-out in the OK Corral it wasn’t, but its 1930s counterpart was similarly filled with flying lead when Irene and her lover Glenn were cornered by the police in Arizona. It was her love of violence and also for her renegade partner which, after standing up to the authorities for so long, found Irene finally sitting in the electric chair.

  Born of poor parents in 1909, she married when she was fifteen and had a child, Donnie, before deserting her husband and finding work as a waitress. It was then that she met and fell deeply in love with 34-year-old Walter Glenn Dague who left his wife and children to be with her. The two, with Donnie in the back seat, then drove across the country, robbing shops and banks in isolated communities on the way, but on 29 December 1929 the alarm was raised, and on being pursued by the police, Irene, with cold deliberation, shot and killed one of the highway patrolmen in the police car. Driving away, they left Donnie with relatives, then fled across the state line.

  By some means the authorities discovered the boy’s whereabouts, and when Donnie was questioned, his innocent replies virtually sealed the fates of his mother and her lover for, as reported in the local press, he said, ‘My mamma’s killed a cop like you.’ The nationwide hunt was now on, and the murderous pair were eventually surrounded by a large posse of police in Arizona. A fierce gun battle ensued, a reporter describing how ‘Cracking down with a six-gun was a bobbed-hair blonde woman who faced the booming police shotguns, and hurled lead in the fracas as calmly as her gun-fighting male companion.’ So furious was the combat that the couple ran out of ammunition and, fleeing in the car, abandoned it some miles away. Taking to their heels, they climbed the slopes of Estrella Mountain where, hemmed in and challenged by the police, they both surrendered and were taken to Rockview Penitentiary, Pennsylvania, it being reported that they caressed each other during the journey.

  On 10 March 1930 Irene Schroeder appeared in court. ‘She wore a blue dress, her hair was freshly bobbed and her face was plentifully besprinkled with powder,’ a journalist wrote. That her hopes of receiving a light sentence were revealed by her reply when asked to smile for the cameras: ‘How can you smile and look pretty when you are going to prison for life and are heartbroken?’

  Both were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. In his excellent autobiography Agent of Death, executioner Robert G. Elliott described how calmly Irene had behaved, how much she evidently loved Glenn, even to the extent of being prepared to shoulder full responsibility for the crimes if his life could be spared. When asked by the matron whether she could do anything for her, Irene answered, ‘Yes, there is something – please tell them in the kitchen to fry Glenn’s eggs on both sides. He likes them that way.’ And, later, to the prison chaplain, she said, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right. You’d better go back to Glenn, I think he needs you more than I do.’

  At 7 a.m. on 23 February 1931, wearing a loose, ill-fitting grey dress, beige stockings and black slippers, her hair having earlier been clipped away from the back of her head, she was escorted into the execution chamber. Elliott said that he watched her walk to the electric chair, a calm smile on her face, adding that she gave the impression that without Glenn, there was no point in going on living. As the warders tightened the straps around her and adjusted the head and leg electrodes, she closed her eyes.

  In his book, Elliott, a humane and sensitive man, revealed what passed through his mind when the moment of execution approached. He wrote:

  Before sending the lethal current on its journey of death, I glance at the chair to make sure no one is standing too near to it. Then I throw the switch. As I do, I often pray, ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’ The fi
gure in the chair pitches forward, straining against the straps; there is the whining cry of the current and a crackling, sizzling sound. The body turns a vivid red. Sparks often shoot from the electrodes. A wisp of white or dull grey smoke may rise from the top of the head or the leg to which the electrode is attached; this is produced by the sponge lining, singed hair and, sometimes, burning flesh.

  In that fashion Irene Schroeder paid the price demanded by society: two and a half minutes after the executioner had thrown the switch, the prison doctor certified her dead.

  The innocence of children can best be exemplified – sadly – by Irene Schroeder’s son Donnie, aged five, who, when told by his mother that he should be brave because she was going to die, was later reported to have said brightly, ‘I’ll bet mom will make an awful nice angel.’

  Scott, Jane (England)

  Twenty-one-year-old Jane Scott murdered her mother by administering rat poison to her. She was sentenced to be hanged at Lancaster Castle, Lancashire, the last woman to be executed there, and so weak and emaciated was her condition, not having eaten since the day of her trial, that a child’s highchair, fitted with castor wheels, was provided by the authorities so that she could be moved around in her cell.

  On 22 March 1828, the day she was to die, she was half-carried to the gallows by two female warders who held her upright on the drop while the hangman hooded and noosed her. Then upon a signal being given by him, the two guards released their hold on Jane’s arms and quickly moved off the trapdoors; even as they did so, the hangman operated the lever – and the limp body descended into the pit, Jane dying within minutes.