Tag: execution
Kentucky Mob Dragged Convicted Killer From Jail and Hanged Him
William Thacker had already been tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison when a Kentucky mob decided the courts had not gone far enough….
Seven Men Executed in One Morning at Sing Sing Prison
Before dawn at Sing Sing Prison, seven men were led one by one into the death chamber. It was August 1912, and the executions at…
A Lonely Georgia Highway, A Murdered Educator, and the Swift Execution That Shocked Milledgeville
It started as a simple act of kindness on a lonely Georgia highway. In March 1925, Professor William C. Wright pulled his car over to…
Tragic End for Young Criminals: The LeBlanc Brothers Executed in Lafayette
In Lafayette, Louisiana, a grim chapter closed with the execution of Alexis and Earnest LeBlanc, two young French brothers who modeled their lives after the…
Grisly Execution of Five Cubans: Public Garrote Deaths Marred by Horrific Bungling
I’ve written about the garrote as a form of capital punishment in the past and felt compelled to share this latest find in the newspaper…
Last Hours with Doomed Murderers – A Look at Death Row Inmates in Nebraska 1921
How did Nebraskan inmates meet their end in the early 1900s? The article below, originally published in 1921, gives readers an in-depth look at the…
Iron Crown Torture
Scottish nobleman, Walter Stewart, was believed to have wanted the crown of King James I of Scotland for himself, but when he was found complicit…
Crushing Necks with the Halifax Gibbet
The story of the Halifax Gibbet begins and ends in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The little town had its humble beginnings in sheep farming. Eventually,…
US Lethal Gas Executions
Most of us have heard stories about hangings in the Old West, the firing squads in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah, the electric chair, and the…
The Automatic Gallows of Colorado and Connecticut
Before 1889, Colorado hangings were public and gruesome. Those condemned to die by hanging sometimes twitched and kicked about on the end of a rope…
