Auburn Prison – Crime Scribe

On This Day in 1952, Edward Kelly and Wallace Ford, Jr.

1952 was a quiet year for the Sing Sing death house. Only three prisoners walked their last mile, Edward Kelly and Wallace Ford, Jr on October 30 and before them Bernard Stein on March 6. That was pretty quiet considering 1951 saw eight inmates die including Lonely Hearts Killers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck on March 8 of that year.

True to notoriety’s pecking order in which the most notorious inmates drew most attention, few people remember John King and Joseph Powers, killers of Detective Joseph Miccio and who died on the same night as Beck and Fernandez. When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg died on June 19, 1953 few people remembered that they were only two of six to die that year, although he Rosenbergs alone more than kept Sing Sing in the news.

Neither Ford or Kelly’s crimes were especially unusual which probably leaves you wondering why they appear here. While Ford’s crime was brutal, squalid and without any excuse or grounds for clemency (not unusual in the Sing Sing death house) Kelly was a rarity. While Ford had entered the death house never to leave it alive, this was Kelly’s second stint for the same crime.

There were 695 electrocutions in New York between William Kemmler (the world’s first on August 6, 1890) and Eddie Lee Mays (New York’s last on August 15, 1963). Initially New York had three electric chairs sited at Sing Sing, Auburn and Dannemora. Executions took place at all three until 194 when Sing Sing was designated the sole site for New York State, finally numbering 614 out of New York’s total.

There were anomalies, though. Around one inmate in three that entered the death house left alive via commutations to life imprisonment, successful appeals against their conviction or sentence or having been certified insane and sent to psychiatric institutions. With a successful appeal reversing their conviction some even left the death house and Sing Sing altogether, walking out into the bright light of freedom as though they’d never sat crossing dates of their calendar or come within days, hours or even minutes of death.

Edward Kelly was one of them. Originally condemned for the senseless murder of Eloise McHugh with a rifle (and then turning it on himself) Kelly arrived at Sing Sing on September 29, 1950. After winning his appeal and reversal of his conviction on July 1, 1951 Kelly walked out of Sing Sing on July 12 firmly believing he was one of that lucky third who’d never be coming back. He even left a warmly-worded letter for Warden Wilfred Denno, a man he never expected to see again. But we’ll be getting to that later

Suffice to say that Edward Kelly was wrong. Fatally so, in fact.

Kelly’s reversal was exactly that, a reversal and not an acquittal. The State of New York was thus free to try him again. That Kelly had shot McHugh was in no doubt whatsoever, but the trial judge had misdirected the jury regarding Kelly’s insanity defence. According to the judge Kelly had to understand what he was doing OR that it was a crime. New York State’s appellate judges saw it differently. To be considered legally sane, they ruled, Kelly had to understand BOTH his act and the nature thereof, not one or the other. With that in mind they reversed his conviction (and his mandatory death sentence) and out he walked.

If Kelly thought he was home free, he wasn’t. With a reversal instead of an acquittal double jeopardy didn’t apply. New York State could try him again and did so, this time winning a conviction that withstood Kelly’s lawyers and their best efforts. Having walked out of Sing Sing’s death house on July 12, 1951, he walked back in on November 28 to be reunited with Warden Wilfred Denno and the death house guards Kelly’s letter had so warmly praised. In the same week as Edward Kelly began his second stint in the death house Wallace Ford, Jr arrived to begin his first (and last).

Unlike Kelly, Ford held no particular distinction. His crime, the kidnap and murder of his sister-in-law after his marriage folded, was brutal, squalid and utterly unnecessary. Hardly a rare breed among Sing Sing’s soon-to-be-dead then or now. An argument with sister-in-law and victim Nancy Bridges over contact with his children saw Ford beat her unconscious, drive her to Genesee County. Once there he drove his car over her, reversing over her again to ensure her death. Not a man to inspire sympathy among appellate judges or the State Governor who still had the power to commute. In Ford’s case he chose not to. Convicted and condemned on November 30, 1951, he arrived at Sing Sing on December 4.

If Kelly’s case was unusual for Warden Denno it wasn’t unusual for State Electrician Joseph Francel. The fourth of five men to hold the title, Kelly and Ford would be numbers 130 and 131 of the 140 inmates he electrocuted between 1939 and 1953. After Kelly and Ford, Francel would throw the switch only nine more times before resigning in 1954.

Francel didn’t like the low pay, $150 for a single with an extra $50 per head for executing two or more prisoners in the same night. He’d also taken a dislike to the publicity surrounding his job, especially after the Rosenbergs in 1953. Kelly and Ford, however, were just another day at the office. With Ford and Kelly both out of appeals and Governor Thomas Dewey not inclined to be generous, preparations for the double event began.

12 hours before their scheduled time of 11pm Ford and Kelly were moved from their death house cells to a block of six pre-execution cells long nicknamed the Dance Hall, only 20 steps from the execution chamber itself. The execution team rehearsed, each guard knowing their particular part of the job. Francel, as was the custom, arrived in the afternoon to check the equipment and ensure it was running properly. Warden Denno had to meet and greet the official witnesses, ensuring that none had any hidden cameras as happened when Ruth Snyder was executed in 1928.

In the absence of any stays of execution, appellate rulings or executive clemency all Kelly and Ford could do was wait…

Ford had sent a letter to Judge Loughran of the New York State Court of Appeals. It did him no good, but he did cite a complaint common among condemned inmates even today;

‘My attorneys at the trial were appointed by the Genesee County Court and they also represented me on appeal before this Court. I sincerely do believe that to the limit of their knowledge, capabilities and experience, they faithfully and conscientiously did their collective best and utmost to protect my interest. However, Your Honor, they were both young men, comparatively young in the practice of law and for both my case was their first murder trial and appeal.’

It did Wallace Ford, Jr no good in 1952. It seldom does now.

As far Edward Kelly, sitting in his cell with head shaved and appeals exhausted, his own letter to Warden Denno on leaving the death house might well have come back to haunt him;

‘Dear Sir,

Due to the fact that I’m leaving the “Death House,” I cannot say I have any regrets, nor will I recommend it to anyone, but I can inform them that, if they are ever unfortunate enough to go to Sing Sing, they will be very well treated. I had no fault to find with anything or anybody during my stay, every reasonable request was granted. The entire staff of the prison are a credit to New York State. The officers and guards are as fine a group of men as you could find anywhere.

“Dick” and “Freddie” go about their duties as if they had a personal interest in the place, always helpful and ready with a word of cheer if needed. I enjoyed “Terry’s” homelike meals. It would certainly be a pleasure to meet everybody, including yourself, under different circumstances. I extend my best wishes to all, but I hope I never come back.

Sincerely,

Edward H Kelly, 109-821.’

Did these words, written as Kelly walked cheerfully from death to freedom, haunt him as he made the return journey?

On this Day in 1925; The Biter (nearly) Bitten at Sing Sing.

When heroin-loving gangsters Morris ‘Whitey’ Diamond and his brother Joey teamed up with John Farina for an armed robbery and murder, they surely knew they had a fair chance of joining him in Sing Sing’s Death House and Old Sparky as well. The 1920’s and 30’s were halcyon days for New York’s ‘State Electrician’ and his infamous contraption, after all.

What they would never live to know (and executioner John Hurlburt came to know all too well) was that Hurlburt very nearly joined them in Sing Sing’s morgue. Hurlburt’s story is no great secret (you can find my account of it here) but less is reported of the night he found himself almost as dead as any of his 140 ‘customers.’

The Diamonds and Farina found themselves awaiting death for an armed robbery committed in 1924. They stole over $43,000 from bank messenger William Barlow and guard William McLaughlin. In the process they shot Barlow (a retired NYPD officer) three times in the back. McLaughlin (a US Army veteran) managed to fire a few shots before dying.

It might have gone better if the Diamonds hadn’t been using heroin before the job. It might have gone better still if Whitey hadn’t left a blood-stained finger print in the getaway car, hadn’t left a false licence plate where it was easily found and hadn’t falsely registered it under the name ‘Joe Samuels.’ It probably didn’t help that the address on the false registration was also where Whitey habitually collected his mail.

Further bad news came via bank clerk Antony Pantano, the gang’s inside man. For a lowly clerk, his colleagues thought, he had an unusual interest in the bank’s security \arrangements, especially those involving cash deliveries and collections. When their colleagues were ambushed and left dying in the street, they immediately pointed the finger at Pantano.

Grilled by NYPD officers furious at Barlow’s murder and no doubt wanting to avoid a seat in Old Sparky, Pantano cracked. He named the Diamonds and Farina as the shooters and Nicky ‘Cheeks’ Luciano and George Desaro as driving the two getaway cars. Luciano, no relation, takes no great role in the story. Desaro was later arrested in his native Italy, which agreed to prosecute him and gave him 30 years for his role. He was luckier than Farina and the Diamonds, but not Pantano.

Pantano also found himself going ‘up the river’ to await ‘Black Thursday,’ but his sentence was commuted. Those of the Diamonds and Farina, however, weren’t. New York’s courts had an unwritten rule of never interfering in the cases of condemned cop killers and that Barlow had been retired made no difference. The Whitey, Joey and Farina would die on the same night, April 30, 1925, one after another.

New York’s death warrants only specified a particular week for a prisoner’s electrocution. With that in mind, executions were traditionally conducted on Thursdays (barring last-minute legal appeals, stays of execution, temporary reprieves or commutations.

As Pantano left the Death House for Sing Sing’s general population, it must have occurred to him that he’d had a very narrow escape. During its tenure, Sing Sing’s Old Sparky (New York once had three of them) claimed 614 of the State’s 695 electrocutions. For every three inmates who walked in, two were wheeled out.

New York wasn’t a State noted for its generosity to the condemned. Pantano’s information and his being a first offender had undoubtedly saved him. As career criminals the Diamond brothers and Farina knew the rules of the game. They must also have known they’d gambled their lives, and lost. John Hurlburt pencilled a lucrative date in his diary, as much as he’d come to hate the work.

Hurlburt’s contract with New York was the same as his predecessor Edwin Davis. For single executions he was paid $150 and travel expenses. For doubles or more, which weren’t unusual, he got $150 for the first inmate and an extra per head thereafter. He would leave Sing Sing with $250 for his night’s work, more than some people earned in a year. Hurlburt, however, was cracking up.

Hurlburt had taken over from Davis when Davis retired in 1912, Davis having trained both Hurlburt and another assistant, Robert Greene Elliott. Initially a believer in capital punishment, he now found himself doing the job only for the money. With his wife Mattie chronically-ill he had no other way to pay the medical bills.

In the months before his date with Farina and the Diamonds he’d become withdrawn, sullen, temperamental, aggressive and depressed. Tantrums were regular, Hurlburt throwing items of equipment around the death chamber and cursing at guards while preparing for an execution.

This time, hours before he was due to earn his fee, Hurlburt suffered a nervous collapse. Prison officials were facing a crisis. Under New York law only a State Electrician could perform an electrocution and Hurlburt was the only one they had. No electrician, no electrocution. After much soft-soaping, gentle persuasion and cajoling, Hurlburt recovered enough to do the job, but only just.

At 11pm, Morris was first in line. He walked in, sat down and died. As his body was wheeled away in came his brother Joey. When Joey had been pronounced dead John Farina rounded out Hurlburt’s triple-hitter. Hurlburt, a broken man by then, promptly suffered another nervous collapse. He spent the next week in hospital before recovering enough to leave. Unfortunately for Hurlburt, who desperately needed relaxing, calm and above all safe surroundings, he was taken to the nearest available medical facility;

The infirmary at Sing Sing Prison.

Luckily for Hurlburt, he’d been a firm adherent to Edwin Davis’s approach to anonymity. The press had his name, but they never got a picture or any other personal details. His desire for anonymity and the safety thereof was about to save his life.

Some people just aren’t popular in prisons. Informers, ex-cops, ex-guards and sex offenders usually top the list of people considered fair game. Anyone wanting to make them suffer and possibly kill them has virtually free rein to do so if they can get away with it. Seldom, however, will you find anyone convicts hate more than an executioner.

Hurlburt must have been terrified. He couldn’t have avoided the fact (and fear) that, if anyone blew his cover, Hurlburt would be a dead man. He’d immediately be headed for the same morgue as the 140 or so inmates on whom he’d inflicted the ‘hot seat.’ If they even thought he might have been involved with Old Sparky, they’d kill him.

All in all, not what the doctor ordered. With the Diamonds and Farina dead, Hurlburt himself didn’t last much longer. He performed only two more executions, John Durkin on August 27 and Julius Miller on September 19, then resigned only hours before he was due to executed John Slattery and Ambrose Miller. on January 16, 1926. Slattery and Miller were delighted, their executions were postponed and subsequent legal action saw them commuted. Their accomplices Luigi Rapito and Emil Klatt were less fortunate.

By their date on January 29 New York had appointed the other of Davis’s two proteges, the legendary ‘Agent of Death’ Robert Greene Elliott. Another accomplice, Frank Daley, followed them on June 24. Daley played it tough until the bitter end, cursing Slattery and Ross for implicating him until the switch was thrown.

As it turned out Hurlburt, in failing health himself, his nerves broken and grieving after Mattie’s death in September, 1928, wasn’t long in joining them. On the afternoon of February 22, 1929 he walked into the basement of his home near Auburn Prison where he’d worked as both electrician and performed his very first executions. In his hand was the revolver he always carried when visiting a prison.

He didn’t walk out.

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