Tag: executioners
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On This Day in 1954 – Ian Grant and Kenneth Gilbert, the last double hanging in Britain.
So, it’s to London’s notorious Pentonville Prison we go for an historic event in British penal history. Hangings in themselves were nothing unusual, although by 1954 (only a year or so after the wrongful execution of Derek Bentley at Wandsworth) they were becoming increasingly rare events. Double hangings were becoming especially unusual, the days when…
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William Frederick Horry – England’s first ‘long drop’ hanging.
His name isn’t going to ring any bells with many readers, I know, but Horry (an otherwise unexceptional murderer) occupies a singular place in the chronicles of crime. Horry met, fell in love with and married wife (and victim) Jane in 1866 and the couple went on to run a hotel together in Burslem, Staffordshire…
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Virginia to abolish capital punishment.
On February 3 the Virginia State Senate voted 21 to 17 in favour of abolishing Virginia’s death penalty. Two days later the House of Delegates voted 57-41 to back repealing capital punishment in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Governor Ralph Northam has also indicated he will back the decision, remarking that “The practice is fundamentally inequitable.…
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On This Day in 1925 – John Hurlburt performs his last execution. ‘Yellow Charleston’ has his last dance.
A few years ago I covered the story of John Hurlburt, New York’s second ‘State Electrician.’ Trained by predecessor Edwin Davis, Hurlburt executed 140 prisoners during his tenure. Hurlburt’s official debut was executing George Coyer and Giuseppe DeGoia at Auburn Prison on August 31 1914. Unofficially he had already executed prisoners under Davis’s supervision. As…
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A New Year’s Eve special – The President and the hangman.
Well, seeing as it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m feeling generous, here’s something especially unusual. It’s not often that a President and an executioner meet, especially on a professional basis. US President Grover Cleveland was a notable exception, although he performed his two hangings while Sheriff of Erie County long before entering the White House.…
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On This Day in 1934, Ethel Lillie Major.
Normally this time of year would be cause for celebration, a time of Christmas cheer and goodwill to all men. That wasn’t the case for Ethel Major who stood condemned for the murder of her husband Arthur. For her the previous couple of days had been spent sobbing and incoherent as she pondered her imminent…
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On This Day in 1901 – Marcel Faugeron at Newgate Prison, Henry Pierrepoint’s First Hanging.
Hangings weren’t unusual at London’s Newgate Prison. In Fact, in 1901 a British prisoner was hanged every few weeks on average. The execution of French Army deserter and murderer Maurice Faugeron, however, was a singular event in British penal history. It was the first time the name Pierrepoint drew attention Not Albert, nor Albert’s…
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On This Day in 1953 – Louisa Merrifield, the Blackpool Poisoner.
It’s a fact that, for all their ruthlessness and guile, murderers can and do make the most idiotic mistakes. Louisa Merrifield was certainly one of them. Born in 1906, Merrifield was a liar, a fraudster, a cheat and ultimately a murderer. Today in 1953 her criminal career ended abruptly at the end of Albert Pierrepoint’s…
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On This Day in 1977 – Hamida Djandoubi, last man to face a French guillotine.
September 10, 1977 dawned damp and grey for the citizens of Marseilles, especially those residing in Les Baumettes Prison. All the inmates (and some of the staff) were in a dark mood contemplating the rising of the sun and the fall of executioner Marcel Chevalier’s blade. Inmates of what the French called ‘Death Alley’ were…
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Executed executioners; the biters bit.
Executioners are seen as a strange breed. Usually tolerated, sometimes celebrated, frequently feared and often despised, the man (for it usually is) who drops the blade, swings the axe, pushes the lever or throws the switch remains a breed apart. With their particular profession you might think that, death being touted as a deterrent, they’d…
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