Tag: Joe Byrd

• On This Day in 1964 – Joseph Johnson, Jr., the night they drove Old Sparky down.

  

  “The crunch. The mounting whine and snarl of the generator. The man’s lips peel back, the throat strains for a last desperate cry, the body arches against the restraining straps as the generator whines and snarls again, the features purple, steam and smoke rise from the bald spots on head and leg while he sick-sweet…

  CrimeScribe

  July 30, 2020

  History, Press And Politics, True Crime, Uncategorized

  African-American, America, Americans, Charles Brooks Jr, Charles Reynolds, Civil Rights, condemned, death, Death Row, death sentence, Don Reid, electric chair, electrocute, electrocuted, electrocution, Ewell Morris, executed, execution, executioner, executions, Furman, Furman vs Georgia, George Washington, Gregg vs Georgia, have a seat, Huntsville, Huntsville Item, Joe Byrd, Joseph Johnson Jr, last mile, lethal injection, Mack Matthews, Melvin Johnson, New York, Oklahoma, old sparky, ride the lightning, Southern hospitality, State Senator J W Thomas, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas Prison Museum, Texas Thunderbolt, the last mile, United States, US, US Supreme Court, USA, William Kemmler

• Dwight Beard, a tale of two cities and (at least) two murders.

  

  Unlike in Dickens’ classic novel Dwight Beard did not go to the guillotine as an act of redemption. The nobility so prized by Dickens (himself opposed to capital punishment) simply wasn’t in Beard’s nature. On 4 June 1937 he sat in the ‘Texas Thunderbolt’ at Huntsville, riding the lightning for a murder during one of…

  CrimeScribe

  July 23, 2020

  History, True Crime, Uncategorized

  1924, 1935, armed robbery, Augustus Buonos, Bonnie & Clyde, Caldwell County, capital punishment, Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery, Charles Dickens, crime, Dallas, death chamber, death house, death penalty, Death Row, death sentence, electrocute, electrocuted, executed, execution, executioner, Fort Worth, Georgia, Grove Hill Memorial Park, Howard Hinton, Huntsville, Joe Byrd, Joe Palmer, John Roberts, murder, murdered, murderer, North Carolina, old sparky, Peckerwood Hill, Raleigh, Raymond Hamilton, ride the lightning, Sydney Carton, Texas, Texas Thunderbolt, true crime