Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (17 page)

‘The whole of the arrangements were carried out in the usual manner and when I pulled the lever, the drop fell properly and the prisoner dropped out of sight. We were horrified, however, to see the rope suddenly jerk upwards, and for a moment I thought the noose had slipped from the culprit’s head or that the rope had broken. But it was worse than that, for the jerk had severed the head entirely from the body and both had fallen to the bottom of the pit. Of course death was instantaneous, so that the poor fellow had not suffered in any way, but it was terrible to think that such a revolting thing could have occurred. We were all unnerved and shocked. The Governor, whose efforts to prevent any accident had kept his nerves at full strain, fairly broke down and wept.’

After descending into the pit and seeing the head, still in its white cap and covered in blood, lying some distance away from the huddled torso, Berry himself was almost overcome and had to be revived later.

At the subsequent inquest the Governor absolved Berry from all blame, confirming that the drop was not considered excessive. Dr Robinson, the prison surgeon, agreed, pointing out that although Goodale was tall and heavy, he had a very thin backbone; moreover his head had been cut off as if by a knife, and not torn off, and he concluded his evidence by saying, ‘The sentence was that he should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. He was hanged and he is dead through being hanged.’

James Botting was executioner from 1817 to 1820 but had to retire after having a severe stroke. Confined to his bed, he suffered from hallucinations, probably the worst being the nightmare in which he saw all his 175 victims slowly marching past him, their faces concealed behind the mandatory white caps, their heads all tilted to the right.

‘Damn their eyes!’ he used to complain. ‘If only they’d hold their heads up and take off their nightcaps, I wouldn’t give a damn about any of them!’

Hangman Botting’s Nightmare

Anne Greene

This young lady, just like Half-Hanged Meg Dickson mentioned earlier, cheated the gallows, but finished up in a much more bruised and battered condition.

The account of her seemingly miraculous recovery appeared in Dr Plot’s
The Natural History of Oxfordshire
:

‘In the year 1650 Anne Greene, a servant in the household of Sir Thomas Reed, was tried for the murder of her newborn child, and found guilty. She was executed in the castle yard at Oxford, on 14 December, where she hung for about half an hour, being pulled by the legs, sometimes so hard that the Under-sheriff forbade them, lest the rope break; and also struck on the breast, as she herself desired, by divers [several] of her friends, to reduce her suffering; and, after all, also had several strokes given her upon the stomach with the butt-end of a soldier’s musket.

Being then cut down, she was put into a coffin and brought away to a house to be dissected; where, when they opened it, notwithstanding the rope still remained unloosened, and strait about her neck, they perceived her breast to rise; whereupon one Mason, a taylor, intending only an act of charity, set his foot upon her breast and belly, and, as some say, one Orum, a soldier, struck her again with the butt-end of his musket.

Notwithstanding all which, when the learned and ingenious Sir William Petty, the anatomy professor of the University, Dr Wallis and Dr Clarke, then president of Magdalen College and Vice-Chancellor of the University came to prepare the body for dissection, they perceived some small rattling in her throat; hereupon desisting from their former purpose, they presently used means for her recovery by opening a vein, laying her in a warm bed, and causing another woman to go into bed with her for warmth; also using divers remedies respecting her senselessness, insomuch that within fourteen hours she began to speak, and the next day she talked and prayed very heartily.

During the time of her recovering, the officers concerned in her execution would needs have had her away again to have completed it on her; but by the mediation of the worthy doctors and some other friends with the then Governor of the City, Colonel Kelsey, there was a guard put on her to hinder all further disturbances till he had sued out her pardon from the powers then in being; thousands of people in the meantime coming to see her, and magnifying the just providence of God in thus asserting her innocence.’

Anne made a complete recovery and was invited to recuperate in the countryside with friends who lived in Steeple Barton, and among her luggage loaded into the coach was a macabre memento of her ordeal – her coffin! She later married one of the local villagers, having three healthy children by him, and died some nine years later.

In 1780, executioner Ned Dennis was accused of being one of a mob attacking property in London during the Lord Gordon riots. Despite protests that he had been forced to join in, the court sentenced him to death. Dennis, mindful of the poverty of his family, begged the authorities to award the vacant executioner’s job to his son ‘a youth of sobriety and ability, who would be a credit to the profession.’ The application was rejected, it being pointed out that should it be granted, the son would then have to hang his own father.

Dennis was subsequently reprieved in order to hang his fellow rioters.

Charles Julius Guiteau

Following the election of James Abram Garfield as the new American president in 1881, scores of job-seekers applied for jobs in the new administration, most being disappointed. Charles Guiteau put himself forward as a candidate for sundry important political posts, but was rejected out of hand. He was convinced that the President bore a grudge against him – so he shot him.

The assassin was born in 1841 in Freeport, Illinois, and studied law in Chicago. However, he switched to the other side of the law and took to swindling clients, but scenting further, more lucrative possibilities in the political world, he ingratiated himself with the committee members engaged in the 1880 election campaign of the Republican Party.

Upon the election of President Garfield, he travelled to Washington and, full of his own importance, considered that he merited being appointed to the Austrian Mission or the Paris Consulate-General. Not being awarded either of these prestigious posts, he came to the conclusion that his lack of success was due entirely to the opposition of the President and, learning that he was leaving Washington for a holiday in the North, Guiteau went to the railway station and lingered in the waiting room. As the President walked past, he fired his gun, seriously wounding his unsuspecting quarry.

The would-be assassin was immediately arrested and held in jail pending the result of the treatment being administered to the President. However the badly injured man lingered until 19 September and then died; whereupon Guiteau was put on trial charged with murder, found guilty and sentenced to death.

On 1 July 1882 the
New York Tribune
devoted many column inches to the killer’s last hours:

‘Guiteau ate a good breakfast and at ten o’clock took a bath in his cell. He then wrote the doggerel which he read on the scaffold. He was busy a good deal of his time copying his speech and poem, signing autographs on his pictures, and the like. As the hour of his execution approached he seemed to show more and more emotion and appeared to believe himself that he would need help at the gallows. During this time predictions were freely made among those waiting that he would collapse when the dreaded hour arrived and have to be carried to the gallows.

About 11 o’clock there was an unexpected sensation. His sister, Mrs Scoville, appeared at the door of the jail and demanded admission. She had no pass and the guards refused to let her in. Her other brother John went out to see her and the two met in the vestibule with a gaping crowd about them and every window in the jail which commanded a view of the scene was crowded with eager faces. She had flowers with her which she had brought to put on her brother’s grave. She obviously had some excited notion that he would be safer and happier if she were at the execution, but General Crocker refused to admit her to the jail until it was all over, so she took up the flowers and walked through the crowd and over the dusty field to where some friends were in a carriage, to sit there until she should be called in to look on the body of her brother.

By 11.30 there was a crowd of 150 people scattered through the rotunda, chatting, laughing and smoking. As the hour of noon drew near, the crowd increased, both inside and outside. Within the rotunda the crowd now exceeded two hundred people and began to crystallise into two sections. One was massed about the opening in the corridor in which the gallows stood, in order to have the first chance in the rush which would follow close on the heels of the prisoner; the other was about the grating through which Guiteau would emerge from his cell. Near the entrance to the gallows corridor stood Officer Kearney, the good-natured and garrulous policeman who was the first to seize Guiteau after he had fired the fateful shot. He was busy today, telling his story and showing the card he took from the assassin’s pocket and which first revealed his name.

At 11.45 a detachment of soldiers filed down the iron stairway at the back and drew themselves up into a single line stretching almost the full width of the rotunda. ‘Attention,’ came the order in low tones. ‘Front face, ground arms,’ and the muskets came down on the flagging with a heavy thud. The sound smote on the ears of the assassin in his cell and he fainted. Dr Hicks at once endeavoured to revive him by fanning him and soon brought him round but he was plainly full of terror, and weak. From that time until he was summoned to hear his death warrant read, he passed most of the time lying on his bed while Dr Hicks fanned him and spoke encouraging words to strengthen him for the final ordeal.

When the hands of the little wooden clock on the wall pointed to 12 there was a visible stir in the crowd and much comparing of watches. It is difficult to say just what the scene presented by the crowd was like – it was not exactly like a horse sale or an auction sale; the crowd was eager but cheerful and the only tension was that of curiosity.

While the crowd was thus eagerly waiting, the assassin sent out from his cell a characteristic request to have his boots blacked, which was of course granted.

Just before half past twelve word ran through the crowd that he had been crying, and predictions ran high that the last scene would be one of collapse and cowardice. The story had hardly travelled through the crowd when the procession appeared and it became known that the death warrant had been read in the cell. First came General Crocker and one of the guards, then Dr Hicks, followed by Guiteau with guards. The assassin’s appearance sent a murmur of astonishment through the crowd. He was deadly pale and his eyes roved from side to side as he walked along, but his bearing was erect and firm and he seemed to wear a look of pride in his own courage and resolution.

Dr Hick’s voice trembled as he uttered a few preparatory words and then he turned to Guiteau and held up an open Bible so that the assassin could read from it. The latter’s voice was clear and loud, filling the whole corridor. There was not a tremor in it. He read a dozen verses in the same slow, unwavering voice. He read with a sing-song intonation, the same childish emphasis here and there, as he had at his trial, the same cheap actor’s ranting pronunciation and the same curl of the upper lip. His body swayed from side to side in the easy manner of a speaker on any commonplace occasion and he looked away from the book at his audience at every other sentence.

After prayers had been said, Dr Hicks handed the book to General Crocker and unfolded before the eyes of the pinioned man a sheet of foolscap.

‘My dying prayer on the gallows,’ said Guiteau in the same firm, loud voice, looking at the crowd, who were watching him with amazement. This, like the former reading, was a representation of all his mannerisms. He closed his eyes as he said, ‘I tremble for the fate of my murderers.’ His voice rose to a shout when he continued, ‘This nation will go down in the blood,’ and again, ‘My murderers, from the executive to the hangman, will go to Hell.’

When he had finished reading his prayer he surveyed the crowd and said, still with a firm voice, ‘I am now going to read some verses which are intended to indicate my feelings at the moment of leaving this world. If set to music they may be rendered more effective. The idea is that of a child babbling to his mama and papa. I wrote it this morning about ten o’clock.’

He then began to chant these verses in a doleful style; ‘I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad, I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad. I am going to the Lordy, Glory, Hallelujah! Glory, Hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy.’ Here Guiteau’s voice failed and he bowed his head and broke into sobs. But he rallied a little and went on with his chant, ‘I saved my party and my land, Glory, Hallelujah. But they have murdered me for it, and that is the reason I am going to the Lordy. Glory, Hallelujah! Glory, Hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy.’