Robert Alton Harris

Harris, along with his brother, were convicted of abducting two teenage boys from a fast food restaurant. They forced the boys to drive to a remote area, shot them in the head, and then used the boys’ car to rob a bank. He was executed on April 21, 1992. His final words were:

“You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.”

Patrick Bryan Knight

On August 26, 1991, Patrick Bryan Knight broke into his neighbors’ home. He waited patiently for the couple to return home from work and locked them inside their own basement. After a day of keeping the couple in their basement while he used their cars to drive around town, Knight and an accomplice forced them into their own van and shot them in the head before dragging their bodies into a ditch in a remote area. When questioned on the couple’s disappearance, Knight admitted to murdering them.

Knight was sentenced to death, but before he took his final breath he managed to keep a sense of humor about the situation.

Barbara Graham

Known by the press as “Bloody Babs”, Barbara Graham was sentenced to death after she and several accomplices beat and suffocated an old lady, believing the woman had thousands of dollars worth of cash and jewels in her home. The woman refused to cooperate with the crooks and did not tell them that hiding in a closet was a purse full of jewelry and other valuables that would have allowed the gang to make off with quite a hall. Instead the gang left the woman’s home with very little to show for their burglary.

Eventually the gang turned on one another and ratted out the other members. Graham was sentenced to die in the gas chambers. On June 3, 1955, Graham’s last words before the room filled with deadly cyanide gas were:

“Good people are always so sure they’re right.”

Edward “Paddy Ryan” Riley

Riley received the death sentence for his hand in a robbery turned bad. In the process of burglarizing a local tavern, he and his accomplices shot two police officers and an undertaker, one of which died. The gang fled to Detroit, but Johnny Law caught up with them in the end.

In his final hours Riley wrote a number of letters, mostly to women, but most his most famous letter was enclosed with several playing cards and read:

George Engel

George Engle was an anarchist, labor union activist, and founder of the Socialistic Labor Party of North America, which later dissolved into other factions. After hearing of a massacre that occurred during a union strike at the McCormick plant, Engle and other members of his organization planned a public demonstration in Haymarket Square the following day.

The demonstration went off without a hitch. Everything was peaceful and even the mayor took off early, feeling that there was no need to be alarmed about the crowd protesters. That evening, as one of the final speakers was making his address at the podium, police stormed the crowd and ordered everyone to disperse. A homemade bomb was thrown at police and the police fired into the crowd. It has been disputed whether the bomb was the first to be thrown or if it was thrown only after police began shooting, however, the aftermath remains that 12 people lost their lives that day.

Though Engel had not been present at the event he was tried for his hand in organizing the affair and conspiring the bombing. Before he was hanged on November 11, 1887 he has been quoted as muttering the phrase:

“Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life.”

Sir Walter Raleigh

Raleigh was charged for conspiring against King James I. He lived as a poet and adventurer who expedited several missions to explore the new world, which is now known as the United States. He fell out of favor with the Queen once it had been discovered that Raleigh had secretly married one of her hand maidens and after the Queen’s death King James I ordered him to be executed. He was able to buy himself out of his first execution and expedited another trip to America in search of gold. When the trip turned out to be a colossal failure his death sentence was reinstated. His final words within a poem he wrote included:

Johnny Johnson

Johnson admitted to the rape and murder of a woman after he gave her crack in exchange for sex. After the two had smoked the crack, Johnson became enraged that the woman refused to have sex with him. He pushed her to the ground, tore off her clothing, and raped her, before slamming her head into a curb until she stopped breathing. Before his death he penned a long letter stating his detest for the prison, where he had spent his final days.

“The Polunsky dungeon should be compared with the Death Row Community as existing not living. Why do I say this, the Death Row is full of isolated hearts and suppressed minds. We are filled with love looking for affection and a way to understand. I am a Death Row resident of the Polunsky dungeon. Why does my heart ache. We want pleasure love and satisfaction. It. The walls of darkness crushed in on me. Life without meaning is life without purpose. But the solace within the Polunsky dungeon, the unforgivesness within society, the church Pastors and Christians. It is terrifying. Does anyone care or who I am. Can you feel me people. The Polunsky dungeon is what I call the pit of hopelessness. The terrfying thing is the US is the only place, country that is the only civilized country that is free that says it will stop murder and enable justice. I ask each of you to lift up your voices to demand an end to the Death Penalty. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die we die to the Lord. Christ rose again, in Jesus name. Bye Aunt Helen, Luise, Joanna and to all the rest of yall. You may proceed Warden. (began singing)”

Lucien Carr, the lost King of the Beats.

Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac. Names synonymous with the popular post-war literature movement known as The Beat Generation. Their names have echoed across university campuses the world over and their works would go on to inspire art, music and literature long after their deaths. Yet, there exists one other man, who isn’t nearly as well known as his adversaries. The lost king of the beats.

Lucien Carr was only a freshman at Columbia University when he first met Allen Ginsberg. The two hit it off and through an acquaintance Carr was introduced to Jack Kerouac, whom he would later introduce to Ginsberg. Carr would also be responsible for introducing everyone to his older friend, fellow writer William S. Burroughs, and the legendary kings of the beats were born.

Long before any of the guys had even a footnote to their names, the group could be found hanging out around the Columbia University campus, haunting local bars and night clubs, spinning their prose and fueling their fire with as many illicit substances as possible. At the center of it all was Carr.

Though Ginsberg felt that Carr was a bit of a self-destructive egoist, he also saw within him a sort of mad genius and later reflects that “Lou was the glue” holding the group together. So what happened?

Since the 1950s it’s been almost a right of passage for practically everyone in their late teens and early twenties to read classics like Naked Lunch, On the Road, or Ginsberg’s epic poem, Howl. How is it that Carr was such a central figure within this rebellious group of literary masters, yet practically no one knows who he is?

Prior attending Columbia University, Carr had lived with his mother in St. Louis. At just 14, Carr caught the eye of his boy scout leader, David Kammerer. Kammerer had been a boyhood friend of writer William S. Burroughs and would later introduce Carr to him. Kammerer pursued Carr’s affection relentlessly. At times Carr would be annoyed by Krammerer’s antics, but other times seemed to revel in his attention. Krammerer’s presence made the rest of the beats uncomfortable, but he still continued to try to win Carr’s affection and become a member of the group.

Krammerer’s behavior became much more alarming and signs of his mental deterioration began to show. On one occasion he was caught attempting to hang Jack Kerouac’s cat and another he was arrested for breaking into Carr’s bedroom window in order to watch him sleep.

August 13, 1944 the tension between Krammerer’s obsession with Carr and Carr’s unrequited feelings finally came to a head. After Carr and Kerouac failed to catch a boat for France, the two headed to a popular hotspot, The West End bar. Krammerer, not surprisingly, had also been at the bar that day and Carr agreed to go for a walk with him.

Lucien Carr posing with Jack Kerouac.

Carr says that the two made their way to West 115^th Street in Manhattan, when Krammerer, once again, came on to Carr. Carr rejected Krammerer’s advances and Krammerer began attacking him. Carr said in a panic he reached into his pocket and pulled out a boy scout knife he had carried with him since the days of Krammerer heading his troop. He took the knife and plunged it into Krammerer’s chest.

Carr made his way back to the apartment of Burroughs and tossed him a pack of Krammerer’s bloodied cigarettes. Carr told Kerouac and Burroughs about the altercation that had occurred between him and Krammerer. Burroughs flushed the cigarettes down the toilet and told Carr to get a lawyer.

Rather than turning himself in, as Burroughs had instructed, he recruited the help of Jack Kerouac and another acquaintance to help him dispose of the murder weapon, some of Krammerer’s belongings, and dumped Krammerer’s body into the Hudson River. The trio then went to the art museum to look at paintings.

Kerouac and Burroughs were arrested as material witnesses and Carr was charged with second degree murder. The media portrayed Krammerer as a sexual predator, whose five year infatuation with Carr lead to his murder. The courts agreed to pursue a lesser charge of first degree manslaughter. Carr served two years in prison and was later released.

Rather than chase the notoriety of his peers, Carr settled down to live a private life, even requesting Ginsberg to remove his name within the dedication in the beginning of Howl. Carr did remain close with his beat pals, even serving as best man at Jack Kerouac’s wedding, but refused to bask in the spotlight. Some of Carr’s works have sparked an interest within the literary community, when the resurgence of beat culture came to the forefront, but still his name does not grace any college syllabi.

Saturday evening the ninth annual Fort Myers, Florida Zombicon brought out a crowd of at least 20,000, just in time to celebrate the Halloween season. The festivities were spoiled, however, when a lone gunman opened fire on the crowd, injuring five and leaving one festival-goer dead.

Police are now hoping that witnesses can help provide photos and videos taken at the event in order to track down the gunman. A recent video released by police shows a male, believed to be Hispanic, fleeing the scene, and dressed in a black t-shirt and black and red baseball cap.

Reports from witnesses at the event claim that the man was seen firing a black semi-automatic handgun into the crowd. He then fled down First Street in the direction of the Federal Courthouse. If anyone has information on the alleged suspect, contact Fort Myers Police at (239) 321-7700 or text C-R-I-M-E-S (274637) Keyword FMPD.

Albert Fine with his premature baby daughter.

On August 10 2012, Albert Fine was picked up by Kentucky police, wanted for questioning on the murder and dismemberment of his girlfriend, Catherine Hoholski. This story is not unlike some of the other troubling stories I have written about murderers, serial killers, and other deplorable people, but what makes this story interesting is that I knew this man. We went to school together, we grew up together and, though I wouldn’t call him a close friend, it was never the less shocking to see his name all over the local newspapers years later.

Albert was an angsty kid who always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, but there wasn’t many of us who weren’t like that in our formative junior high school years. I didn’t know much about his personal life, but I did know that he had a bad home life according to mutual friends of ours. Albert was no stranger to the law, even back then, and often found himself in trouble for one thing or another. Rumor around school is that on one occasion he was sent to the juvenile correction facility for molesting his young sister, though I was never certain if this were true or just lies made up by some of his bullies.

I moved to another town my freshman year of high school and didn’t really think much of Albert or the few fleeting memories I had of him. I had forgotten about the notes passed in secret from him, asking me to be his girlfriend, or stopping by his house to ask him to walk up to the library with some friends and I. I had forgotten about all of those things until I saw the newspaper that day and read of the horrific murder he was suspected of committing.

Catherine “Kat” Hoholski

Fine made a full confession while in police custody in Kentucky. He said that on June 28, 2012, he waited for his girlfriend Kat to come home to the apartment the couple shared. He strangled Kat until she was “asleep” and bound her. She was able to break free from the ligatures and Fine hit her and strangled her. After he determined she was dead, he dismembered her body and placed her remains in a plastic storage bin.

For weeks Fine told Kat’s family that she had left him and he had no idea where she was, even going as far as to update Kat’s Facebook statuses, claiming she was “on vacation” and just needed some time away to deal with the stress. Meanwhile, the couple’s 5-month-old premature baby was still living at the hospital in the nicu. Day after day Fine would go with Kat’s mother to the hospital in order to visit with his daughter, knowing the child’s mother was stored in pieces within his apartment building. Neighbors began to complain to maintenance of the foul odor within the complex. A handyman believed it to be the sewage drain and poured some bleach into it in hopes that it would rectify the problem. The smell only became worst.

By July 12, 2012, Kat’s family knew something was amiss with Kat. She went to the hospital daily to visit with her daughter, then the visits suddenly stopped. Text messages Kat’s family believed to have been from her didn’t seem to make any sense. Her mother decided to contact police and report Kat as missing. It would be weeks before her body would be recovered.

Albert’s defense attorney is attempting to have his initial confession to the murder thrown out on grounds that Fine is “mentally retarded”.

Inside a storage area was where Kat’s body was being kept. Fine knew that all eyes were on him as a primary suspect in the case and he decided to make a run for it. Police were able to capture him in the Lexington, Kentucky area. His formal sentencing won’t be until December of this year. The defense is attempting to have his initial confession thrown out, due to Fine’s “mental retardation”.

As someone who knew Albert Fine, I can attest that he is not “mentally retarded”. I recall him being in a special class our school designated for kids with behavioral issues, but he knew right from wrong. He had the foresight to hide the body, impersonate his girlfriend in text messages and Facebook posts in order to avoid suspicions from her friends and family, allowed Kat’s family to give him rides to the hospital in order to see his daughter, knowing that her mother was in parts and pieces in a storage container within their apartment complex, and when the law narrowed in on him he fled.

Ultimately, it will not be my opinion which decides Albert’s fate, but that of the jury. If Fine is found guilty he faces the death penalty.

Shanda Sharer

Junior high can be a difficult time in a young girl’s life. Jealousy and drama run rampant in the halls and once someone becomes a target, other students can be relentless in their taunts and bullying. Teenage girls can be down right cruel to those they have tagged as an enemy and those of us who have made it out of our junior high years intact are probably glad we never have to go back. There are some of us, however, who never get the chance to make it out alive.

Shanda Sharer was only 12-years-old when her life was taken by the hands of other teenage girls. Girls who were ultimately jealous over a friendship forged between Sharer and the love interest of another girl. Tortured and humiliated for hours by girls who would later claim their mental illnesses are what drove them to the cold and callous murder of the young athlete, Shanda’s life was ended before it even had a chance to truly begin.

On the night of January 10, 1992, 16-year-old Melinda Loveless convinced three friends – Laurie Tackett(17), Toni Lawrence(15), and Hope Rippey(15) – to help her scare Shanda Sharer. Loveless believed that Sharer had stolen her girlfriend, Amanda Heavrin, and was upset with how much time Amanda wanted to spend with Shanda rather than her.

The girls all piled into Tackett’s car and drove to Shanda’s house, stopping at McDonald’s on the way in order to ask for directions. Once the girls arrived at Shanda’s home, two of the girls went to the door and told her they were on their way to meet up with Amanda Heavrin at the ruins of a stone home overlooking the Ohio River, nicknamed “The Witch’s Castle”. Shanda was reluctant to go with the girls at first, but agreed to sneak out once her parents were asleep.

Shanda didn’t know that Loveless had been waiting in the car, hiding under a blanket and holding a knife. The other girls interrogated Shanda on her relationship with Amanda in order to antagonize Loveless, who had still been hiding in the back seat. Loveless sprang out from under the blanket and held the knife to Shanda’s throat. Shanda was sobbing and scared by the time the four girls reached the Witch’s Castle.

Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence.

Shanda was forced to enter into the Witch’s Castle where the other girls bound her hands and feet. One of the girls removed the rings she had been wearing and passed them out to the remaining girls, then danced to a tune played by Shanda’s Mickey Mouse watch she had been wearing. Tackett began telling Shanda how the room they were in was once a dungeon that had been filled with human bones and her’s would be soon added to the collection. Tacket and Lawrence then went back to the car to retrieve a smiley face sweatshirt Shanda had brought with her. The girls lit the sweatshirt on fire, but soon extinguished it, fearing that passing cars would see it and call the police.

The girls led Shanda back to the car. Shanda begged for the girls to take her home. Instead she was mocked and forced to take off her bra. The girls became lost and stopped at a gas station in order to get directions. Shanda was forced to hide under the blanket in the backseat while some of the other girls chatted to boys they knew, before they all climbed back in the car and drove to a patch of woods in Madison, IN, close to where Tackett’s home was located.

The girls turned down a logging road leading to a nearby garbage dump. Loveless and Tackett got out of the car and forced Shanda to strip naked. Loveless punched Shanda and slammed her face into her knee repeatedly, causing her mouth to be sliced open by her braces. Loveless then pulled out the knife she had been carrying and tried to slash Shanda’s throat, but found that the knife was too dull. Rippey got out of the car and helped hold down Shanda as Loveless and Tackett took turns stabbing her in the chest and strangled her with a rope until she became unconscious. They then picked up Shanda’s body and stuffed her into the trunk, assuming she was dead.

The girls all went back to Tackett’s house to clean up. As the girls were in the kitchen grabbing some drinks, they heard Shanda screaming from the trunk of the car. Tackett grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen and went out to the car and stabbed Shanda several more times. Tackett came back inside and washed the blood off of her. The girls hung out for a little longer, before Tackett and Loveless decided to go for a drive, while the other girls decided to stay behind.

As Tackett and Loveless were driving they began to hear gurgling noises coming from the trunk. They pulled the car over and looked in. Shanda sat up, but was unable to speak. Tackett beat Shanda with a tire iron until the noises stopped. Tackett and Loveless returned to Tackett’s home and told the other girls what had happened during their drive. The commotion awoke Tackett’s mother and she was forced to take the other girls home.

Instead, Tackett drove to a local gas station. One of the girls went inside and purchased a bottle of soda, which they emptied and filled with gasoline. Rippey directed Tackett to drive to a grassy field she knew of off of U.S. Route 421. Lawrence refused to participate as the other girls got out of the car. When Tackett opened the trunk, Rippey sprayed Shanda with windex and taunted “You’re not looking so hot now, are you?” The girls removed removed the rest of Shanda’s clothing and wrapped her in a blanket. Somehow Shanda was still struggling to hang on as the girls doused her in gasoline and lit her on fire. The girls then drove to McDonald’s for breakfast and joked how Shanda’s body had looked like the sausage patties.

A roadside memorial for Shanda Sharer near where her body was found.

Shanda’s father had noticed Shanda was missing early the next morning and reported her missing. After Tackett had dropped off Lawrence she told her mother and they went down to the police station to confess what had occurred with the girls and Shanda the prior evening and early morning of January 11. Loveless and Tackett were both arrested the following day based on Lawrence’s statement and the positive identification of Shanda Sharer’s body.

All four girls were tried as adults for, arguably, one of the most horrific cases Indiana had ever seen. Lawerence received a reduced sentence for her cooperation and was ordered to serve a maximum of 20 years for criminal confinement. Both Tackett and Loveless were sentenced to serve 60 years, but could be released for good behavior by 2020. Rippey had originally sentenced to serve 60 years, but had her sentenced later reduced to 35. All of the girls will be in their mid-40’s by the time they’re released.

It was October 30, 1975, just a day before Halloween, when the body of 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found bludgeoned to death under a tree within her own yard. Growing up in the quiet, upscale suburbs of Greenwich, Connecticut, crime in general was practically unheard of. Naturally, the brutal murder of such a young girl, just beginning her transition into her adult life, rocked the little community.

Devil’s Night

Martha Moxley

The Skakel family, at the time, was the wealthiest family within Greenwich. They had respect from the community, not only due to their vast wealth, but due to their family ties to Ethel Kennedy, widow of former Senator Robert Kennedy. But in true Kennedy fashion, the Skakels were marred by tragedy, and the seven Skakel children lost their mother to cancer. Though the death of Anne was hard, patriarch of the Skakel family, Rushton Skakel, could do nothing but carry on with business as usual and the children were often left with a host of nannies or to their own devices.

This was the case on the night of October 30, 1975. Martha Moxley had been out with friends, popping in and out of houses, and playing pranks around the neighborhood, when she found herself at the Skakel home. Martha mixed and mingled with other teens also at the Skakels’ that evening. She was last seen sitting in a car with Thomas and Michael Skakel listening to music. Thomas had been fond of Martha and began flirting with her, but Martha ignored his advances, according to another friend who had been in the vehicle at the time.

Two more of the Skakel brothers, along with a cousin, told the other teens that they had to take their cousin home. 15-year-old Michael agreed to go with them and the two other friends who had been with Martha that evening decided to make their way home. Thomas Skakle was the last person known to have seen Martha Moxley alive.

Getting Away with Murder

Thomas Skakel was 17 years old at the time Martha Moxley was found outside of her home, close to where the Skakel children had lived. Initially he was considered a prime suspect in the murder, since he had been the last person to see the girl alive and was believed to have been pushing Martha as her two friends had left the Skakel home. The golf club used to beat and impale the girl was found to have belonged to the Skakels’ and naturally investigators pursued a conviction against Thomas.

Although Thomas changed his story several times on the sequence of events that lead up to the point before Martha Moxley’s murder, he was eventually acquitted of all charges. There was another Skakel brother at the party that evening though. 15-year-old Michael Skakel had also seen Martha alive that evening before leaving the Skakel residence.

With the lack of evidence to pursue a conviction against Thomas, investigators began focusing on Thomas’ younger brother Michael. Michael also admitted to seeing Moxley at the party that evening, but like Thomas, Michael’s story changed several times. And like Thomas, prosecutes were forced to drop the charges and allow Michael to go free.

Private investigators hired by the Moxley family were also of little good to the case and Greenwich police were under scrutiny for how the evidence was handled at the crime scene. Just hours after Martha’s body was discovered on the Moxleys’ lawn, neighbors and media proceeded to compromise the scene and key evidence within the case may have been lost in the scuffle.

Justice for Martha

Michael Skakel

The case remained cold for the better part of 27 years, before prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to bring Michael Skakel to trial. Skakel maintained that he had been at his cousin’s home that evening watching television during the time investigators believed that Martha was murdered that frigid October evening, but while in the process of writing his memoir, taped conversations between Skakel and his ghostwriter revealed a different story on what occurred that evening in Greenwich.

Skakel claimed to have followed Moxley home that evening. He sat in a tree and masturbated in her lawn. Possibly the same tree that Martha’s body had later been found under. Skakel didn’t outright confess to the murder, but it was enough to convince jurors that Skakel knew more about the murder than he was leading on, in conjunction with other evidence collected from the scene.

Skakel was sentence to life in prison for the murder of Martha Moxley, but the story doesn’t end there.

Appeals

11 years after his initial conviction, a judge granted Skakel a retrial. On October 23, 2013, Skakel was set free on bail, convincing the judge that he had failed to receive adequate representation from his attorney during his initial trial. He is currently under house arrest probation as he awaits his new court date on the case. Will the prosecution be able to finally put this decades old case to rest, or will they be able to prove once and for all that Michael Skakel was responsible for the reprehensible murder of his neighbor?

Regular listeners may recall the story of Luka Magnotta. A story so bizarre, so heinous, that it required two episodes (Episode 33 and Episode 34) to cover the case in full detail. For those who have not had a chance to listen in, Luka Magnotta sought fame by any means possible. Videos of Magnotta torturing kittens began to surface online, and soon many were out for Magnotta’s blood. This ill-gotten notoriety wasn’t enough for Magnotta, however. He had to do something worst. Something that would shock the world.

Magnotta decided to continue on his depraved quest for stardom by making Chinese international student Jun Lin the spotlight of his next video. He tortured and dismembered the man on camera before posting the video online, but in order to truly achieve a name worthy of going down in true crime history, he took the murder even further. He mailed the limbs of Lin to offices of the Conservative Party of Canada and elementary schools.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long for a jury to convict Magnotta of the crime and sentence him to life in prison. Still obsessed with the limelight, even a prison sentence couldn’t keep Magnotta out of the press and while prison life may have slowed Magnotta down a bit, he’s still just as outrageous as ever. Most recently a friend of his released letters written by Magnotta discussing his new life behind bars.

Within these letters, the way Magnotta describes prison life it would seem like Canadian prisons are more like a trip to Club Med than how we would typically picture life inside of a maximum security correctional facility. Magnotta tells his friend that the prison is mostly like a University dorm setting, where inmates are allowed to roam free within the prison walls for most of the day and can even take leisurely strolls through the prison gardens. Magnotta also explains how he spends most of the day quietly reading or enjoying art, while relaxing to the soothing sounds of the latest Celine Dion album.

When not soaking up the rays, playing for one of the many prison sports teams, or passing the time with art and music, Magnotta enjoys 5-star quality prison cuisine, though he admits their chocolate selection is not as up to snuff as he would like. Magnotta also claims that there is a prison convenience store, which has practically any food offering imaginable and sometimes the prison offers the inmates pizza parties. He has also taken advantage of the many educational opportunities and brags that he has been learning French.

Yes, life does sound good for a man who contrived one of the most despicable crimes Canada has ever seen, but shockingly his claims may not be entirely true. In an article published in Vice Magazine, Catherine Latimer, director for a charity that is responsible for rehabilitating offenders, says that Magnotta’s descriptions of prison life just aren’t feasible.

Latimer describes conditions as grim inside the prison walls. Inmates are on lockdown around 22 hours a day. Not only that, but all that magnificent food Magnotta claims to be eating makes nutraloaf seem like a gourmet dinner. She describes the food as green, rotten and cold, but at best inmates could purchase commissary, which includes chocolates. Magnotta’s claims of playing sports and educational opportunities were also debunked in the Vice interview by Latimer, stating that budget constraints forced prisons to limit most sports activities and higher learning courses for inmates.

While Magnotta may pass his time making up these elaborate stories, those of us on the outside can rest assured that life is not anything like a Florida time share for this cold blooded killer.

Eva Coo, the ‘Mallet Murderer.’

As Sword and Scale’s regular readers know, I like to find crimes with an unusual twist and criminals with a singular distinction in the history of crime. The murder committed by Eva Coo was nothing exceptional in and of itself, but it does have its own unique twist. Her crime was reconstructed which is nothing unusual, but no other murder case I’ve ever seen saw the victim’s corpse used in the reconstruction. So, let’s go back to upstate New York in the early 1930’s and the quiet town of Cooperstown to look at the strange case of Eva Coo, Harry Wright and the murder on Crumhorn Mountain.

On June 13, 1934 Max Baer defeated Primo ‘The Ambling Alp‘ Carnera for the world heavyweight title. It was the same night as local police received a worried phone call from Eva Coo, owner of the rather shady Woodbine Inn–  a nearby roadhouse with a dubious reputation. Coo’s handyman, an aging drunkard named Harry Wright, had been due to arrive at the inn that evening. For some reason he hadn’t arrived and was well overdue. According to Eva Coo she was worried and had called the local police to see if he’d been arrested or been in an accident. He hadn’t, but police didn’t yet know that. Eva Coo already did.

On visiting the inn, State Police Trooper Cadwell spoke briefly with Eva Coo, trying to get some idea of where he might be. All Coo could offer was a suggestion that Wright, true to form, had possibly been on a bender and passed out drunk somewhere. Cadwell agreed to go looking for Wright and it wasn’t long before he found him. Wright’s body was discovered only a few hundred yards from the inn looking as though he’d been struck by a car, which he had. Just not by accident.

On examining Harry Wright’s body, the doctor and Cadwell confirmed he was dead and that he’d been hit by a vehicle. They also ascertained that he’d died some time around 8:30pm and had been laid there for around three hours. A gray cap was discovered at the scene, identified by one of Wright’s acquaintances as definitely not being his. What wasn’t found at the apparent hit-and-run was far more interesting than what was. There were no physical traces of the vehicle whatsoever. No skid marks on the road, no broken glass, no small pieces of bodywork. Nothing at all could be found to identify the vehicle that had supposedly killed him where he was found. Curiosity began to harden into suspicion.

On further medical examination Wright’s injuries were very extensive. Too extensive, in fact. Both his shoulder blades were fractured in several places. Nearly all his ribs were fractured or broken. His chest cavity had been crushed almost to pulp. Dr. Winsor’s opinion was unambiguous:

“In my opinion the car that killed Wright passed over him not once, but twice.”

There was also the small matter of another unrelated injury to Harry Wright’s head, an injury that looked like he’d been struck over the head by a heavy, blunt object that wasn’t part of the car that killed him. Winsor and the local police also couldn’t figure out how, on the stretch of road where his body was found, exactly how he could have fallen under a passing car in any way that would explain his injuries. Winsor and Cadwell consulted with State Police officers and, once an autopsy had also revealed that Wright was, unusually, not holding enough alcohol to be severely intoxicating, their suspicions hardened still further. There was seemingly no rational, legitimate explanation for Wright’s injuries, but there was a definite suggestion of foul play. That suggestion would only grow stronger as time passed and investigators dug deeper into Harry Wright and his erstwhile employer Eva Coo.

Further inconsistencies soon surfaced. Coo claimed that Wright had left the inn to visit a prospective employer. As the walk was no longer than twenty minutes and Wright had died ninety minutes after he left the inn, where had he been? And with whom? His body was also found on the side of the road indicating he’d walked with the flow of traffic, not against it. To be found on the other side of the road, which he was, he’d have to have been hit so hard that his body had been knocked clear from one side of the road to the other. So why, if he had been hit that hard, were there no physical traces of the car itself?

Their suspicions by now firmly aroused, police began to look more closely at Wright’s personal history and those of the people around him. It transpired that a local stonemason had, on Eva Coo’s orders, altered the dates on the Wright family gravestone only three weeks before Harry Wright’s death. Like many people, Harry already had his birth year carved on the family monument. A police officer attending his funeral noticed the freshly-cut numeral making Wright five years younger than he actually was. Why? Further inquiries soon found the reason. Harry Wright had recently been insured for a large sum and his age had been altered in order to persuade the insurance company to insure him at a lower premium. Presumably, the insurers weren’t told of his chronic alcoholism and medical history, either. The big question was who had taken out the policy and who was the beneficiary? The answer to both was alarmingly and suspiciously simple.

Eva Coo.

State police then turned up a significant lead. Cadwell had suggested that officers tour local garages and gas stations, asking around to see whether anybody had stopped by with either a damaged car or who seemed to be flustered and stressed. Apparently, according to a mechanic at a nearby garage, somebody had. Her name was Martha Clift and she’d rented a large Willys-Knight car for the evening. It further transpired that Martha Clift was a ‘entertainer’ working at the Woodbine Inn, which made her an employee of a certain Eva Coo.

The mechanic was also open about her manner when she returned the car. Small-town folk often like to make a little light conversation with storekeepers, tradesmen and so on when doing business. Martha Clift didn’t.  According to the mechanic she simply avoided any idle chatter, paid in full, and left as quickly as possible while looking remarkably nervous. So nervous, in fact, that the mechanic carefully checked over the car she’d hired to make sure she hadn’t damaged it and was skipping out on the additional expense.

Further inquiries revealed something unusual. Martha Clift had indeed hired the big-heavy Willys-Knight. But she wouldn’t have driven it as she didn’t have a driver’s license. Which meant that somebody who could drive, licensed or otherwise, must have driven it for her. Examination of the car further revealed a very disturbing set of stains on the rear seats.

Stains bearing a close resemblance to dried blood.

Sheriff Mitchell, pursuing his own lines of inquiry,soon found some more suspicious information and a possible witness in the form of Ernie Tatum, another Woodbine Inn regular. Tatum, not himself overly given to perpetual sobriety, was pressed until he revealed some very interesting information. Not only was Eva Coo the sole beneficiary of Harry Wright’s insurance policy, he also revealed that on the night of the murder he’d been drinking with him at the Woodbine. Wright had indicated that he’d be going up to an abandoned house high on nearby Crumhorn Mountain to steal some shrubs and flowers.

Tatum remembered the conversation fairly clearly as, according to Wright, Eva Coo had promised she’d get him home in time to listen to the Baer-Carnera heavyweight title fight on the radio. On returning to the subject of the insurance, it also transpired that Harry Wright didn’t even know he was insured as Eva Coo had persuaded Tatum to handle all the correspondence and forge Wright’s signature where needed. It also became clear that Coo had several policies on Wright with herself as sole beneficiary, that his age had been altered to lower the premiums and that the policies had a ‘double indemnity’ clause doubling the payouts if Harry Wright should happen to die in an accident.

A hit-and-run accident on a secluded, dark country road, for example.

Cooperstown hadn’t seen a murder trial or 13 years.

Investigators were now convinced both that Harry Wright had been murdered and that Eva Coo was responsible. The questions were where had he been murdered and exactly how. It wasn’t long before they found their answers and from an unlikely source. The abandoned Scott house on Crumhorn Mountain might have been abandoned, but it was owned by a Mrs Fink who was heartily fed up of the place being raided, vandalised and robbed. On the night of the murder Mrs Fink had been told that, not for the first time, a car and two people had been seen at the house. She went up to see what was going on and found two women.

The two women she later identified as Eva Coo and Martha Clift. There was no sign of Harry Wright. Eva Coo, unusually for someone known locally as hard-nosed, tough-minded and generally easily-provoked, was polite, courteous and seemed curiously diplomatic. She had informed Mrs Fink, politely and reasonably, that they had taken nothing from the property and that they were now leaving. The time, suspiciously given that Coo herself had reported Harry Wright missing at around 10pm and his time of death was around 8:30, was near 9pm. This also blew Eva Coo’s story that Harry Wright had left the Woodbine Inn at around 7pm and simply vanished.

Further incriminating evidence followed. Trooper Cadwell had spoken with Eva Coo’s nearest neighbour, a Mrs Wagner, and Wagner had a story to tell. A most incriminating one, as it turned out. She disclosed that Coo had expressed concern about being subject of any suspicion involving the death of Harry Wright. She had also asked Wagner if she’d mind telling anyone who asked that Coo had never left the Woodbine Inn that night, either. If anyone asked her about Eva Coo, Coo told her, she was to say she’d been at the inn using the telephone that evening and that Coo had been there all evening.

Of course, Eva Coo had left the Woodbine and police had a witness who placed her as trespassing halfway up Crumhorn Mountain at the time. Equally incriminating, Martha Clift seemed to have disappeared of the face of the earth. Two hostesses at the inn, Lottie James and Olive Brooks, were picked up for routine questioning and Brooks further added to the case against their employer. She admitted that Coo had asked her to alter the date in Harry Wright’s family Bible to 1890, the same year as the alteration on the gravestone. She also intimated that Coo, far from being overly indulgent of Wright, could be very cruel to him and, on more than one occasion, had threatened him with a wooden mallet. A wooden mallet that could easily have delivered the additional head injury that Wright obviously hadn’t got from a passing vehicle. A wooden mallet that, like Martha Clift, had also vanished.

Digging into Harry Wright’s past also provided a few interesting nuggets. He’d previously received $2000 when his mother died three years earlier. That had disappeared into the pockets of a certain Eva Coo. He’d owned a small house that had mysteriously burnt to the ground and received insurance money for that as well. It also disappeared in the form of a loan to one Eva Coo, as had the profits from selling the land on which the burnt-out building had stood. But, while Harry had come into some money, Eva was late paying her taxes and was being pressed to settle the bill.

Crumhorn Mountain. The perfect crime scene.

Police had means, motive and looked at Crumhorn Mountain as a potential opportunity. They were proved right when they arrested Eva Coo and, after no small amount of searching, found and detained Martha Clift. It would be Martha Clift who saved herself and, in doing so, hammered the remaining nails into Eva Coo’s coffin. On arresting Eva police had also secured a warrant to search her properties and they found several highly-incriminating items. They discovered the edited Bible mentioned by Olive Brooks.They also found a stained and well-used wooden mallet wrapped inside a crushed and shabby felt hat.

The hat was Harry Wright’s. The mallet was Eva Coo’s. Both were heavily bloodstained.

Martha broke quickly under questioning, especially when she was told she faced a stark, life-or-death choice. She could choose between a charge of second-degree murder with maybe twenty years to life or a charge of first-degree murder and a then-mandatory sentence of death in Sing Sing Prison’s legendary electric chair ‘Old Sparky. Not realising that police were bluffing her in the hope that she would crack and spill the beans, Clift did exactly that.

She confessed everything. On the night of the murder she, Eva Coo and Harry Wright had indeed secretly visited Crumhorn Mountain. Just not for stealing shrubbery, although Harry Wright still thought so. He was rather rudely disabused of this idea when Martha Clift, ably proving herself able to drive without a license, promptly steered the rental car straight at him. She almost missed him as, realising something was very wrong, he’d tried to jump aside as the car rushed toward him. Unfortunately he jumped towards Eva Coo who just happened to have brought her favourite wooden mallet in case of need.

A sharp crack over the head put Wright squarely back in the path of the Willys-Knight which promptly steamrollered over him. Just to make sure, Martha then backed up and reversed over him, finally putting him beyond survival. They were briefly interrupted by the unscheduled arrival of Mrs Fink, who Eva Coo had been unusually polite to. She was being unusually polite because neither Clift or Coo wanted Mrs Fink staying long enough to notice the corpse of Harry Wright, still lying under the car while Coo and Mrs Fink exchanged pleasantries

With Mrs Fink out of the way they put his body in the back of the car, drove down to where his body was later found and then Martha dropped the rental car back at the local garage where she’d originally hired it. Then Eva placed a brief and worried-sounding phone call to report Harry Wright missing, knowing all the time that she had murdered him and left his body where it would be both easily found and hopefully written off as just another rural road accident.

With witness testimony about Eva Coo’s false alibis, her cruelty towards Wright, the forensic evidence and exhibits and, most of all, Martha Clift turning State’s Evidence in return for no death penalty, the trial was practically a foregone conclusion. It was, however, the first murder trial in Cooperstown for thirteen years. Martha Clift played a starring role in Eva’s conviction, despite Eva having retained eminent and presumably very expensive defense counsel. Martha and Eva played starring roles in the trial. So, from beyond the grave, did their victim.

As I said, reconstructing crimes for the benefit of the jury is regular in trials. What isn’t quite as regular is taking the victim’s corpse, dressing it in clothes from a thrift store and then taking it and the jury to the secluded, dark, sinister Scott house on Crumhorn Mountain. Prosecutors seldom then position and reposition the body according to the testimony of one of its murderers who turned State’s Evidence in order to avoid the electric chair. But they did.

It worked.

Eva Coo was convicted which, under the then-mandatory sentencing for New York State, she was condemned to die for first-degree murder. Martha Clift later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a sentence of twenty years to life. She served her time and then disappeared into obscurity.

Eva Coo has largely been forgotten today but, in 1934, her fame was to last just a little bit longer. She was lodged at Sing Sing Prison’s infamous ‘Death House’ and placed in the same cell once occupied by New York’s ‘Double Indemnity’ murderer Ruth Snyder. Appeals were quickly filed and just as quickly denied and her date with Old Sparky was set for 11pm on June 27, 1935. That was only one year and 13 days since Harry Wright’s murder.

Final destination: Eva Coo died in this chair. Cop killer Leonard Scarnici died in it minutes later.

At the appointed time she walked her last mile, although she didn’t walk alone. Gangster Leonard Scarnici was scheduled to die immediately after her. She spent much of her last day pitying herself and crying, although she held herself together when the time came. At 11pm she walked the twenty-six steps from her cell in the ‘Dance Hall’ to Old Sparky, was seated and quickly strapped down. As the female guards escorting her left the death chamber she called out to them:

“Goodbye, darlings!”

‘State Electrician’ Robert G. Elliott, not known to like executing women, checked things over and awaited a signal from Warden Lewis Lawes, himself a noted opponent of capital punishment. The signal came. Her end was mercifully brief.

Cop killer Leonard Scarnici followed Eva Coo to Old Sparky.

Only minutes after her death and with smoke still hanging in the air, cop killer Leonard Scarnici, who’d spent his final day cursing cops, lawyers and particularly New York Governor Herbert Lehman for not granting him yet another reprieve, walked in. He was seated, strapped, capped and then Warden Lawes gave the signal. With Lawes dropping his hand Elliott completed the second part of that night’s ‘double hitter.’ With both bodies removed to the adjoining morgue, staff simply locked up the death chamber before returning to Coo and Scarnici’s ‘Dance Hall’ cells. There, they removed the personal effects to be packaged and sent on later while the cell beds were made and the nametags removed from the cell doors.

Warden Lawes was deeply critical of Eva Coo’s legal team and the way in which they handled her case. As he later put it:

“I don’t know if she was innocent or guilty. But I do know she got a rotten deal all around, rotten. And I’m not defending her – she may be guilty as well, but she got a raw deal. Her trial attorneys – do you know what they did to help her lately? Know what? One of them wrote to me, saying he’d like four invitations to her execution. That’s the kind of defense she had.”

Sure, art is a way of expression. A medium to make reality approachable and more appealing to those who understand what the artist want to say. However, over the last years, art has entered everybody’s home creating an impact to the masses. How? Through television, of course!

“American Horror Story” is a TV show that has gained all the attention a program wants, and horror lovers are not the only fans who made it popular. The true crime stories behind the five seasons’ fiction make the show more interesting and, since you enjoyed our post about the real monsters behind AHS’ characters, we believe it is time we created another story about a new star of the show’s new season: The Hotel itself.

So, long story short, the American Horror Story Hotel is based on the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles where a number of killers used to live in, while many murders and suicides have taken place. The accommodation is also said to be haunted and there are many who believe that each hotel room is cursed in its own strange, mysterious way. As you may imagine, the place is currently full of American Horror Story fans who want to live the experience of checking in a hotel with a bad reputation. However, Cecil Hotel has changed its name to “Stay on Main” and the owners now market it as “one of the city’s hippest boutique hotels and hostels.”

But what has happened there? Well, sit back because this building’s story dates back to the 60s, forty years after its evil walls started building up.

A Suicide Hotspot
Back in the late 50s, Cecil was one of the most popular places people who wanted to commit suicide visited. They checked in one of the 600 rooms, they always preferred spending their nights in a room several stories above ground, and after a night to a week of staying in it, they usually jumped out of the window, killing themselves.

It is not clear how many suicides have taken place in the Cecil Hotel, but one of the most infamous is the case of Pauline Otton, the woman who, in 1962, threw herself to her death from a ninth-floor window after a fight she had with her husband. Otton landed on a pedestrian, George Giannini, and they both ended up dead.

Mysterious Deaths
It is said that Cecil was one of the places where the mob, drug addicts and gangs enjoyed spending time at. As a result, a number of mysterious and unsolved murders were committed and, practically, in all these years, no one has ever been found to throw some light on the cases. An infamous Cecil story is the murder of the “Pigeon Goldie.”

The “Pigeon Goldie” was a famed in the city of Los Angeles and she was known as the feeder of the birds in Pershing Square. On June 4, 1964, “Pigeon Goldie” was found dead in her room with her famous Dodgers cap she always wore and a sack of birdseed. The person who raped, stabbed and strangled her was never found.

How Did Elisa Lam Die?
However, the case that inspired Ryan Murphy to create the Hotel Cortez’s story for the fifth season of “American Horror Story” was the one that, in 2013, drew all the attention to the Cecil Hotel: The case of Elisa Lam.

Canadian tourist Elisa Lam was found dead in the Cecil Hotel’s water tank following the guests’ complaints about a weird smell emanating from the black water coming out of the taps. Elisa’s decomposed body was floating inside the water that residents had been using to drink, shower and brush their teeth for 19 days.

On January 26, 2013, the 21-year-old student checked into the Cecil and after 4 days she went missing leaving no trace behind her but a security elevator footage. As you can tell watching it is, she must have been really confused.

Elisa Lam pressed all the buttons, she talked to people that didn’t look like they even existed, she kept acting like she was hiding from someone and, after she waved to someone, she vanished. Two weeks later, her body was discovered in the tank which is located at the secured and alarmed Cecil rooftop.
Nobody knows what happened.

A Killers Hub
Some people say that a place is intrinsically connected with its regular visitors’ energy. If this is true, Cecil Hotel is definitely a dark place since it was one of the most famous places where criminals and killers used to hang out. If this is true, Cecil Hotel may have inherited its darkness from its guests.

Richard Ramirez (also known as “The Night Stalker”) was one of the most regular guests. As an American serial killer, rapist and staunch supporter of Satanism, the Night Stalker practically lived in the Cecil Hotel’s top floor renting a $14-a-night room, in which he allegedly sacrificed some of his victims in the name of his Master. He was convicted of more than 12 murders.

In 1989, Richard Ramirez was sentenced to death. His reaction: “Big deal! Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland!”

The case of The Night Stalker revived two years later, when Jack Unterweger, a Ramirez copycat, was released from a prison in Austria as an example of rehabilitation. Days after his release, an Austrian magazine hired him as a crime writer in Los Angeles and he chose to check into the Cecil Hotel where he stayed for five weeks. Unterweger beat, sexually assaulted and then strangled three women with their own bra straps. All in his hotel room.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Cecil Hotel and enjoy your stay! You are kindly requested to survive.

George Stinney was only 14 years old when he was electrocuted in South Carolina.

The case of George Junius Stinney could easily be described as a stain on American justice, or the lack thereof. Stinney was executed in South Carolina’s electric chair in 1944 aged only 14, the youngest American to face execution in the 20^th century. His confession was probably coerced, his trial a travesty of justice and his execution botched, not least because he was a mere child dying in an electric chair designed for an adult. All in all, George Stinney’s original trial and execution made a mockery of the claim of ‘Justice for all’, at least until his conviction was finally overturned. It was overturned 70 years too late to save him from an untimely, unjust and unnatural death.

It was on March 23, 1944 that his path to South Carolina’s death chamber began. The bodies of two young girls, 11-year old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year old Mary Emma Thames, were found near railroad lines in the town of Alcolu. They had been beaten to death and Betty June Binnicker had been sexually assaulted. It was a brutal, vicious crime and their race makes no difference. Unfortunately for 14-year old local boy George Stinney, the fact that he was black in 1940’s South Carolina and accused of the sexually-motivated murder of two white children, very much did make a difference.

Search parties had been combing the area looking for the two girls after they had been declared missing. When their bodies were discovered the local people felt at first disbelief, then grief, then anger. That anger needed an outlet and, unfortunately in those more prejudiced times, George Stinney fitted the bill. He was arrested on suspicion of their murder as the girls knew him. They’d also stopped by the Stinney home on the day of the murders, making the Stinneys among the last people to see them alive. Except, of course, for their murderer.

George was soon under suspicion amid a town filled with grief-stricken, angry, vengeful townsfolk who wanted the murderer caught and punished. Given that this was an especially appalling crime there was unanimity in the area as to how the killer should be punished. Nobody would be satisfied until, and unless, their killer found themselves walking their last mile to ride the lightning. South Carolina used its electric chair very regularly during the 1930’s and 1940’s often, it has to be said, against blacks convicted of crimes against whites. Unfortunately, apart from George Stinney’s age, there was little to separate him from many other black Americans who fell victim to racial prejudice dressed up as justice and law.

When police arrested him he quickly confessed to committing both the murders and, according to police, he also led them to the murder weapon, a 15-inch railroad spike. Unfortunately, using a heavy object like a railroad spike to inflict multiple fatal injuries in a sustained beating generally means an attacker of considerable strength and size. It doesn’t usually mean a 14-year old who stood only five feet and one inch tall and only weighed just over ninety pounds. Unless he happens to be black and in South Carolina when Jim Crow tended to have more stroke than the Constitution.

Again, George Stinney fit the bill. It wasn’t long before he was facing trial as an adult for a double child murder. Not only that, he was facing the electric chair. He was also facing certain trial and probable execution with almost no support from his family. His father had lost his job when George was arrested and, seeking employment and a chance to escape the fury of local people, the rest of Stinney’s family had departed for their own good.

Even the most sober and cool-minded observer would be forced to say that, by modern standards and by standards of justice and common decency, George Stinney’s trial was a farce. From jury selection to sentencing took less than a day. The jury was composed entirely of white jurors. South Carolina drew its jurors entirely from lists of registered voters at the time so, with blacks being disenfranchised, all-white juries were very much the norm. With an all-white jury in 1944 South Carolina, it’s fair to say that a black defendant would have had a rough ride at the best of times. As we shall see, these weren’t to prove the best of times for George Stinney.

Judge Stoll was a typically conservative South Carolina judge by 1940’s standards. He didn’t like criminals and was particularly hostile to black ones, especially when their alleged victims were white children. If this had been a Hollywood movie then a defence lawyer of Clarence Darrow’s legendary ability would now enter the fray and, in classic Hollywood fashion, either secure an acquittal or produce evidence that stayed the executioner’s hand when it was only inches from throwing the switch. South Carolina, however, isn’t Hollywood. Nor did Stinney’s court-appointed lawyer provide a defense on a par with Clarence Darrow. In fact, he didn’t want the case in the first place. He was also standing for public office at a time when endemic racism meant defending his client properly would have ruined his chances.

With that in mind defence lawyer Charles Plowden came up with a simple strategy. He barely defended his client at all. Plowden could have challenged the only piece of evidence against Stinney, which was that police officers claimed verbally that he had confessed. There was no written or recorded evidence of his having confessed. Nothing signed, no tape recording, nothing. Only the word of the officers that Stinney had confessed, led them to the murder scene and showed them the murder weapon. All of which George Stinney himself later denied. He admitted initially that he’d committed the crime, but retracted his ‘confession’ and claimed that he’d been bullied into giving it in the first place.

Plowden didn’t challenge the claims of a confession, even though there was no material evidence of one. He didn’t challenge the word of a single prosecution witness. He raised no objections whatsoever during the trial. Instead, his idea of a defense was to claim that, by virtue of his age, George Stinney couldn’t be considered responsible for his actions because he was only 14. For the prosecution it was a walk-over because Plowden seemed as anxious to avoid properly defending Stinney as much as prosecutors were determined to convict him.

And convict him they did. The jury were sent out to render a verdict after a trial lasting less than three hours from start to finish. The jury took only ten minutes to reach a verdict: Guilty as charged, with no recommendation for mercy. For so dreadful a crime there could only be one sentence and Judge Stoll lost no time in passing it. Death by electrocution.

South Carolina used its electric chair freely at the time. It was never designed for executing children.

Plowden’s final contribution to George Stinney’s defense was even worse than his conduct during the trial itself. Under State law at that time, any condemned inmate was entitled to one mandatory stay of execution pending appeal. Their lawyer simply wrote a single sentence on a piece of paper, signed it and a stay was automatically issued. At least, it’s issued if the lawyer doesn’t demand $500 for writing it when they know their client has absolutely no way of paying. That was exactly what Plowden did and it sealed Stinney’s fate.  An execution date was set; June 16, 1944. George Stinney, now Death Row Inmate 260 at South Carolina’s Central Correctional Institution, was on the fast-track to becoming the youngest executed American of the 20^th century.

Governor Olin Johnston could have saved Stinney, at the price of losing votes.
He chose not to.

There were some who felt otherwise. The NAACP, trade unionists from the CIO, concerned citizens and others wrote to Governor Olin Johnston requesting clemency and that Stinney’s death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Others were equally firm in demanding Stinney’s execution. Johnston was expecting to fight a re-election campaign later that year and faced a dilemma. He could commute Stinney’s sentence to life and face the ire of South Carolina’s voters, all of whom were white. Or he could allow the execution to proceed and preserve his majority at the price of his conscience. He chose the latter. He declined to interfere, saving his political aspirations and, in the process, dooming South Carolina’s youngest condemned prisoner.

The execution of a mere child was expected by all involved to be a grim affair. It was every bit as grim as expected. George Stinney walked his last mile on June 16, 1944. Of course, the wider world, given the battles in Normandy at that time, had bigger fish to fry. The staff at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, didn’t. In fact, their fish was decidedly smaller than usual.

Stinney walking his last mile. The other inmate carries the books Stinney had to sit on so he could be restrained in the electric chair.

Like all electric chairs the one in South Carolina was designed for adults. Stinney standing only five, one inch and weighing just over ninety pounds, wasn’t an adult. Straight away there were problems, not least his lack of height. Before he sat in Old Sparky books had to piled on the seat so that the head electrode could be securely attached. The chair was too large, which left guards having to tie his arms down instead of properly buckling the straps as the leather had no holes punched in the right place to properly strap him down. But, eventually, Stinney was seated, the straps were tied and the lethal helmet positioned. All that remained was for the Warden to give the signal. He did so at 7:30pm.

2400 volts ripped through Stinney’s body as the executioner threw the switch. The leather face mask, too large for his small head, slipped off. It revealed his face, tears running down his cheeks, eyes bulging. Then his left arm came free as the arm strap loosened, his arm waving in front of the witnesses as the current surged through his body. For two full minutes, George Stinney trembled in Old Sparky’s lap, eyes streaming, face contorted and arm waving before horrified witnesses. At the end of that two minutes George Stinney was, mercifully, pronounced dead after only one cycle of electricity.

He lay in his grave almost forgotten until 2004 when local historian George Frierson discovered his case. Appalled by the injustice meted out, he began to gather more information and more support for having the case reviewed. Lawyers and researchers agreed to work for free, sifting through old documents and archives. On October 25, 2013 they had enough evidence to file a motion demanding the Stinney case be reopened on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice.

After hearing from both sides Circuit Court Judge Carmen Mullen agreed. Judge Mullen’s ruling exonerated George Stinney, citing the absence of a meaningful defence, the paucity of the evidence, the strong possibility that Stinney’s confession had indeed been forced out of him and that his treatment violated his Constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment. Finally, 70 years too late to save him from an unjust and unnatural death, George Stinney was declared innocent. He lies in the appropriately-named Calvary Baptist Church Cemetery in Paxville, South Carolina. The inscription on his tombstone reads simply:

‘Wrongfully convicted, illegally executed by South Carolina.’

George Stinney’s headstone.

Frierson has alleged further misconduct in the Stinney case. In interviews Frierson has claimed that the real murderer was a member of a prominent local family. A prominent white local family. He also claims that the person in question, now deceased, made a deathbed confession to the crime for which George Stinney unjustly met his death. He goes even further, stating that at least one other member of that family was on the coroner’s jury that recommended George Stinney face trial for the murders.

The relatives of Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thame, on the other hand, beg to differ. They are still firmly convinced of Stinney’s guilt, believing that the claim of a deathbed confession has never been substantiated. The balance of probability and the test of reasonable doubt, in my opinion, mean they are wrong. That said, while much has been made, and rightly so, of the mistreatment and injustice of George Stinney’s case, we mustn’t forget that two innocent young girls were brutally murdered for seemingly no reason other than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And met the wrong person.

May they –George Stinney and their families– eventually find peace.

The bystander effect is a sociopsychological phenomena which occurs when someone within a group witnesses an emergency situation and doesn’t attempt to help. Instead that individual assumes that their assistance is not needed and someone else will step in to get the situation under control. Originally coined after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, psychologists took to the story and conducted a number of studies on how and why this phenomena exists within otherwise moral individuals. To better illustrate this idea we should first take a look at the crime that inspired the psychologists to construct this theory.

The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Winston Moseley

It was the early morning hours of March 13, 1964. After a long night at work, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese had just exited her vehicle in her apartment complex parking lot. As she began walking towards the complex door, just 100 feet from where she had parked, she was approached by Winston Moseley. Kitty began to run, but Moseley quickly caught up with her and stabbed her in the back.

Kitty began to scream “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!” Several neighbors later reported hearing a commotion, but did not immediately realize that the noises were a cry for help. At least one man did witness the stabbing, however. Robert Mozer yelled “Let that girl alone!” when he noticed the struggle between Kitty and Moseley. Injured, but still alive, Kitty staggered to the back entrance of her apartment complex. Moseley ran away after Mozer yelled out to him, but he returned the scene just ten minutes later.

Moseley caught up with Kitty, now lying half unconscious within the back hallway corridor of the apartment complex. Moseley proceeded to stab her several more times and rape the woman. Stab wounds on her hands lead investigators to suspect that Kitty had attempted to defend herself unsuccessfully against the attack.

Neighbors were eventually able to reach emergency services and Kitty Genovese died en route to the hospital.

Separating Fact from Fiction

Taking place in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, NY, the story of Kitty Genovese’s murder has often been cited as a cruel parable on the cold callousness of city living. How a young woman could be brutally raped and murdered with at least 38 witnesses present or near the area, but chose to stand back and do nothing because they didn’t want to get involved.

This is not exactly how the events of that March 13th morning transpired.

The number of witnesses on the scene were later determined to be greatly exaggerated by the media. 12 people were in the area who either directly witnessed the attack or heard screams. Of those 12 people, Robert Mozer did yell out to Moseley during the initial attack on Kitty. Additionally, most, if not all, of the 12 who heard or saw the attack attempted to contact authorities. Another neighbor, Sophie Farrar, came to sit at Genovese’s side as she lay dying after the second attack, unaware if Moseley had fled the scene or not. A far cry from the “38 witnesses who did nothing.”

The Aftermath

While the story may have been embellished in an attempt to sell newspapers, leaving the public with an apathetic legend ingrained within their psyche, the truth on what happened to Kitty Genovese that morning did inspire progressive action within the community.

Some of the neighbors who attempted to get in touch with the authorities complained that they had difficulty getting through on the existing phone system. The 9-9-9 emergency phone system had existed throughout the United Kingdom prior to the murder of Kitty Genovese and there were already plans in place to implement a similar system within the United States as well. The murder caused such a public stir that AT&T was almost forced into implementing the system as soon as possible, settling on 9-1-1 as the official emergency response number in 1968.

The Bystander Effect

Kitty Genovese

As previously mentioned, the murder of Kitty Genovese also spurred psychologists to look into something they later termed the bystander effect, or sometimes called “Genovese syndrome”. Though the interest may have been sparked by exaggerated claims, psychologists discovered that the more people around at the time a crime or emergency situation is occurring, the less likely someone is willing to step in and help diffuse the situation.

The reason for this phenomena is theorized to rely on two factors: diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.

When many people are around, the less responsible we feel as individuals to step in and assist while a crime is occurring. In contrast, when we happen to be the only person present while a crime is occurring, the responsibility rests solely upon us to see to it that a victim receives some form of assistance. Therefore, when in a group of people, the responsibility to help is not resting on our shoulders and we expect someone else to step in and either alert the police or help in some way.

Additionally, when in a group of people, if we see someone in distress we may not realize that we are baring witness to a crime. As social creatures, it is a part of human nature to look to others and observe their reactions to the situation. If we fail to see others in distress or concerned with the situation unfolding in front of us, then we assume that there is no reason to react.

Many of us, including myself, would like to think that if we witnessed a violent crime occurring right before our eyes in a crowd of people that the first thing we would do is try to help the situation. Unfortunately, this may not be true. While not all of us have bore witness to crimes, how many of us have been traveling down the down the road and witnessed a motorist pulled over with car trouble?

We could easily stop to ask if the motorist needs assistance, but often we assume that either that person has the situation under control or has a phone handy to call for assistance and continue on to our destination unfazed by the matter. And while distressed motorists aren’t entirely comparable to witnessing a terrible crime, it is an easily relatable example of how casually we just assume that a situation is under control and does not require our intervention.

Readers weigh in:

Now that we’ve discussed the bystander effect, how likely do you believe you are to fall victim to it?

William Desmond Taylor

A silent film actor turned film producer is found dead in his Los Angeles bungalow. Police arrive on the scene to find the home filled with major Hollywood starlets and executives of the era rummaging through the famous producer’s personal items. The producer, William Desmond Taylor, is found lying on his stomach with bullet holes in his back – A detail which directly undermined the original reports from an alleged doctor on the scene who disappeared as mysteriously as he came. The death of William Desmond Taylor remains shrouded in as much secrecy today as it was back in 1922.

Prior to his death, Taylor had gotten his start as a silent film actor in 1912. His first two major roles included 1913’s The Counterfeiters and The Iconoclast. It wouldn’t be until 1917, after having been cast as an actor in A Tale of Two Cities, that Taylor would make his transition from actor to producer.

His knowledge of art and literature made him an invaluable addition on the set and the director was able to launch Taylor’s career as a film producer with major players such as Fox and Paramount. Taylor would go on to produce Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, along with several other films before enlisting in the army in 1918 and being stationed to France. Taylor was discharged the following year and subsequently produced Anne of Green Gables. His final project would be 1922’s The Green Temptation.

In less than a decade Taylor went from traveling with acting troupes across Canada to rubbing elbows with some of Tinsel Town’s most elite. It would seem that Taylor had rose to the heights of one of Hollywood’s untouchables and there would be no end to the money, power, and excess that flowed through old Hollywood in its heyday. But like all good things, it wouldn’t be long before Taylor’s luck would run out, and the naive, carefree attitude of 1920s Hollywood would come to a grinding halt.

Comedic actress Mabel Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive.

In the evening prior to his murder, investigators were able to determine that Taylor had returned a phone call at around 7pm to actor Antonio Moreno. Minutes later, witnesses saw Mabel Normand knock on Taylor’s door. The actress stayed for only a short while, before the two emerged from the home and Taylor walked Normand to her car. Some believe that Taylor may have been shot shorty after the actress left the Taylor’s home. Others have theorized that his murder may have occurred much later, as rigor mortis had not yet set in when he had been discovered by his housekeeper at 7:45am the following day.

What is known is that studio executives, along with Mabel Normand, arrived at Taylor’s home before police had a chance to secure the murder scene. A crowd gathered to the scene and a man identifying himself as a doctor quickly ruled that Taylor’s death was the result of a stomach hemorrhage. Police arrived to find that not only had the scene been heavily compromised, but Taylor’s death had not been the result of natural causes at all.

A large amount of cash in Taylor’s wallet and and a 2-carat diamond ring on his finger indicated that Taylor’s death had not been the result of a robbery attempt. Nearly a dozen different suspects were called into question in connection with Taylor’s murder, but a lack of evidence forced the case to remain unsolved.

As one of Hollywood’s first major scandals, the mysterious murder of William Desmond Taylor certainly did not disappoint and, as more details of Taylor’s secret life emerged, the further down the rabbit hole the story went. A confusing blend of of fact and fiction the likes of which no movie could surpass.

Prior to making his way to Hollywood, it was learned that William Desmond Taylor was not Taylor’s real name. Taylor’s true identity was William Deane-Tanner, and he had been married for seven years before leaving for lunch one day from his job at his uncle’s antique shop, never to return. He left behind his wife and child with no rhyme or reason, at least not known to anyone except Taylor. This has lead some to theorize that Taylor’s murder may have been the result of his secret past coming back to bite him.

There were also rumors of Taylor carrying on a homosexual relationship with George James Hopkins. A relationship which continued up until the time of Taylor’s murder. Scandalous only in the sense that, at the time, homosexuality was taboo to the point that it would have meant career suicide if the relationship had ever been discovered and due to Taylor’s reputation of being a handsome womanizer who had seduced and slept with many of the actresses he worked with.

With that being said, investigators were able to uncover a number of pornographic photos in Taylor’s home. The photos were of some of Hollywood’s biggest starlets, many of which had worked with Taylor, and some have come to the conclusion that he may have been blackmailing the actresses. Threatening their careers if the young women did not submit to his demands.

Nearly a dozen suspects were interrogated in connection to the murder, but only three of them remain questionable.

Mabel Normand is still considered a primary suspect in the case. Not only was she one of the last people to witness Taylor alive, but she was found on the scene going through Taylor’s bedroom drawers. Normand was known to have a nasty cocaine habit and some believe that Taylor may have been taken down by some of Normand’s suppliers in a drug deal gone wrong. Alternatively, it has been speculated that Taylor may have angered Normand’s drug dealers in an attempt to help Normand get off drugs. Regardless of whether or not she had any involvement in Taylor’s death, Normand’s career never fully recovered from the scandal.

Mary Miles Minter was rumored to have been involved in a sexual relationship with Taylor at the time of his murder.

Mary Miles Minter was another woman suspected to have killed Taylor. Love letters from Minter were found in Taylor’s possession, along with a monogrammed negligee belonging to the young actress. Though some suspect there may have been a sexual relationship between the two, sources close to Taylor claim that Minter’s love for Taylor was unrequited and he had rejected the girl on a number of occasions.

Minter’s mother, Charlotte Shelby, has also been called into question. The most damning piece of evidence being a small .38 caliber pistol owned by Shelby, with bullets similar to the size of the ones used to kill Taylor. There has been speculation that Minter had been carrying out a relationship with Taylor, which was heavily frowned upon by Shelby because of the nearly 20 year age difference of the couple. Some say that Shelby went to Taylor’s home that night and shot him when it was discovered that he was with her daughter.

Long after the initial investigations, a new suspect came into question. Now on her deathbed, a sickly woman named Margaret Gibson claimed that it was she who had murdered William Desmond Taylor nearly 40 years prior to her confession. Gibson had worked with Taylor early in his Hollywood career, but there is no apparent motive for Gibson to have murdered him. The only known evidence linking her to the crime is her own confession.

They say dead men tell no tales, and that is certainly true when lying in the midst of a compromised crime scene. With Taylor long dead and a good possibility that whomever was responsible for the crime is now in a similar position, it is with a fair amount of certainty that we can suspect that Taylor’s murder will forever remain a mystery.

This photo was taken in the death cell, only hours before her electrocution.

Toni Jo Henry or, to use her proper name, Annie Beatrice McQuiston, holds a singular place in the criminal history of the State of Louisiana. Not even fellow Louisiana murderess Louise Peete possesses quite so individual a niche as Toni Jo. They were both from Louisiana, they were both murderers and they were both executed but, while Louise Peete is one of several women executed by the State of California, Toni Jo Henry remains the only woman ever to be electrocuted by Louisiana. Louisiana having discarded Old Sparky in favour of lethal injection, it’s unlikely her status will ever be challenged.

Toni Jo was originally from a respectable background by Southern standards, at least until her mother died of tuberculosis. After her mother’s death, her father took to drinking and was seldom around to give her the guidance, support and discipline a child needs. With that in mind, it’s perhaps no great surprise that she started to go off the rails.

By the tender age of only 15 Toni Jo was already consorting with known criminals. By the age of 20 she’d developed a drug habit, a pronounced fondness for hard liquor, a violent and aggressive temper and could only find work at a string of brothels. It was at her last house of ill-repute in San Antonio, Texas, that she met the one great love of her life, Claude Henry.

Claude ‘Cowboy’ Henry, a second-rate boxer with a dubious past.

Henry — known as ‘Cowboy’ Henry — was a boxer by trade and not a particularly good one. The nearest he’d ever come to big-time boxing or, frankly, was ever going to, was a fight night in Beaumont, Texas. He also had his own rather shady secret. Toni Jo might not have mentioned that she had a dubious past and a drug problem. ‘Cowboy’ Henry had neglected to tell her that he was out on bail while appealing a conviction for murder. It wasn’t long after their first meeting that her former employer let her know about her beloved’s rather precarious legal position.

Despite their common problems with the law, the twosome were soon married. They discussed the idea of having ‘Cowboy’ simply skip bail but, given that bail bondsmen often have ties to the kind of people you wouldn’t want coming looking for you, they decided that they would await the outcome of his appeal. They were both to be very disappointed. In the meantime, having been forced to admit their dark secrets, Claude insisted on inflicting the ‘cold turkey’ cure to Toni Jo’s drug habit, which worked albeit after much fighting, both verbal and physical.

Claude Henry’s lawyers managed to get him a change of venue to Hondo and a new trial. It did him no good whatsoever. Henry had killed a man named Arthur Sinclair and, according to Henry, it was self-defense when he disarmed Sinclair during a brawl and then shot him dead with his own gun. Henry’s claim was that, if he hadn’t killed Sinclair, Sinclair might have obtained another gun and then shot him in the back. Sinclair being a special policeman, Henry having already served time and Texas not having the most merciful attitude toward cop killers, Henry had been lucky. He’d only drawn fifty years in the feared Huntsville Prison rather than walking the last mile, taking a seat in the ‘Texas Thunderbolt’ and then permanent residence in the Huntsville prison cemetery known as ‘Peckerwood Hill’. He was taken straight from the courtroom in Hondo to Huntsville. Claude Henry had managed to avoid the electric chair. Toni Jo Henry wouldn’t be as lucky.

Harold Finnon Burks AKA ‘Arkansas.’ Toni Jo’s partner-in-crime.

Neither would Harold Finnon Burks, AKA ‘Arkie’ or ‘Arkansas’. Arkansas was a former jailbird and acquaintance of Claude Henry. A deserter from the US Army, he was a former inmate of Huntsville having served time there for burglary. His plan was simple. He’d string Toni Jo along with his inside knowledge, suggest he could help her arrange her husband’s escape, and suggest that they visit his native Arkansas to obtain guns and a fast car. What he actually wanted to do was lure her into giving him a free ride back to Arkansas and then disappear without giving himself any more trouble than he was already in. While bondsmen don’t like bail jumpers, the Military Police aren’t exactly gentle with recaptured deserters, either. In the end, he got it half-right. He did get back to Arkansas, but not for long. But more of that later.

Having sought advice from her criminal associates, Toni Jo advised her husband to keep a clean conduct sheet at Huntsville in the hope of being moved to a prison farm as a reward for good behaviour. It worked. It wasn’t long before Cowboy was allowed to work on a less secure prison farm forming part of the Huntsville unit. Most important for a possible escape, he was working outside the prison walls. Now what Toni Jo needed was some money, a set of civilian clothes for when she sprang her husband, and a couple of guns. She’d also, according to Burks, need a reliable, fast car. Soon they would have all those things and a date with ‘Gruesome Gertie’ to go with them.

Their plan, such as it was, was simple. They’d hitch-hike toward Huntsville using Toni Jo’s good looks and easy charm as a lure. When the right car came along they’d simply hijack it, rob the driver of his clothes, money and valuables, steal the car and make for Huntsville. At least, that was Toni Jo’s plan. Arkansas had other ideas, none of which involved helping anybody escape from prison. To him, Toni Jo represented a free ride home. He would realise later just how costly that free ride would be.

They hitch-hiked as planned, being polite enough to take lifts when they were offered and always on the lookout for a suitable victim. They soon found one. When J.P. Calloway stopped to pick them up he got more than he bargained for. His clothes were a tolerable fit for Cowboy. He had some money and a decent wristwatch that could be pawned. And he was driving a fast, reliable Ford coupe that he was delivering to Louisiana. He would never get there alive.

J.P. Calloway picked up two hitchhikers. He got far more than he bargained for.

While on the road, not far from one of Sulphur, Louisiana and an oil refinery, he suddenly found himself staring down two pistols. Toni Jo and Burks had bribed two juvenile delinquents while passing through Beaumont, Texas to burgle a hardware store and provide them with guns and ammunition. They forced Calloway into the trunk of the car and drove around looking for a secluded spot where they could rob him without attracting attention. Calloway, whose hand had been badly crushed when Toni Jo slammed the trunk’s lid on his fingers, was ordered at gunpoint to walk away from the road behind a haystack where he was forced to strip and surrender his wallet and watch. In doing so, he also gave up his life.

According to the testimony of Harold Burks, he stayed in the car while Toni Jo marched her victim behind the haystack. The next thing he heard, he testified, was a single .32 pistol shot followed by Toni Jo rushing back to the car carrying Calloway’s watch, wallet and clothes. Burks firmly denied having fired a shot, blaming Toni Jo entirely for Calloway’s murder. It made no difference. Regardless of whether Burks or Henry forced Calloway onto his knees and then shot him point-blank between the eyes, they were both equally guilty in the eyes of the law.

The pair headed for Burks’s native Arkansas, arriving there three days later. In the town of Camden Burks, terrified at facing possible execution for the murder in addition to his other problems, followed through with his original plan. He waited until Toni Jo fell asleep in their dingy motel room and promptly vanished taking with him the car and Calloway’s watch and clothes. All he’d left her was her .32-caliber pistol and a few dollars. Burks knew full well that, if he was in relatively minor trouble before meeting Toni Jo, that he was in potentially fatal trouble now.

On waking to realise she was now without an accomplice, money and a car Toni Jo panicked. Keeping the murder weapon in her handbag, she fled back to her native Louisiana and made contact with one of her former employers, a brothel madam named Hattie. Hattie was immediately suspicious, both of her unexpected arrival and of the .32 pistol in her handbag. Especially when she discovered that the pistol had been recently fired and still contained a spent cartridge. Once she got the truth from Toni Jo, Hattie promptly packed her off to her aunt, whose husband was a high-ranking officer in the Louisiana State Police.

Toni Jo’s aunt persuaded her to wait for her uncle’s return as he was away for a few days on official business. On his return to Shreveport he was horrified to hear her story. He was also in a very difficult position being both Toni Jo’s relative and also a senior police officer. After much soul-searching, his professional duty won out. Toni Jo was questioned, arrested, and charged with capital murder. She lost no time in naming her erstwhile accomplice as the killer, giving them his full name and as much information as she had on him. The net now began to close around Harold Finnon Burks.

Burks was arrested in Warren, Arkansas while hiding at his sister’s house. In the meantime, Toni Jo had taken officers to the crime scene, identified Calloway as the victim and repeated that Burks was the killer. Both Burks and Toni Jo were indicted for first-degree murder. Both were now facing the death penalty.

They both received it. Despite the best efforts of their lawyers they were convicted and condemned to die by hanging, just prior to Louisiana changing its method of execution to the electric chair. The chair itself was unusual, a portable chair with its own generator, straps and cables. While most States kept theirs at a particular prison and confined their condemned close by, Louisiana used its retribution roadshow to, quite literally, bring some power to the people. It was stored at the infamous Angola prison and delivered to local jails and courthouses so prisoners could be executed where they had been sentenced. The State of Louisiana was determined that both Toni Jo Henry and Harold Finnon Burks would be among the first victims of the device nowadays known in Louisiana as ‘Gruesome Gertie’. Both Toni Jo and Burks were equally determined that they wouldn’t be.

Toni Jo’s lawyers, despite being inexperienced, never having taken a capital case before and working for free, put on a campaign that the most expensive lawyers would have been proud of. They appealed against her sentence on several counts including Judge Hood’s alleged prejudicial conduct during the trial. Amazingly, they won.

Toni Jo was permitted a new trial based on a higher court’s ruling about Judge Hood’s treatment of her. The execution of Harold Burks was then postponed to enable him to testify against his former co-conspirator. It did no good. On February 3, 1942 their new trial began with Judge Pickrel presiding. The jury deliberated for under an hour before delivering a guilty verdict and both defendants were re-convicted. Both were also re-sentenced to die.

This verdict was overturned thanks to the prodigious efforts of Toni Jo’s lawyers. Appealing on nineteen counts, they won a third trial on the grounds that the prosecutor had improperly questioned prospective jurors during jury selection. A third trial date was set and, again, Burks received a stay of execution to enable him to testify against her.

Once more, Judge Pickrel presided. Again, Burks and Toni Jo were convicted and condemned to die. By this point Louisiana’s switch to electrocution had been voted in and the chair had replaced the gallows. Toni Jo’s lawyers, who by now were getting somewhat desperate, managed to win a stay based on a legal technicality in the wording of the law changing the execution method. She still had some time left to her, although her execution date was firmly set for November 28, 1942. State Governor Sam Jones had already made it clear he would deny any appeals for clemency.

Only days before her scheduled execution she finally had a change of heart. Despite having claimed at all three of her trials that Burks was the murderer, she now dictated a signed statement taking full responsibility for Calloway’s murder. It read simply:

“I, Annie Beatrice Henry, fired the shot that killed J.P. Calloway. It is my hope that Harold Finnon Burks will not have to suffer the death penalty.”

On November 23, 1942 Claude Henry re-entered the story by escaping from Central Prison Farm No.2. He stole a truck with another inmate named Claude Byers, smashed through prison gates and started making his way towards Lake Charles, Louisiana where Toni Jo awaited electrocution. He also made it known that, if his wife were executed, then he’d murder the sentencing judge. Security at Lake Charles Jail was significantly increased while armed guards provided 24-hour protection for both Judge Hood and Judge Pickrel.

Having read her final interview, the case having attracted significant press attention, Claude Henry felt obliged to try and save her. Reasoning that she was only in her present position on his account, he simply had to rescue her. Toni Jo herself, on hearing of his escape and his intentions, thought he was mad to even attempt to spring her. Soon, this wasn’t an issue. Claude Henry was captured in Beaumont, Texas, only 66 miles from Lake Charles, when an alert motel manager recognised his mugshot. Not only did he recognise Henry, he told visiting police officers which of the motel’s rooms he was sleeping in. Police simply went upstairs, smashed down the door and recaptured him before he knew what was happening. He was promptly returned to Huntsville under maximum security to finish his full fifty-year sentence.

The South being the South and Toni Jo being, theoretically, still a lady, they did offer the couple one small concession. Claude Henry was allowed a single telephone call to his doomed wife. She urged him to serve his time, go straight, and try to make something of himself. It was too late for her, but he still had some small chance of a relatively normal existence. She also made some last efforts to help Burks, claiming to the last that she, not he, had murdered J.P. Calloway. It did Burks no good. On March 23, 1943, months after Toni Jo paid the supreme penalty, Burks sat in the same chair and died for the crime he had not committed but had done nothing to prevent.

Toni Jo was escorted to the electric chair by her pastor, Father Richard.

The fatal day dawned. At Lake Charles Jail the portable chair was delivered from Angola and thoroughly tested. It was working perfectly. All her appeals had been denied and Governor Sam Jones hadn’t changed his mind. He was still rejecting any requests for clemency. Toni Jo’s head was shaved and, objecting to this, she was permitted to walk her last mile wearing a red bandanna to hide her shaven scalp.

At noon, the execution party arrived at her cell. Led by the Chaplain, Father Richard, she entered the death chamber and quickly seated herself while the straps and electrodes were adjusted. As she sat in ‘Gruesome Gertie’ awaiting the executioner’s hand on the switch she was silently praying, just as J.P. Calloway had been when she forced him to his knees and murdered him. All was ready and only a signal from the officer in charge was needed.

Just after noon the signal came. The executioner worked the switch and 2000 volts ripped through her body. At 12:12pm the case was concluded. Doctors checked her smoking body and certified her dead. A squalid end to a tragic case in which, ultimately, three people died who had no need to. As for Claude ‘Cowboy’ Henry, he was paroled only a couple of years later on grounds of ill-health. He died only months after his release in 1946.

And the cause of his death?

He was murdered.

Like William Kemmler, Chinese Tong member Gee Jon holds a singular, if unwilling, place in criminal history. Also like Kemmler, while his crime was unexceptional, his punishment was a felonious first. Gee Jon was the world’s first inmate to die by lethal gas.

Gee Jon and the world’s first gas chamber.

Almost entirely discarded by all but a tiny handful of American States and seemingly North Korea, when the gas chamber was at its inception it was seen as a modern marvel. So was the electric chair when it was introduced at New York’s Auburn Prison in the early 1890’s. Hanging was seen by many Americans as cruel and barbaric, a view ably promoted by American hangmen who, by British standards, were a careless crew indeed. Vastly-experienced British hangman Albert Pierrepoint derided American hangmen for their clumsiness and also their equipment, sneering at the traditional hangman’s knot as being merely a “Cowboy’s coil.” With no end to executions in sight, new methods were sought out and the gas chamber was one of them.

Jon himself was an unexceptional man and an average criminal. Born in China in 1895, he immigrated to America as a young boy, spending most of his life in San Francisco’s legendary Chinatown district. Like many young Chinese-Americans, he soon encountered the various Tong gangs operating within Chinatown and he soon joined the Hop Sings, a Tong whose main rackets involved distribution of alcohol and drugs.

A principle problem of joining a Tong, of which there were and still are many, is one of inter-Tong rivalries and blood feuds. The Hop Sings entered into a turf war with the rival Bing Kong Tong in 1921 and violence erupted almost immediately. Gee Jon soon found himself faced with orders to commit a murder on behalf of his Tong. Orders were orders, refusal being punishable by death, so Jon went to Mina, Nevada with a younger gang member named Hughie Sing. It was Sing’s job to point out Jon’s target and then Jon would do the rest.

On August 27, 1921, Gee Jon went to work, simultaneously booking himself a place in criminal history. Hughie Sing had pointed out a Bing Kong member, a 74-year old laundryman named Tom Quong Kee. After spending some hours watching Kee’s apartment Jon made his move. It was a simple one. He simply walked up to Kee’s front door, knocked, waited and when Kee answered the door Jon shot him dead with an ordinary .38 revolver. Quick, clean and simple.

Unusually for a Tong murder (and very unfortunately for Gee Jon) Nevada police found their job quick, clean, and simple as well. It wasn’t long before both Hughie Sing and Gee Jon were arrested, questioned and charged. The charge was one of first-degree murder. The punishment, if found guilty, was a sentence of death or life imprisonment. In 1922 both Sing and Jon were quickly tried and convicted. Sing, being only nineteen years old and not having fired the fatal shot, drew life imprisonment. Jon, who was both the older of the two and the triggerman, received no such mercy. He was condemned to die and shipped to the notorious Nevada State Prison at Carson City to await execution. The clock was ticking towards the world’s first-ever execution by lethal gas.

The feared Nevada State Prison at Carson City.

Nevada didn’t execute too many inmates at the time and previously offered its condemned a choice between the gallows and the firing squad. However, seeking to abandon the old ways, the Nevada State Legislature voted in 1921 to adopt the method proposed by Army medical officer Major D. A. Turner and toxicologist Doctor Allen McLean Hamilton, that of poison gas. Bear in mind that the First World War had only ceased in November, 1918 and memories of wartime gas attacks were fresh in the minds of Turner, Hamilton and many others. Turner and Hamilton, being well aware of the effect of massive gas clouds in open spaces, theorized that a dose of concentrated gas delivered within a confined space would kill quickly and, hopefully, painlessly. The Nevada State Legislature, sickened by too many lingering firing squads and bungled hangings, decided Turner’s idea was worth testing in reality. Gee Jon would be their first human guinea pig.

Jon’s lawyers immediately filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Nevada.  They bitterly attacked the new method on the grounds that it broke their client’s rights under the 8^th Amendment outlawing cruel and unusual punishment. That hadn’t worked for William Kemmler when his lawyers appealed against the electric chair on similar grounds and it didn’t work for Gee Jon, either. The Supreme Court of Nevada not only denied his appeal, it ruled against him while congratulating the Nevada State Legislature on choosing the most modern and, therefore, humane execution method it could have chosen. The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals was less congratulatory, but no more helpful when lawyers appealed for a writ of certiorari staying Jon’s impending execution. Appeal denied, this time without a fanfare. Gee Jon was now effectively doomed, provided staff at the Nevada State Prison could actually transform Turner and Hamilton’s new idea into something resembling a practical reality.

There were, of course, some fairly serious problems to resolve. Nobody had any idea of exactly how to make this new theory into a practical, workable reality. The modern-day gas chambers used and then discarded by States like California were still some years in the future. No purpose-built gas chamber then even existed. Another problem was of safety. How, the prison staff thought, are we going to manage to deliver the gas without risking the witnesses and execution team? What should an airtight gas chamber look like? How will the witnesses see inside? How much gas is needed and how will we get it into the chamber? How will the gas kill the prisoner? Will it be any more humane and quicker than the rope or the rifle? Or will it even work at all? And where are we going to obtain several pounds of liquid hydrocyanic acid anyway?

Prison staff were right to be worried. Their first problem was obtaining four pounds of liquid hydrogen cyanide. Unfortunately, the only company in the US producing liquid cyanide was the California Cyanide Company based in Los Angeles. They refused to supply the poison, not wanting to be liable for any potential legal problems from its use in an execution. Warden Dickerson, himself by no means convinced of lethal gas as a method, had to drive to California in person. Once in Los Angeles, he bought a $700 fumigation device with four pounds of liquid hydrocyanic acid before toting the equipment back to the Nevada State Prison at Carson City. The fumigation kit was normally used by Californian citrus farmers to clear pests from their trees. Now the Nevada State Prison was to test whether the same kit would dispose of larger problems.

Warden Denver Dickerson was in charge of the execution. He was skeptical about whether it would even work.

The first attempt was a predictable shambles. They tried pumping the solution into Jon’s cell while he was sleeping only to realize that his cell wasn’t sufficiently airtight to create a lethal concentration of cyanide gas. Something different and rather less improvised was clearly called for and their ingenuity saw it duly supplied. Part of the prison’s butcher’s building (appropriately enough) was converted into an airtight chamber some eleven feet long by ten feet wide with an eight foot ceiling. A single viewing window and a pair of roughly-constructed wooden chairs adorned with leather restraining straps completed the world’s first judicial gas chamber. Unlike more modern gas chambers where a mechanism mixes dilute sulfuric acid with sodium cyanide pellets, the idea of pumping liquid cyanide into the chamber to evaporate into lethal cyanide gas was retained.

Eventually, with his appeals exhausted and four guards having resigned over the switch to lethal gas, Gee Jon took his place in criminal history. At 9:30 on the morning of February 8, 1921 he was taken from Death Row and escorted to the butcher’s building under heavy guard. He was tearful and sobbed as he was placed in one of the wooden chairs. His tears stopped when the Captain of the guards told him abruptly:

“Brace up!”

The world’s first gas chamber, complete with rough wooden chairs and hand pump.

The official witnesses were already assembled. Members of the prison staff, journalists, representatives of public health organisations and the US Army itself were there to see how the new method worked. Or, in fact, whether it actually would. At 9:40 they found out, though not without a hitch. At a signal from Warden Dickerson the pump was started and hydrogen cyanide flowed into the small chamber. The optimum temperature for a gas chamber to operate is 70 degrees Fahrenheit but, being February, the room temperature was only around 58 degrees, delaying the formation of the gas cloud. Some of the liquid cyanide simply formed a puddle on the chamber floor, but enough evaporated to produce a lethal concentration in such a confined space.

Jon was, apparently, unconscious within a few seconds of the cloud forming, although his head nodded back and forth for another six minutes until he was considered to be dead. He sat motionless, steeping in the lethal cloud while Warden Dickerson and the witnesses looked on.

Just before 10am, one of the witnesses made a frightening announcement. He could smell almond blossom, a sign that some of the cyanide gas had leaked from inside the chamber. Warden Dickerson’s immediate reaction was to clear the small building instantly, fearing a leak large enough to wipe out the execution team and witnesses as well as the prisoner himself. Shortly afterward he ordered the chamber vent opened and the extractor fan switched on, removing most of the gas through a smokestack at a safe distance from ground level. Jon’s body was left sitting in the chamber until 12:20, when Warden Dickerson ordered his removal. Gee Jon was dead. Doctors refused to perform an autopsy, fearing that opening his body might still release a lethal dose of gas from inside Jon’s body.

Gee Jon’s historic demise met with mixed feelings from the press. According to the Nevada State Journal:

‘Nevada’s novel death law is upheld by the highest court – Humanity.’

Others, perhaps of a more sensitive disposition and less inclined to regard Nevada’s previous history of bungled hangings and firing squads as a reasonable baseline, saw it differently. According to the San Jose Mercury:

‘One hundred years from now Nevada will be referred to as a heathen commonwealth controlled by savages with only the outward signs of Civilization.’

Whatever the opinions then and now, the gas chamber was here to stay. It was adopted by a number of other States including Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi and California among others. California’s apple green-painted two-seat chamber, located at the notorious San Quentin Prison, is probably the best-known. During its tenure it acquired several gruesome nicknames. ‘The Big Sleep,’ ‘The Time Machine.’ ‘The Little Green Room’ and, nastiest of all, ‘The Coughing Box.’ It hosted the final moments of such notorious felons as ‘Red Light Bandit’ Caryl Chessman, inmates Miran Thompson and Sam Shockley (executed in 1948 for their role in the ‘Battle of Alcatraz’), Barbara ‘Bloody Babs’ Graham died there with her accomplices Jack Santo and Emmet Perkins. Graham was later immortalized in the 1958 movie ‘I Want To Live!’ which won Susan Hayward an Academy Award while taking considerable liberties with the actual facts of her case.

The ‘coughing box’ at San Quentin. Far more sophisticated, no less deadly.

Gas chamber technology also evolved. From its inception, the ramshackle butcher’s building at Carson City with its leaking windows and liquid cyanide pumped in by hand to the modern chamber used at San Quentin, delivering lethal gas while preserving the safety of those witnessing executions became a scientific process. From the dilution of the sulfuric acid to the amount of cyanide pellets needed and the replacement of the hand pump with a single lever to mix the acid and pellets, all was improved.

There was another scientific innovation to ensure a prisoner was actually dead, a specially-extended stethoscope was devised. It could be connected from the prisoner’s chest to a set of headphones outside the chamber by a tube running through an airtight seal. It allowed a doctor to stand at a chamber window, watching the prisoner die while taking notes and listening for the prisoner’s heartbeat. Death was certified only when the doctor could hear nothing.

Cleaning the chamber and removing the body also became a scientifically-defined process. San Quentin evolved ‘Procedure 769.’ It involved prison staff wearing heavy rubber gloves, rubber aprons and gas masks first unstrapping the prisoner’s body, ruffling their hair and removing their clothes to clear any remaining wisps of gas. The clothes are then burned. The entire inside of the chamber was then washed thoroughly with an ammonia solution to neutralize the cyanide left as condensation on the walls, floor, chairs and ceiling. The prisoner’s body is also washed in the same solution to protect the undertake preparing them for burial or cremation, or the medical student using them during dissection classes.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that the gas chamber has seen those who used it be pilloried as savages, but its history has been marred with botched executions and technical problems. Gerald Gallego was Mississippi’s first ‘gassee’ and the executioner incorrectly mixed the chemicals and acid. Gallego slowly expired after nearly an hour in the chamber at Parchman, Mississippi. It was also at Parchman that child-killer Jimmy Lee Gray suffered a similarly botched execution in the early 1980’s. At San Quentin in 1954, Leanderess Riley twice freed himself from the straps at the last second, having to be very forcibly re-strapped after running round inside the chamber moaning and screaming while beating his hands on the windows and begging not to die, all to the horror of those present. Witnesses were appalled as Riley was dragged from the ‘Ready Room’ to the chamber, restrained and re-strapped twice and finally died with his arms free and about to free his legs a third time. The spectacle was so gruesome that many of the prison staff never volunteered to perform another execution.

With the advent of lethal injection, yet another way of giving a gruesome, ugly business the appearance of being less gruesome and ugly, the gas chamber fell into decline and disuse like the electric chair. Today, very few States consider it as even a back-up option should lethal injection be declared unconstitutional. It never achieved the same popularity or wide use as the electric chair but, with spectacles like Leanderess Riley in California, Jimmy Lee Gray in Mississippi and Donald Harding in Arizona, perhaps that’s probably just as well.

It was a little over a year and a half ago when two young Waukesha, Wisconsin girls attempted to stab their friend to death in order to appease the fictional creepypasta.com character Slender Man. Now a 12-year-old Elkhart, Indiana girl is facing charges after she allegedly stabbed her step-mother to death and set fire to her family’s apartment.

The Elkhart girl claims that months prior to the incident she had been haunted by voices inside of her head, including that of the Creepypasta character Laughing Jack – an imaginary clown who befriends young children and then kills them. She told investigators that she had gone to her father and attempted to discuss her psychological disturbances, but whether or not the father attempted to seek treatment for the girl is unclear.

On the night of July 23, 2015, the girl alleges that, under the direction of Laughing Jack, she set her family’s apartment on fire before fatally stabbed her step-mother – 50-year-old Maria Torres – to death. While the girl stabbed her step-mother, her father attempted intervene, but she in turn stabbed her father in the arm before being taken into custody.

Unlike the Wisconsin girls, the Elkhart girl’s identity is being withheld because of her age. She has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Because of her latent psychological issues, the girl has been deemed unfit to stand trial. She is undergoing some treatment within a local juvenile detention facility, but staff has been forced to amp up security and additional staff had to be added in order to tend to the girl’s needs and because of the security risk she poses to herself and other inmates.

Her family, along with her public defender, are working to get the girl placed into a proper treatment facility, but she is facing the same problem that many mentally ill inmates face around the country. In spite of a court order, 16 facilities have denied the girl treatment on the grounds that they are not equipped to give the girl the psychological care she so desperately needs. The girl’s lawyer tells a CBS affiliate:

“The risk level for her is beyond anything I think anybody can imagine. For her not to be able to get the help she’s crying out for is probably one of the biggest travesties I’ve seen so far with the system and with a state agency not willing to step up and do their job.”

Until a proper facility is willing to take in the girl, she will remain in the juvenile facility where – though she is meeting with a counselor regularly – she is not receiving the proper treatment program. The girls in Wisconsin are facing a similar fate.

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier are facing adult prison if found guilty of attempted homicide after stabbing a classmate and leaving her for dead. The girl survived the attack and was able to identify her attackers. Under Wisconsin law, the girls are being tried as adults, in spite of only being 12-years-old at the time of the attack. It’s been found that both girls had been suffering from serious psychological problems and if sent to an adult correctional facility, like the girl in Indiana, they will never receive the proper treatment program.

Though part of what’s intriguing about these cases is the young age of the perpetrators, their stories are not unique. According to The Treatment Advocacy Center, at least 20 percent of inmates within correctional facilities in the United States are diagnosed with some form of serious mental illness. Though these facilities do what they can to help these inmates and assure they are receiving proper medications, living in the confines of a correctional facility – rather than a hospital equipped to provide proper treatment for these individuals – often endangers both the inmate, themselves, and others working and living within the facility.

It would seem that a major overhaul in how the system deals with offenders suffering from debilitating mental illnesses is necessary. Not only do these inmates often have to serve longer sentences, but they are taxing to the prison staff who are, more often than not, under qualified to provide the care these inmates need. This leaves the inmate at risk of re-offending, as well as a failure to receive proper follow-up care after their release.

Readers weigh in:

Should mentally ill inmates be ordered to serve out their sentence in state-run mental health facilities, regardless of their crimes?

“Okay listen up. This story long. So I met this white bitch at hooters …”, were the words that kicked off a 148-tweet story authored by Aziah “Zola” Wells on October 27, 2015. Two girls, a pimp and a disenchanted boyfriend all piled into a car en route to sunny Florida, and a trip for two strippers to make money quickly escalated into prostitution, a suicide attempt and murder.

Hashtagged as #THEStory, Aziah’s posts instantly went viral and celebrity tweeters like Missy Eliot couldn’t get enough of her tale. Fans dressed as Zola for Halloween and parody movie posters were photoshopped based on the story. Aziah claimed that the tweets were slightly embellished, but stands by the fact that the story was based on real events.

THE Story

Zola was working as a waitress at a Detroit-area Hooters restaurant. As a waitress, she often engages in conversations with customers. This is how she met “the white bitch” Jessica. Through their conversation she learns that Jessica was a exotic dancer, a profession Zola, herself, was involved in off and on. Jessica suggests that the girls should dance together sometime and they both exchange numbers. The following day Zola receives a text message from Jessica, “BITCH LETS GO TO FLORIDA!”

Zola was reluctant to accompany Jessica on her trip since the pair had just met, but remembered a trip she had made to Florida a few months prior and came back with $15,000 she had made dancing there. Jessica told her that her boyfriend, Jarrett, and her roommate, “Z”, would be coming along with them. In spite of her apprehensions, Zola agreed to accompany them in order to make some quick cash.

Zola had just discovered that she was expecting a child and with a new baby on the way she could use the money she made dancing. Zola’s boyfriend was less than thrilled about her making the trip, for obvious reasons. In Aziah’s own words, she had to “fuck him calm” before grabbing her bags and climbing into the car with Jessica, Jarrett, and a hulking black man, who introduced himself as Jessica’s roommate.

The gang arrives in Florida and the girls leave Jarrett in some rathole motel while they head off to the club. Zola’s disappointed with how they make out that night, but she still manages to pull in $800 before prompting Jessica to call Jarrett to pick them up. Instead she calls up Z, her roommate. Zola asks Jessica what was going on between the two of them and Jessica confides in her that Z used to “take care of her”, code for Z used to be her pimp. Zola wants nothing to do with all that, but doesn’t judge Jessica for her past decisions.

Z pulls up to the club and Jessica tells Zola to hide her money in her bra because Z was going to ask how much they made that night. When he asks, both girls lie and say that made nothing. Z says his fiancée who lived down in Florida, didn’t make anything either and the trio drive to pick her up from another club. Once she enters the car Z turns and says, “nobody made shit. Y’all wanna trap?”, which Zola explains is another way of asking them if they wanted to turn tricks.

Jessica is immediately on board with the idea and asks Z if he has any clients. Z takes the girls to a much nicer hotel than the one they left Jarrett at and hands Jessica a pre-paid phone, which Zola calls a “trap phone.” Once the girls are in the room, Zola confronts Jessica, outraged that she would want her to engage in prostitution with her. Jessica cries and begs Zola to stay.

Then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Jessica’s first client. The man tells Zola that he was there for the white girl and proceeds to have sex with Jessica right there in front of Zola, then hands her $100 and leaves. Zola is disgusted that Jessica is selling herself for so low. Jessica says that she doesn’t make the prices, but Zola convinces her that she should be charging a $500 minimum. She could pocket the extra money without Z being the wiser.

Jessica meets with close to 20 clients according to Zola, when suddenly he boyfriend calls. Jarrett is in a rage and demands to know where the girls are. She says that they’re staying at a hotel by the club and they’ll be home in the morning, but Jarrett knows what’s going on and starts cursing out both Jessica and Zola.

Jessica’s pimp returns and asks Jessica how much she made. She gives Zola $500 for helping her secure some clients through backpage and Jessica’s pimp keeps the rest of the $5,500 she made that night. The girls are then dropped back off at the hotel Jarrett had been staying. They find him outside smoking pot, accompanied by a black man with dreadlocks. Jarrett tells the guy all about what Jessica was out doing the night prior. Jessica and Jarrett start fighting and Zola makes her way to the pool.

Aziah (Zola) posing with her fiancée Sean King.

Zola returns and the couple are still fighting. Jessica’s pimp calls the trap phone and tells Zola to set up some more clients for Jessica that night. Zola helps Jessica with her makeup and places up the new ad. Jarrett is livid and takes a screen shot of the Backpage ad and uses Jessica’s phone to post it to her Facebook. Jessica is mortified because all of her friends and family are on there and may have seen the post.

Jessica’s pimp arrives and grabs Jarrett by the neck. Jarrett is crying and pulls out a gun, but Jessica asks him to just beat him up. Z then proceeds to have sex with Jessica in front of Jarrett and demands that he takes her to all her outcalls. Jarrett is crying, but agrees to go along with the plan because he is fearful of what Z may do to him.

Jarrett and Zola wait in the car as they drive Jessica to meet with a number of different clients. As Jessica is meeting with her last client, the phone rings. It’s a man asking for two girls, but Zola explains that she only has one available. He offers $2000 for Jessica to meet him in a room with four men. Jessica’s nervous about the job and asks Zola to wait in the hallway in case something happens.

Jessica knocks on the door and a man asks who’s there. Jessica sweetly says “incall” and the door flings open. Two men snatch her up and drag her into the room. Zola saw what happened and runs to the car to tell Jarrett. When she gets to the parking lot, Jarrett was gone. He pulls up several minutes later and she wants to know where he went, as he was specifically instructed not to leave. He says he just got thirsty and stopped at a nearby gas station for a drink. Zola tells him what happened with Jessica and they discuss calling the police.

Zola, having a gun in her pocket, realized that calling the police wasn’t a possibility. They would have to call Z.

Z pulls up and is livid. He storms up to the room and pounds on the door. A voice inside calls “who is it?”, Z yells into the door, “where my bitch man?” The other man says that she isn’t in there, but as he’s answering they hear Jessica scream. A man opens the door and it happens to be the same black guy with dreadlocks the girls had seen smoking marijuana with Jarrett earlier back at the hotel.

The dreadlock guy is a rival pimp and offers Z $20,000 to buy Jessica out. He was angry that she had been stealing work from his girls. Neither Zola or Jarrett can see what’s going on in the room, but she says she heard some shuffling and then a gunshot. Z emerges from the room, running with Jessica slung on his shoulder.

They jump into the car and make their way to the hotel. Jessica is badly beaten, but she’s alright. Z tells the group that one of the guys in the room reached for a gun and he had no choice but to shoot him in the face.

The next morning, Z  is counting up the money Jessica brought in and tells Zola and Jarrett that he has two tickets for them to fly home. Jarrett refuses to go home without Jessica, but Jessica insists that he go back home and that she’ll meet him there in a few days. Jarrett is upset and crying and Jessica attempts to console him. Suddenly he stands up and starts running as fast as he could towards the balcony and jumps. Luckily he is caught by his pants and Z is forced to come help him. He slaps Jarrett in the face and walks him and Zola to the car waiting to take them to the airport.

Four days after her and Jarrett get home to Detroit, Zola gets a call. It’s Jessica calling from Vegas. Her and Z were picked up. Jessica was charged for prostitution and Z was wanted for six counts of murder, including in Florida, and the kidnap of 15 underage girls. She hung up the phone. Since then Z has been sentenced to life in prison, while Jessica has made a fresh start for herself back in Detroit.

Fact or Fiction?

The Washington Post writer Caitlin Dewey set out to investigate the story and distinguish which parts were true and which parts had been slightly embellished. Most of Aziah’s story was confirmed as true. As for Z, he has been identified as Akporode Uwedjojevwe A/K/A Rudy. Currently he is being held on a number of charges ranging from trafficking to sexual assault. He is due for court in January.

A redacted Facebook status obtained by The Washington Post regarding Aziah’s story.

Jessica has denied the story, saying that the Zola story is mostly a work of fiction. Jessica claims that it was Aziah who had been prostituting herself in Florida and Jessica agreed to stay because she was scared. Others have backedup up Aziah’s claims, reporting that similar situations had occurred between themselves and Jessica.

While the story is primarily boiling down to he said/she said drama, both Aziah and Jessica hope that the story can help girls out there who think that forced or coerced prostitution could never happen to them. Though not all prostitutes have been forced into the profession, according to statistics published on the website Equality Now, nearly 20.9 million adults and children are sold into sex slavery worldwide.

Aziah claims that since the story went viral she has received a number of offers by publishers looking to give her a book deal and talks of a full-length feature film may be in the works.

George Henry Lamson, a deadly doctor.

“The easiest murder case to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with.” – Raymond Chandler.

Such was the story (and the downfall) of Doctor George Henry Lamson. Born in the United States on September 8, 1852, Lamson’s tale is a tragic one. Having moved to Europe, he served as a medical officer in the European wars of the 1870’s and come to England with a fistful of medals and citations. France awarded him the Legion of Honor for his work during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He was also credited with greatly reducing deaths aboard ambulances, carrying wounded soldiers to hospitals during the Romanian war of independence. Arriving in the English seaside town of Bournemouth in 1878, then a town becoming increasingly popular with the well-to-do, Lamson’s story should have been one of success breeding success. Instead it became one of drug addiction, fraud, murder and disgrace, followed by an ignominious end at the hands of the public executioner.

Initially things went well. Lamson was commissioned into a local unit as medical officer of the 1^st Bournemouth Hampshire Artillery Volunteers but, for him, the rot had already started to set in. He might have arrived in England with a fistful of medals and citations, but he’d also brought the seed of his own destruction. He was a morphia addict before he even set foot in Bournemouth.

His situation wasn’t helped by his tendency to enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle, one that cost far more money than Lamson actually had. He was keeping up the appearance of being the affable, comfortable man-about-town while starting to rack up an ever-increasing list of angry creditors and bad debts. By 1881 the only things flourishing in Lamson’s life were his debts and his drug problem.

When not pretending to be wealthy or too stoned to function, Lamson spent his time fending off a long line of creditors by sending them letters pleading illness (which wasn’t entirely a lie). These letters also contained checks for the full amount of whatever he owed. Checks that bounced so regularly that his bank eventually refused to honor any more of them. Lamson needed big money to bail him out and preserve what remained of his good name that morphia and lavish living hadn’t already destroyed. It was in 1881 that his eye settled on his wife’s brother.

Percy Malcolm John was 19 years old and suffered from a spinal curvature that would ensure his early death. He was also in possession of £3,000, an enormous sum at that time, set aside by his family for his lifetime’s upkeep. When Malcolm died the money would be split between his two sisters, one of whom happened to be Mrs Lamson. With that in mind, Lamson decided to use his professional knowledge and some sleight-of-hand to ensure that Percy died conveniently quickly and that he would avoid being exposed as the one responsible. Or so he thought. Lamson’s desperation and ruthlessness were in no doubt. His cleverness, however, was highly questionable. It would also prove his undoing.

On December 3, 1881, Lamson went to visit young Percy at his private school, Bleheim House. Run by headmaster Mr. Bedbrook, Blenheim House was an expensive school with a solid reputation. Mr. Bedbrook, aside from being an educated man, was also a highly-observant one. One of the first things he noticed was Lamson’s physical deterioration since their last meeting. The rest of the evening’s events were to harden his suspicions and put the hangman’s noose firmly around Lamson’s neck.

Aconitine, Lamson’s weapon of choice.

Bedbrook, Lamson and John sat together chatting over tea and sherry provided by Bedbrook. Lamson, unusually, insisted on putting sugar in his sherry. An odd thing to do when you consider that sherry is usually quite a sweet drink anyway. Lamson’s contribution was a pre-sliced Dundee cake and a packet of capsules, capsules being a new way to take medicines at that time. Lamson extolled the virtues of the new fad, took a capsule himself, offered one to Bedbrook and also to his brother-in-law.

“Here, Percy, you are a swell pill-taker, take this and show Mr. Bedbrook how easily it may be swallowed.”

Percy did so and then Lamson, suddenly realising he needed to rush for the evening train back to Bournemouth, made his excuses and left. Before he left he made a rather ominous prediction to Bedbrook about Percy’s ailment. Bedbrook, already rattled by Lamson’s appearance, was further rattled by Lamson’s diagnosis that Percy’s spinal condition seemed to worsening and that he looked as though he wouldn’t live very much longer. Bedbrook disagreed but, as it turned out, Lamson was right. And right far sooner than anybody except Lamson himself had anticipated. That would prove one of several very damaging pieces of evidence at Lamson’s trial.

Shortly after Lamson’s departure, Percy was taken suddenly and violently ill. He endured agonizing pain, produced huge amounts of black vomit, convulsed constantly, and finally died at around 11:30pm. Lamson, having told Bedbrook he was taking the evening train to Bournemouth before visiting his father in Paris, turned up in Paris, conveniently beyond the reach of the British police.

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before he’d have to grasp the nettle and try to brazen out the problem, Lamson returned to London. He was walking not only into the lion’s den, but also the hangman’s noose. When he presented himself to police in London he was promptly questioned and then arrested. The charge was murder.

Lamson had made one great mistake. He believed that aconitine couldn’t be detected by forensic or medical tests, toxicology still being a relatively new science. He was right when he went to medical school, but wrong when he poisoned Percy. Forensics had advanced considerably and Lamson hadn’t kept up with scientific progress.

Lamson also had something else up his sleeve. The obvious suspicion was that the aconitine had been in a capsule but, as Bedbrook and Lamson had also taken one, the capsules provided Lamson with a ready-made defense if the prosecution should try that angle. If they did suggest the poison had been in a capsule then Lamson could cripple their case by pointing out that all three men had taken one. Lamson could also point out that there couldn’t have been any poison in the sugar, having bizarrely put some in his own glass of sherry.

Unfortunately for Lamson, Bedbrook could also point out that it was Lamson who provided the Dundee cake which they’d all eaten. It was also Lamson who handed out the cake, a cake which had already been cut into slices. Lamson’s acquittal and his life were pinned on outdated forensic knowledge, hoping that Bedbrook wouldn’t remember who handed out the cake and that detectives wouldn’t find any other incriminating evidence. As it turned out, Lamson was wrong on all counts. The hangman only needed him to be convicted on one count.

Lamson’s trial began early-1882. His cleverly-contrived defense failed miserably. The first hammer blow came when he finally realized that aconitine could be detected in a human body after death. The prosecution proved it when distinguished forensic expert Sir Henry Christison performed tests in court to identify the poison. It further weakened Lamson’s defense when detectives proved that a London chemist had sold some aconitine only days before Percy died. That chemist also identified the buyer as none other than George Henry Lamson.

Lamon had now been shown to have the means, the motive and the opportunity. His one hope of survival rested on the prosecution trying to prove that he delivered the poison in the capsules. He was shocked when the prosecution did nothing of the kind, opting not to try and prove a specific means of delivery. His capsule switcheroo, carefully contrived to blow the prosecution case out of the water, never saw the light of day. His fate was sealed.

With the trial over, prosecution and defense rested and Mr. Justice Hawkins having summed up the case (not in Lamson’s favour), it was time for the jury to begin their deliberations. They didn’t deliberate for very long. After only twenty-five minutes, they informed the judge that they had reached a verdict. The court was assembled, the judge took his seat and everybody nervously awaited the outcome:

“Guilty.”

Now Justice Hawkins had only one more duty to perform:

“George Henry Lamson, you stand convicted of wilful murder. Have you anything to say as to why sentence of death should not be passed upon you according to law?”

Silence.

The Clerk of the Court stood behind Justice Hawkins and placed a square of black silk upon his wig. It was the dreaded ‘Black Cap.’

“George Henry Lamson, the sentence of this Court is that you shall be taken from this place to a lawful prison and then to a place of execution, that you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead and that afterwards your body shall be cut down and buried within the precincts of the prison in which you were last confined before execution. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul. Amen.”

Lamson was immediately taken to Wandsworth Prison. There he would be held in the Condemned Cell reserved for inmates under a death sentence. There he would await the outcome of his appeal. If it failed, there he would die. His execution was set for 9am on April 4, 1882.

William Marwood, pioneer of ‘long drop’ hanging.

His appeal did fail. The three-judge panel didn’t believe a word and the Home Secretary (nowadays the Minister of Justice) refused to intervene. His execution was delayed temporarily by a request from US President Chester Arthur for extra time. Lamson’s relatives and friends in the USA sent affidavits claiming that his family had a long history of mental illness and former military colleagues attested to his morphia addiction and also to his having been sent away from one army during his military service for regularly administering aconitine to patients, even when it wasn’t necessary. As no insanity plea had been entered during his original trial, this new evidence was disregarded. Lamson didn’t hang on April 4, but chief public executioner William Marwood did have April 28 at 9am noted in his diary.

Lamson kept his date with the hangman. As it turned out, Lamson was far better off with Marwood than Marwood’s predecessor William Calcraft. Calraft slowly strangled many condemned prisoners by using the same length of drop regardless of the prisoner’s height, weight and build. By contrast, Marwood pioneered the ‘long drop’ basing the length on a prisoner’s height, weight and build in an effort to instantly break their neck. Marwood proved very talented at doing exactly that.

At 9am the prison bell began to toll. Lamson’s arms were restrained in his cell using a bodybelt. He was walked out into the prison yard and placed on the scaffold as Marwood strapped his feet together and carefully placed the hood and the noose. As a notation in the ‘Bournemouth Visitor’s Register’ states:

‘In a moment the fatal bolt was pulled and the convict shot into Eternity. He died without struggle, hardly the movement of a muscle taking place, the neck apparently being broken.’

A sad end to what should have been a much happier story.

I seldom cover Australian cases, but the case of Jean Lee (or Margaret Jean Maude Wright to give her her actual name) is a notable one. Jean Lee was the last woman in Australia to take her final walk, only a few brief steps from the condemned cell to the gallows at Pentridge Prison, Melbourne.

Unlike so many of her predecessors, Lee wasn’t seen as somebody always destined for either a life in prison or a date with the hangman. Born in Dobbo, New South Wales on December 12, 1919, she grew up with an average Australian background. As a child she was a good student and a warm, friendly child, if inclined towards occasional rebellion. It wasn’t until early adulthood that she drifted away from her respectable background into bad company and a life of petty crime. Petty, at least, until she turned to murder.

Jean Lee, Robert Clayton and Norman Andrews.

She married in 1938 and not to the best of men. He abandoned her and their only child after nine years of marriage and Lee began her march to the gallows thereafter. She gave her daughter to her mother to look after and, without any other encumbrances, started keeping some bad company. Her last in a string of lovers was one Robert Clayton, a petty criminal himself. Clayton allegedly mistreated her and put her to work as a prostitute with him as her pimp. He also used her as bait when they decided to embark upon an age-old criminal enterprise known in the trade as the ‘Badger game.’

It was simple. Lee would trawl Melbourne’s bars and hotels picking up men and inviting them back to her flat for an evening’s intimate entertainment. While Lee and the mark were suitably distracted, Clayton would burst in posing as Lee’s husband and demand the mark buy their silence. Seeing as many of their victims were ‘respectable’ men who presumably wanted to avoid embarrassing conversations with their wives on the subject, they usually paid. For those who refused Clayton and his prison buddy Norman Andrews, the mark would simply be beaten senseless, robbed and left where they lay. Clayton had met Andrews while they were serving time at Pentridge and decided that a little extra muscle might come in handy. Andrews, one of life’s no-hopers and on the look-out for whatever employment he could get, was happy enough to join the trio.

Pentridge Prison. Andrews and Clayton met here. They also hanged here.

They continued the racket for a few years, doing reasonably well until one of them heard about a wealthy recluse who might make an easy and lucrative mark. William ‘Pop’ Kent was 73 years old and owned a few rental properties. He was also an off-track bookmaker and, seeing as off-track betting was illegal at the time, was rumoured to keep the bulk of his money at his home far away from the prying eyes of the police and the Australian taxman. He was old, wealthy, unlikely to go to the police and, therefore, vulnerable. Also, being 73 years old, he wasn’t somebody that pretty young women often took much of an interest in. In theory, ‘Pop’ was the perfect target.

Lee picked him up in a hotel bar on November 11, 1949 and agree to accompany him to his home. He didn’t realise that he was also inviting Andrews and Clayton, who were following at a discrete distance. Lee and Kent arrived at his home, once Lee had him distracted and at his most vulnerable, in burst her pet thugs. This time they were after far more than a few dollars of hush money. They wanted Kent’s cash stash and they weren’t fussy about how they obtained it.

Kent was manhandled, tied to a chair, and the trio spent some time working him over. He was punched, kicked, cut with a small knife, and repeatedly stabbed to make him hand over his profits. Initially, Kent was defiant, trying to withstand the torture and refusing to tell them anything. Eventually, however, he broke and admitted that apart from the money belt he was wearing there simply wasn’t any extra money hidden away. The trio took the money belt before one of them then silenced their victim permanently, strangling him while he was still tied to the chair. Police had been alerted by suspicious neighbours but, before they arrived, the trio fled taking Kent’s money belt and leaving behind them a wrecked room and Kent’s dead body. Now they’d all stopped being petty crooks. Now they were wanted for murder in a country which (at that time) still had the death penalty, albeit used quite sparingly.

It didn’t take long for the police to identify the victim and his killers. Kent was known to them as an off-track bookie, Lee as a prostitute and Andrews and Clayton were both ex-cons well-known to the Melbourne police. It wasn’t long before the trio were tracked to their hotel and, in the rooms of Lee and Andrews, bloodstained clothing was discovered. All three were immediately arrested and charged with murder, the distinct possibility of a date with the hangman started to occupy their minds.

It certainly occupied one of their minds enough to make them confess and blame the other two despite all three initially denying any involvement in the murder. Once investigators confronted the other two with a statement that unlocked the door to Pentridge’s gallows room. they did what most criminals do when they feel they’ve been betrayed, which is to save their own neck by putting a hangman’s noose round everybody else’s.

Their trial began at Melbourne Criminal Court on July 20, 1950 with Justice Gavan Duffy presiding. As all three defendants were blaming each other for the murder Justice Duffy clearly defined ‘common purpose’ to the jury. Boiled down, said Duffy, it didn’t matter which defendant had actually killed Kent, only that all three were at the scene to commit a robbery. If the murder resulted from the robbery and all of them were present, then all were equally guilty of murder, in the learned judge’s opinion.

It was also the opinion of the jury who deliberated for less than three hours before rendering their verdicts. Lee, Clayton and Andrews were all guilty of murder. Now it only remained for Justice Duffy to don the traditional ‘Black Cap’ to pass sentence.

The ‘Black Cap’ was a curious tradition. It started with British judges and extended through many parts of what was once the British Empire, Australia being one of them. It’s simply a square of black felt or silk and was placed on a judge’s wig whenever they pronounced sentence of death as a gesture of mourning for the soon-to-be-dead. Justice Duffy lost no time in sentencing all three to die on the gallows. Lee immediately collapsed in hysterics while Clayton bellowed abuse at the jury.

The condemned cell at Pentridge.

Judge and jury might have been prepared to send them to the gallows, but their lawyers were not. They promptly appealed against the ruling in a case heard on June 23, 1950, claiming that the first statement, leading to the trio all turning on each other, had been improperly obtained by the police. Thus, as the prosecution case rested largely on the three defendants blaming each other, the evidence was inadmissible and the convictions thrown out. Lee, Clayton and Andrews were now free of the gallows, but could be re-tried if the prosecution wished. The prosecution could also go over the heads of the Court of Criminal Appeal where the three-judge panel had ruled with 2-1 majority. That was exactly what they did.

The prosecution demanded the appeal be overruled and the convictions and sentences be confirmed. What the prosecutors wanted the High Court duly provided. The Court of Criminal Appeal found their own ruling revoked and the sentences of all three defendants were confirmed. It was a shattering blow for all of them. Now their dates with the hangman were firmly back in their prison diaries.

Considerable protests met both the original sentences and their subsequent reinstatement. They came from several different angles. Some felt that the death penalty was wrong and full abolition was called for. Others felt that women shouldn’t face execution. Still more protested against the method, arguing that hanging was an archaic means and should be replaced, although with what method proved a trickier question for them to answer. Whatever their angle, the protests made no difference either to authorities or to the nature of the crime. William Kent had been duped, atrociously tortured and then brutally murdered, and all the protests in the world couldn’t change that fact or that the defendants were the ones responsible.

Lee would be Australia’s first female hanging since Martha Rendall in 1909 and the last woman to face an Australian hangman. As she waited in the condemned cell her behaviour became increasingly erratic under the mounting strain. She alternately fought with her guards and then begged them for small favours like alcoholic drinks (alcohol wasn’t forthcoming under prison rules). Clayton and Andrews, however, seemed more resigned to their fate.

Thus the triple execution, another rarity in Australian criminal history, was scheduled for February 19, 1951. To spare Jean Lee the agony of unnecessary waiting, prison authorities decided that she would die first at 8am. Clayton and Andrews would follow her at 10am, the Pentridge gallows being designed to drop two prisoners at the same time. At the appointed hour Jean Lee met her fate.

As the clock struck the hour Sheriff Daly entered her cell and started to rad the Warrant of Execution as required by Australian law. As he read, Lee saw two men walk into the cell, strangers wearing strange goggles and large hats. They were the hangman and his assistant, dressed like that because it was an obscure tradition. Lee promptly fainted, needing to be carried to the gallows and sat on a chair while the hangman positioned the hood and then the noose. At a signal, Jean Lee and the chair dropped eight feet. At 8:05am she was pronounced dead by the prison doctor.

Clayton and Andrews followed her at 10am. They were brought to the gallows with their arms strapped behind their backs and placed side-by-side beneath the huge beam with its two noose dangling in front of them. As they stood on the trap and their legs were strapped, they spoke their final words before the hoods and nooses were placed. Clayton said simply:

“Goodbye, Charlie.”

Andrews responded equally briefly with:

“Goodbye, Robert.”

Then, as the signal was given, the trapdoors dropped with a deafening crash clearly audible in much of Pentridge Prison. Both men were certified dead shortly afterward.

Never again would a woman walk Australia’s last mile. There were other executions in Australia, all of male offenders, and Jean Lee’s case did a lot to undermine support for the death penalty in Australia. In 1985, Australia finally abolished capital punishment having had no executions since the hanging of prison escapee and murderer Ronald Ryan.

Ryan was Australia’s last hanged man. He was also hanged at Pentridge.

New York’s waterfront has always been a tough place for tough people. Working the docks was never a sinecure, especially for the ordinary dockworker facing long hours, heavy labor and constant anger while doing so for low pay and poor working conditions. The waterfront has also long been associated with crime. Ever since the docks were founded, mobsters of one kind or another have sought to make them their personal playground. They’ve smuggled contraband in and fugitives out. They’ve brought in drugs, bootleg alcohol and cigarettes, guns and illegal immigrants, all for a price. Shipping lines and trucking firms have faced paying heavily just for the privilege of doing business at all. If a ship’s captain didn’t pay off, then dockworkers wouldn’t unload. If warehouse owners didn’t pay off, then their warehouses were robbed or burned and they could expect vicious beatings or worse. If trucking companies didn’t pay off, then their trucks were hijacked or sabotaged, their garages burned and their workers terrorized.

Even ordinary dockworkers, themselves already facing death, injury and lasting health problems through their work, found themselves paying kickbacks to gangsters simply for the right to work at all. The mobsters ran gambling and bootlegging among the dockworkers and, naturally, with gambling came loansharking and brutality routinely visited on dockworkers who couldn’t pay their debts. You might think that the dockers could go to their union and complain, try to force action about the conditions and the pay and the rampant gangsterism infesting their workplaces and daily lives. But they couldn’t because the dockworkers union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, was run by a corrupt leader, Joe Ryan. Ryan, known as ‘Nickel and Dime’ by ILA members because he took large bribes to get them the least possible concessions from their employers, ran New York’s waterfront with an iron fist on behalf of Mafiosi like Albert Anastasia. His second-in-command was Eddie McGuire, an equally iron-fisted man who was every bit as tough as his reputation suggested.

Joe ‘Nickel and Dime’ Ryan, boss of the ILA.

Anastasia, former head of Murder Inc. and known in the underworld as ‘The Lord High Executioner’ for his psychopathic attitude to murder, made huge fortunes from the waterfront rackets. If you worked for Joe Ryan then you were really working for Albert Anastasia. If you crossed Ryan then you also crossed Anastasia. Courtesy of Johnny ‘Cockye’ Dunn, one of Anastasia’s chief dockland enforcers, very few people crossed either Ryan or Anastasia and lived to tell the tale.

Dockworkers themselves were routinely extorted through a ritual called the ‘shape up.’ Dockers stood around the dock gates hoping to be picked for a day’s work by hiring bosses. Hiring bosses often demanded a kickback, usually around 5% of a docker’s weekly pay, simply to pick them. Those who paid wore an ace of spades in their hatband and were regularly chosen. The hiring bosses collected the week’s take, took their cut and gave the rest to racketeers. If you didn’t pay, you didn’t work. If you made a fuss then the least you could expect was a severe beating or a visit from the waterfront’s Grim Reaper, ‘Cockeye’ Dunn.

Dunn had a record as long as your arm and a violent streak to match. Murder was simply a standard business practise for him and his right-hand man Andrew ‘Squint’ Sheridan. Anybody speaking out against gangsters, union racketeering, extortion and so on could expect to have Joe Ryan or Albert Anastasia send Dun and Sheridan to shut them up permanently. But, overall, the waterfront rackets ran themselves relatively smoothly and everybody knew where they stood. All except hiring boss Andy Hintz and his comrades working on Pier 51.

Pier 51 was known as the ‘rebel pier.’ It was practically the only pier on the docks where a honest worker could put in honest work and not be extorted via the ‘shape up.’ Andy Hintz was also unafraid to speak his mind about the ILA, its corrupt leaders and their gangster cohorts. A docker wanting to earn an honest living didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

Albert Anastasia, the Mob’s ‘Lord High Executioner.’

Not surprisingly, the ILA leaders and the Mob viewed Pier 51 as a cancer spot in their otherwise total control over the waterfront. Bad enough that Pier 51 was openly honest, a drop of decency in a sea of corruption and violence. But for Andy Hintz to publicly defy the will of the ILA leaders and their gangster overlords was even worse. Pier 51 had to be rendered harmless and that meant only one thing. Andy Hintz, who had consistently refused to be bribed or bullied into line, had to go.

Enter ‘Cockeye’ Dunn, ‘Squint’ Sheridan and former boxer-turned-enforcer Danny Gentile. ‘Cockey was the brains of the trio. ‘Squint’ Sheridan was pure muscle, not the brightest of lightbulbs even when he had 2000 volts running through him. Gentile was simply another of the workaday, bottom-feeding thugs with which the waterfront was already teeming. They’d all tried to bully or bribe Andy Hintz and they’d all failed. Now Hintz was going to pay the price for his defiant decency. Only days earlier he’d responded to Dunn’s latest threat by telling him to go to Hell. Dunn, by now enraged at Hintz’s obstinacy, decided that Hintz would be going to Hell and Dunn himself was going to send him there.

On January 8, 1947, Hintz did exactly that. He was leaving for work at Pier 51 when he was confronted in the stairwell of his apartment block by Dunn, Sheridan and Gentile. No words were exchanged, but Hintz was shot six times and left for dead. Unfortunately for Dunn, Sheridan and Gentile, he wasn’t. At least not yet.

Hintz identified the trio to his wife when she came running out after hearing the shots. He named his murderers, not only to his wife but also to police as he lay slowly dying in hospital. Hintz, knowing he was mortally wounded, made what’s known as a ‘dying declaration.’ In New York at that time a dying declaration was considered as good an eyewitness account as any. Dunn was almost immediately arrested and brought under guard to Hintz’s bedside where Hintz positively identified him. Sheridan went on the lam to Florida where he was arrested  on January 24 by FBI agents. Danny Gentile turned himself in at the end of March.

Andy Hintz finally died on January 29, 1947. For Dunn, Sheridan and Gentile that meant two things, both of them very bad news. One was that the initial charge of attempted murder was replaced with first-degree murder. The other was that New York State at the time issued a mandatory death sentence for first-degree murder. As his Hintz passed through death’s door, the door to the Sing Sing Death House opened wide for Dunn, Sheridan and Gentile.

Their trial began on December 4, 1947 with Judge George Donnellan presiding. After jury selection and trial it was on New Year’s Eve that the jury rendered their verdict. The trio were about to start a very unhappy New Year and two of them wouldn’t live to finish it. All three were condemned to die in Sing Sing’s electric chair, nicknamed ‘Old Sparky’ by inmates, prison staff, the public and the world’s press. They were promptly shipped ‘up the river’ to await the outcome of appeals and execution.

Sing Sing’s custom-built ‘Death House.’

Sheridan, not the smartest of the trio by a long way, offered no reason for authorities to commute his sentence. Dunn and Gentlie were smarter. Gentile secured a commutation the day before they were due to die, a favourable letter from District Attorney Frank Hogan certifying that he’d given all the help he could have given to law enforcement. Dunn, however, didn’t get a deal. He offered information but, once checked out, it all incriminated people who were already dead or was proven to be a tissue of lies designed solely to keep him away from the ‘hot seat.’ While Gentile walked from the Death House into Sing Sing’s general population, ‘Cockeye’ and ‘Squint’ had nothing to do but endure the standard pre-execution routine.

Their final day was spent writing letters, ordering their last meals, being issued with the standard execution clothes (made without metal zips or wooden buttons to avoid the risk of setting them on fire), they spoke with their lawyers (who could offer nothing but sympathy), smoked cigarettes and watched the clock tick down. Finally, at 11pm on July 7 1947, they walked their ‘last mile’ only twenty-five steps from their pre-execution cells in the ‘Dancehall’ to ‘Old Sparky’ itself.

‘Old Sparky.’

Executioner Joseph Francel, an electrician from Cairo, New York was now an old hand. He’d taken over from his famous predecessor Robert Elliott on Elliott’s retirement in 1939 and would continue in the job until 1953 when he resigned after executing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. He would earn the standard amount for a double execution at Sing Sing, $150 for the first inmate and an extra $50 for each inmate extra. He stood to gain $200 plus gas money for doing his job that night. He did it perfectly as usual. Both men were marched into the death chamber, died and were wheeled into the adjoining autopsy room, New York State law mandated autopsy immediately after execution.

The waterfront rackets would long outlast them. Eddie McGuire was eventually forced into retirement in Florida. After leaving New York for his own safety he never again held so lucrative or prestigious a position in the underworld. Joe Ryan held on as leader of the ILA until the early 1950’s, being forced to resign when mounting political and public pressure forced even the ILA to try and clean up its act. Danny Gentile disappeared into obscurity after his prison time. During the existence of the Sing Sing Death House only one-third of condemned inmates who walked in left alive. Gentile was one of the lucky few to make the return trip. Albert Anastasia, already a homicidal maniac, became too ambitious, greedy, violent and untrustworthy even for other Mafiosi to tolerate any longer. On October 25, 1957 he journeyed from his palatial home in Fort Lee, New Jersey into New York City. One of his regular appointments was at the barber’s shop of the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Unfortunately for Anastasia he wasn’t the only mobster to drop by the barber shop. Several masked men walked up behind him as he relaxed in a chair with a hot towel obscuring his vision and unloaded a volley of bullets. The ‘Lord High Executioner’ ended his career with one more brutal death. His own.

In the Australian cult horror film The Loved Ones, a slighted school girl, with the help of her father, kidnaps her crush after he rejects her invite to a school dance. While being held captive, the boy is tortured and beaten repeatedly, including having a hole drilled into his head, knives stabbed into his feet, and symbols carved into his chest before he’s pelted with salt and nail polish remover.

Gary George allegedly mimicked a torture scene from the movie The Loved Ones when he murdered his best friend, Andrew Nall.

41-year-old Gary George was a homeless alcoholic, known as a huge horror movie buff and rumored to have an interest in witchcraft. The Loved Ones was among George’s favorite films and prosecutors have speculated that it may have been what inspired him to kill a man whom George has referred to as his best mate.

Like George, Andrew Nall was also known to be an alcoholic, but according to his family he was a kind and generous man, in spite of his shortcomings. Nall had been hitting the bottle again when his good friend Gary George decided to pay a visit to his flat. It was there that George took advantage of Nall’s drunken stupor and betrayed his friendship in the most sadistic way imaginable.

Both Nall and his girlfriend, Christine Holleran, were at the flat when the attack occurred. Mimicking scenes from The Loved Ones, George carved symbols into Nall’s chest and poured salt into the fresh wounds. A clear substance was found on Nall’s face, assumed to have been a cleaning product poured directly into Nall’s eyes. Finally, George stabbed his best friend a total of 49 times until he expired and left him in a pool of blood in his bedroom. Nall had still been alive as George performed many of these horrific acts on him.

After the attack, Nall walked to a nearby convenient store and told the shop clerk, “I’ve just killed my best mate.” George was picked up the following day after attacking another man with a broken bottle. He asked the arresting officers if they had ever seen the film Fright Fest. He allegedly told the officers that “It was like Fright Fest last night.” While in police custody he admitted to murdering Nall, calling him a “… pedophile, guff.”

Andrew Nall had been alive throughout the torture inflicted by a man he considered his best friend before he was stabbed in the chest multiple times.

George had believed that Nall had been not only a pedophile, but that had raped his girlfriend Christine Holleran. In his mind, George believed that he was justified in the brutal torture and murder of his friend. Police arrived at Nall’s flat to find Nall’s body, along with strange symbols all over the walls of his bedroom, which may have been related to George’s interest in witchcraft.

George, along with Christine Holleran, were tried for Nall’s murder. Holleran was able to have the case dropped, claiming that she was scared for her life the night Gary George had come to the flat and brutally tortured her boyfriend. She claimed that George had been snarling as he stabbed Nall repeatedly and that he sounded like the devil.

George initially plead not guilty to the charges, but with the overwhelming evidence against him, he later changed his plea to guilty. On behalf of the Nall family Cheshire Police released the following statement:

“Andrew was brutally murdered by a man whom he invited into his home. He would have had no idea that Gary George was a sadistic bully capable of the most extreme violence. The cruel and callous way in which Andrew died leaves us unable to feel anything other than utter contempt for his killer. He took the life of a kind and caring man attempting to justify his actions by making untrue and wicked allegations that cast aspersions on his victim’s character. The lengthy sentence imposed reflects the gravity of his crimes which gives us some consolation.Seven months on our collective grief is still immense. The trial has been a harrowing experience for everybody, especially those who loved Andrew – he has gone from our lives but lives on in our hearts.”

George is now serving 12 years, in addition to a life sentence for attacking the man with a bottle and the torture and murder of Nall, respectively.