The case of Lena Baker, the only woman to be electrocuted in Georgia and, until Kelly Renee Gissendaler in 2015, the only woman executed there at all, is a prime example of Jim Crow justice. Granted, Baker was later issued a full, unconditional pardon (albeit decades too late), but she clearly should never have been executed in the first place.

Lena Baker on her arrial at Reidsville State Prison.

Born in Cuthbert, Georgia on June 8, 1901, Baker came into the world with little chance of improving her lot. She was born into a hotbed of racial prejudice, Georgia being home to the town of Stonemountain where, allegedly, Confederate cavalry general Nathan Bedford Forrest played a decisive role in founding the Ku Klux Klan. ‘Kluckers’ loathed African-Americans in general and those who killed white people in particular. Lena Baker was black. Her alleged victim, her employer Ernest Knight, wasn’t.

Born into poverty, Baker did something to survive that inflamed local opinion even further. She took to ‘entertaining’ men for profit, including white ones. Again, Georgians of the time didn’t take kindly to prostitution. When that prostitution was performed by a black woman and she served white clients it made her even more unpopular. Not that Ernest Knight was well-liked in the community, either. He wasn’t, but he was white, Baker was black and when she undeniably killed him her fate was effectively sealed. It was as much Jim Crow’s hand on the switch as anybody else’s.

Knight had employed Baker as a maid (about as high a position as Baker was ever likely to achieve in life) and, according to Baker, kept her as a virtual prisoner and used her as a sex slave. Baker claimed her regularly threatened her life unless she gave in to his demands and especially if she ever tried to leave. After several altercations the situation finally became intolerable and both Knight and Baker would die as a result.

Their relationship had been troublesome from the start. Knight’s family abhorred his dalliance with a low-class black maid and sometime prostitute, which resulted in Baker receiving threats from his family and a vicious beating from his son. The fact that the son would openly admit severely beating her up, confident that the forces of law and order would be more interested in their coffee and donuts than dealing with his criminal act, says little for Georgia justice at that time. Baker’s family, in turn, were accused of threatening Knight. Hence, Knight took to carrying a pistol for his own protection that, ironically, sealed his fate.

On April 29, 1944 they had their final confrontation. According to Baker (who reported the killing to County Coroner J.A. Cox herself and surrendered without any trouble at all) Knight had yet again threatened her life, this time while waving a metal bar and threatening to use it. The pair struggled and, during the struggle, Baker relieved Knight of a pistol he usually carried and shot him in self-defence. She was arrested, charged with murder (which carried a mandatory death sentence in Georgia at the time) and held for trial.

Things were already very bad for her. They were about to get an awful lot worse. True to form for the time her jury was composed entirely of white men. Black people being unable to register to vote at that time (the unofficial consequences of trying to register often involved a beating, their homes being torched or worse) the jury was hardly composed of her peers. As unpopular as she already was among local whites, Georgia’s electric chair loomed large in her future. The trial judge was James ‘Two-Gun’ Worrill, so known because he always presided with two loaded pistols on the table in front of him. You’ve probably guessed by now that he was a business-like, stern, no-nonsense character whose word was literally law. He was also a typical Georgia judge of his time and so possessed all their typical prejudices. He didn’t like prostitutes or murderers, especially when they were black and their victims were white.

At her trial (such as it was) she repeated her case, alleging that Knight had enslaved her in all but name and had been, in effect, a serial rapist. But regardless of the facts of the case, Jim Crow justice moved fast. Her trial began on August 14, 1944. It also ended on August 14, 1944 having taken around two hours if you count the all-white, all-male jury taking only twenty minutes to render a verdict of guilty. The verdict of guilty meant a mandatory sentence of death, Worrill didn’t waste any time in passing one, either. Baker, now a condemned prisoner, languished awaiting the outcome of her appeal.

Which was where her situation, already almost hopeless, became even worse.

Her lawyer, W.L. Ferguson, hadn’t done much to defend her. He immediately did even less by filing the mandatory appeal and then dropping Baker as a client. She was now facing execution in a State legendary for its racial prejudice and without a lawyer to handle the appeal when it came to court. This sort of behaviour wasn’t unusual at that time. In North Carolina Goerge Stinney’s lawyer was barely noticeable at his trial and refused to file the single automatic appeal because, he said, Stinney’s family couldn’t afford this fee for fighting it. That lawyer was white and the voters he was hoping would put him into a high public office at the time of Stinney’s trial were, of course, white as well. Politics is a practical business and Stinney’s lawyer was certainly practically minded.

State Governor Ellis Arnall wasn’t much help, either. Declining to grant a pardon or to commute her sentence, all he did was grant a single 60-day reprieve so the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles could review her case. They wasted little time in reviewing it and deciding that all was perfectly well. Baker’s date was set for March 5, 1945 and she was shipped to Reidsville State Prison under heavy guard to await execution.

Georgia’s electric chair, nicknamed ‘Old Sparky.’

The fatal day dawned. Baker was taken from her cell, her head shaved to make a reliable contact with the electrode. Asked for her final statement she said this:

“What I done, I did in self-defense, or I would have been killed myself. Where I was I could not overcome it. God has forgiven me. I have nothing against anybody. I picked cotton for Mr. Pritchett and he has been good to me. I am ready to go. I am one in the number. I am ready to meet my God. I have a very strong conscience.”

The switch was thrown.

Lena Baker was interred in an unmarked grave behind Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Cuthbert where, in 1998, the congregation paid for a small headstone to mark her grave. But that’s not quite where her story ends. Her family persistently tried to clear her name, aided by the Prison and Jail Project among others. They finally found the vindication they sought in 2005 when Baker’s great-nephew Roosevelt Curry formally requested a full and unconditional pardon which the Board of Pardons and Paroles (reflecting decades of lobbying and changing public attitudes) finally granted.

Had the Board acted in 1944 by reducing the charge to voluntary manslaughter, Lena Baker would have served up to 15 years instead of walking her last mile. But, to be fair, Georgia now is not the Georgia of 1944 and it would be unfair to portray all Georgians as unrepentant racists.

Lena Baker finally gained the vindication she deserved but didn’t get at the time. Hopefully her family will now be able to find some small measure of peace.

When 20-year-old Nichole Alloway left her home in Spring Hope, North Carolina in May of 2009 for Portsmouth, Ohio she was bright-eyed and full of dreams. She kissed her two young children goodbye for the last time before setting off to meet Dylan Maring — a man she had spent months speaking with over the internet — in hopes of finding work, affordable living accommodations, and a father figure for her two toddlers. Instead she found herself in a body bag in the wake of a fledgling internet romance gone awry.

What happened in those weeks Nichole Alloway stayed in Portsmouth, Ohio? No one seems to know for sure, at least not anyone who’s talking.

Nichole stayed with Dylan Maring for approximately two weeks before the couple had a falling out. According to an interview with her family on CNN, Nichole said that Dylan was not the man she had expected and the two parted ways. She wanted to go back home, but needed her grandmother to wire her the money for a bus ticket.

After she left Dylan’s home it was reported that she had met up with another young man, who then took her to the home of a couple he was acquainted with in order to stay for a few days while she waited for her grandmother to send her the money she needed for her bus fare back to North Carolina. The last time Nichole was known to have been seen was on June 10, 2009, when surveillance footage at Portsmouth’s Kroger grocery store showed the woman picking up the money wire her grandmother had sent.

A man named Richard Howard agreed to take Nichole to the bus station, but they never arrived. Howard later claimed that he and Nichole had been using methamphetamine on their way. Nichole died of an overdose in his car. Not knowing how to handle the situation, Howard claims he panicked and dumped her body in a creek near the intersection of US Route 73 and Big-Spruce Little Bear Creek Rd. in McDermott, Ohio, approximately 20 miles outside of Portsmouth.

Nichole’s body was found two days later by a couple who happened to be near the creek. It would take a little over a week for dental records to determine that the body had belonged to Nichole Alloway. On July 27, 2009, police arrested Richard Howard in connection to Nichole’s death.

Howard was convicted of abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and drug trafficking. Nichole’s grandmother, Diane Dille, is not convinced that justice was served. Howard would be released from jail approximately two and a half years later, but Dille is still seeking answers.

Nichole’s family says that investigators lied about the drugs in Nichole’s system and insist that Nichole was not a drug user at all. Further muddying the details surrounding Nichole’s tragic death is an internet sleuth named Carrie Peterson.

It is unclear how Peterson became connected with this case, but she claims that she knows that Nichole had been murdered on the property of a friend of her’s. Aside from having a number of aliases to argue and agree with herself on various message boards, Peterson personally has a stronghold on any and all social media accounts related to Nichole Alloway’s case, which she uses to harass different people including the Scioto County Sheriffs Department, Portsmouth police and others she believes were directly or indirectly involved in Nichole’s death.

Peterson later claimed to have found bones while searching the area she believes that Nichole had been murdered and sent them to her grandmother. Dille forwarded the bones to the investigators on Nichole’s case, but they determined them to have been from an animal. This, of course, became more fuel in her personal mission to slander anyone Nichole encountered pre or postmortem during her trip to Ohio.

It’s been rumored that Nichole’s family has since distanced themselves from Peterson, but do not believe the narrative of Richard Howard. They believe that Howard was able to work out a plea deal with investigators and, rather than serving time for murder, he was able to be released from prison after having served less than three years as documented through the Portsmouth Municipal Court.

Dylan Maring, along with the other cast of characters Nichole was said to have been staying with during her time in Ohio, have all been arrested on methamphetamine-related charges between the time of her death and today. This raises the question if someone had killed Nichole for fear she would go to the police, but to date there is no evidence to say for certain whether or not her death was the result of a murder.

In fact, the only credible information publicly available in regards to this case is a supplemental death certificate and the reports of Richard Howard’s testimony. Even some of the most basic details of this case seem to conflict one another within reports from the media.

While researching the location Nichole’s body was found, I came across three different locations. WSAZ reported that “Howard disposed of Alloway’s body in a rock embedded area off of Route 73 in Otway.” while another report by WRAL claimed that Nichole’s body had been found in an abandoned house. This leaves us with only Nichole’s supplemental death certificate – provided online by internet sleuth Carrie Peterson – to determine the basic details surrounding her death.

According to her death certificate, Nichole’s body was found near the intersection of Route 73 and Big-Spruce Little Bear Rd., substantiating reports that claimed that her body had been found in the creek that runs parallel to Big-Spruce Little Bear Rd. This also substantiates Howard’s claim that he had placed Nichole in the creek after she died in his car from a drug overdose.

The second piece of information the supplemental death certificate is able to provide us is the ruling of Nichole’s death being the result of “Undetermined Homicidal Violence.” Peterson and Nichole’s family have since used this portion of the document as evidence to support their claim that Nichole had been murdered.

Unfortunately, the term homicide can be very confusing. The general public is accustom to the term being used as a synonym for murder, but homicide can also be used in any case where medical examiners believe someone other than the deceased caused the death to happen. This can include deaths later ruled to have been accidental or ruled to have been committed in self-defense.

This tells us that medical examiners observed the body of a woman in a creek who clearly did not put herself there and did not die of any sort of observable natural causes concluded upon their observation of the scene. Since this was a preliminary assessment, the toxicology tests and other reports necessary to fully conclude her exact cause of death had not been completed and are listed as such.

In the same way this information could help to support Nichole’s family’s claim that she was murdered, it could also support Howard’s claim that the pair had been using drugs when Nichole died and, in a panic, he decided to discard her body in a nearby creek, since there is no toxicology assessments listed on this report. In this instance, “homicidal violence” is the conclusion examiners would have to draw in order to describe the state of which her body was found in the creek since her death wasn’t believed to have been an act of suicide, she was not believed to have naturally died in the creek and the placement of her body in the creek was not believed to have been the result of an accident on her own part (such as a fall) based upon evidence medical examiners witnessed at the scene.

Though Nichole may not have been a drug user prior to her departure to Portsmouth, it would seem perfectly reasonable to suggest that she may have fallen in with a rough crowd while she was there and had begun to experiment with drugs, which unfortunately took her life.

On the other side of the coin, it seems as equally reasonable to suggest that Nichole had fallen prey to career criminals who killed her because they feared she would go to the police about their illegal activities, but due to a lack of evidence, investigators could only take Howard’s recollection of the events surrounding Nichole’s death at face value.

With the inconsistencies I’ve observed within the media coverage of this case on even the most basic of details surrounding this young mother’s death and the wild stories being spun by internet detective Carrie Peterson who claims that watching episodes of Law and Order and CSI allowed her to conduct a better criminal investigation than local investigative agencies dominating a bulk of the information available online, it’s difficult to be certain exactly what happened to Nichole Alloway.

Nichole’s family has been working with private investigators and it is hopeful that if this case had been mishandled in any way that they will get to the bottom of it. Until evidence suggests otherwise, we can only draw our own conclusions based on what little facts are known on how Nichole Alloway was met with her untimely death.

Outside the prison, a large crowd has gathered to await the execution by hanging of convicted murderer John Lee, condemned for the brutal murder of his employer, Miss Emma Keyes, the previous year. When the execution has been successfully completed a bell will toll for 15 minutes and the dreaded black flag will be hoisted over the prison.

It is February 23, 1885. The place is the coach house of Exeter Prison, Devon, England. The time is 8 a.m.

At 7:55 a.m. the execution party, consisting of the prison warden, the chief guard, the prison doctor, the prison chaplain, several guards, the executioner and representatives of the press, assembles outside the condemned man’s cell.

At precisely 8 a.m., Britain’s chief public executioner, James Berry, receives a signal from the prison governor and enters the condemned cell. He swiftly straps Lee’s arms by his sides and places a white hood over his head. Accompanied by the rest of the execution party, Berry swiftly leads the pinioned and hooded convict on to the gallows, straps his legs together and tightens the noose around his neck. Berry steps quickly off the trapdoors and approaches the lever. He swiftly pushes the lever over as he has done so many times before.

And nothing happens.
The doors drop approximately a quarter inch, jam solid and will drop no further. Berry is slightly flustered by this, but because it has been known to happen before, he continues with his grim duty. He unstraps Lee’s legs, removes the noose and takes off the hood. He leads Lee into an adjoining room and quickly returns to examine and test the trapdoors. They are reset and the lever is thrown.
They work perfectly.
Berry goes into the adjoining room and brings Lee back on to the gallows. Again the hood and noose are applied and Berry throws the lever a second time.
The doors jam solid again.
This time Berry has strained the lever by throwing it too hard. Lee is again unstrapped and the noose and hood removed. He is again taken back to the adjoining room. It is suggested by a member of the execution party that the doors fit together too tightly. Two guards are dispatched to fetch a plane and an axe to whittle the doors slightly. When this has been done, Berry throws the lever and the doors jam solid again. Now a part of one door is sawed off and the trapdoors still need to be struck hard before they fall.
Lee is then returned to his position atop the gallows. He is strapped, hooded and noosed for a third time. Berry moves swiftly, as if to bring this sorry spectacle to as quick an end as possible. He leaps for the lever and throws it as hard as he can.
And the doors jam solid again.
The prison chaplain has collapsed under the strain and lies prostrate on the scaffold, the grim spectacle having proved simply too much for him. The prison doctor immediately demands that the execution be halted on the spot and the Under-Sheriff of Devon agrees.
The prison warden, doctor and chaplain (by now partially recovered) go to the doctor’s room to compose and sign a statement bearing witness to the morning’s bizarre events. This statement is immediately taken to the Home Secretary in London for his consideration. The Home Secretary decides that Lee has suffered enough and proceeds to commute the death sentence, instead ordering that Lee serve life imprisonment. And so starts the legend of “The Man They Couldn’t Hang.”

John Lee’s Crime

The scene of the crime was a seaside house in the pleasant Devon town of Babbacombe, near Torquay. On the night of November 14, 1885, householder Emma Keyes confronted an intruder inside her home. It was to be the last mistake she ever made. She was beaten to the ground with a heavy instrument believed to be a hatchet and her throat was cut with such force that her vertebrae had notches carved in them by the knife. After the murder her killer soaked her body in a fluid, believed to be kerosene, sprinkled more kerosene around the house and torched her body and the crime scene. It was a particularly brutal and callous murder, especially as other servants were in the house at the time and could easily have been casualties as well. John Lee, an employee of Emma Keyes, was a prime suspect right from the start.
As a result of this, Lee was swiftly arrested, questioned, charged with murder and reckless arson and held to be tried at the next Assizes – the courts held every three months at which more serious cases were usually dealt with. This was significant for Lee as, under English law, only at an Assizes could a capital trial be held. And this would be a capital trial where few local people doubted his guilt, and even fewer when several people claimed to have heard Lee issuing death threats against the victim.
The inquest and trial were concluded quickly. The crime occurred in mid-November and Lee was found guilty of both charges during the first week of December. It only remained for the trial judge to don the traditional “Black Cap” and pass the following sentence:

John Henry George Lee, you have been found guilty of willful murder by a jury of your peers. The sentence of this Court is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison, and thence to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And that your body be afterwards 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. Remove the prisoner.

Lee was swiftly taken away to Exeter Prison, which was known as the “hanging prison” for the county of Devon, and lodged in the condemned cell to await his fate. He was expecting either a hanging or a reprieve. In the end, he got both.

John Lee’s Background 

So what kind of a man was John Lee? He was born on August 15, 1864, in the quiet little village of Abbotskerswell in Devon. The time and place of his eventual death is disputed. Some claim he died in a poorhouse in the town of Tavistock, about 12 miles from Plymouth. Others say he died in Australia, while still others claim he died in the United States, in Milwaukee, in 1945. (Personally, I think it’s unlikely that he stayed in Devon with Torquay and Exeter so nearby. I think the memories of the trial (and the ghastly failed execution especially) might well have been more than most people could bear so his heading for foreign soil is more than likely.)
He had a moderately comfortable childhood and became very close to his half-sister, a woman named Elizabeth Harris, a fellow-employee of Emma Keyes who would later give evidence against him. His elder sister, Amelia, was also employed by Emma Keyes and talked her into giving Lee a job in 1878. After briefly being in Emma Keyes’s employ, Lee left to join the Royal Navy, but was discharged in 1882 on medical grounds and, some say, because he had disciplinary problems during his service.
After his discharge from the navy, Lee held a series of low-paid, menial jobs at a number of hotels in Torquay until he was jailed for petty theft. When he came out of prison, Elizabeth Harris interceded to get Lee his old job back. Emma Keyes was persuaded to allow Lee back into her service as a groundsman and occasional butler in spite of his criminal past.

Lee returned to Emma Keyes’s employ in the summer of 1884, but it was only a few weeks later that he was caught attempting to sell a market trader a guitar stolen from the Keyes’s home. Mrs. Keyes, who seems to have tempered justice with no small amount of mercy, didn’t fire him. Instead, she docked his wages as a punishment, but kept him in work. The wage cut (and a desire for revenge) was later alleged to be his motive for murder.

Was Lee Guilty of Murder?

Lee’s guilt or innocence has been, unsurprisingly, somewhat overshadowed by the remarkable events that occurred at his failed execution. In favor of his innocence is the fact that the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial. Despite there being a great deal of such evidence, there was nothing that gave an iron-clad indication of his guilt.

Lee also had far more to lose than gain by murdering his employer. After all, he had previously described her as his best friend in the world and simply having his wages docked was hardly a pressing reason to commit capital murder. That would be the action of somebody who was reckless, impulsive, foolish and a brute. According to Lee’s letters while awaiting execution, and the testimony of some people who knew him, Lee simply wasn’t that way inclined. Finally, even after his nightmarish experience on the gallows and having served a 22 year sentence, Lee remained defiant to the end, always asserting his innocence.
There is, however, strong evidence, albeit circumstantial, to suggest that Lee was guilty. There was a hatchet with blood spots on it, a hatchet being the suspected murder weapon, which John Lee used regularly and was suspiciously quick to give to firemen when they were hacking burning timbers. The kerosene can was equally suspicious. Also, even when pressed heavily, Lee never offered any alternative versions of what happened that night. When pressed, he simply fell silent. He also fell silent regarding the inconsistencies in his story, such as his injured hand. And it wasn’t until long after the case had been closed (and his death sentence commuted) that he began to accuse others of being involved, and all of the people he accused had strong alibis.
Lee marked himself out as a prime suspect by being the first to raise the alarm. He was also accused by at least one witness of telling them that Emma Keyes was dead even before her body had been found, although he later denied having done this. He had injured his left hand, yet had left a series of right-handed blood prints on the stair wall and the nightgown of the servant he apparently saved from the burning building.
He also claimed that the cut on his left hand came from when he broke a window to help the servant escape the fire. The condition of the window indicates, however, that it was smashed from the outside in, while Lee was supposedly inside the house. The female servant Lee so generously saved also reported hearing the sound of the window breaking some time after she was rescued, not before. When Lee was finally persuaded to help move the victim’s body, and he only did so after much protest on his part, he claimed to be unaware of the extensive, and very obvious, injuries that she had suffered. If Lee was unaware of the injuries on the victim’s body, then how could he possibly know that she was dead?

Why Did the Gallows Fail?

James Berry, Chief Public Executioner

So, what happened on the gallows that fateful day? What went wrong and put a potentially innocent man through such agony? Lee himself always claimed it was God’s work and that it was a case of divine intervention. He also claimed to have had a dream while in the condemned cell, in which the gallows malfunctioned and failed to do its deadly work. The other versions are somewhat more scientific than that. James Berry, who was the chief British hangman assigned to execute Lee, admitted to having had a dream early in his career of the gallows failing to work. On why the gallows did not work properly for Lee’s execution, Berry attributed the failure to purely technical problems.

There had been heavy rain in the two days leading up to the execution and, a gallows being made of wood, he felt that the rain had caused the trapdoors to warp and then jam solid whenever weight was placed upon them. He also felt that the gallows were poorly constructed. He describes the trapdoors as being too thin and the ironwork as being too light for the job in hand, so that the iron catches on the trapdoors became locked. He also described the doors themselves as fitting together too tightly.

Mr. A.B. Hardy, a Home Office representative, mentions having ordered the Clerks of Works to thoroughly inspect the gallows. It was their opinion and his that a long hinge rested on the drawing bolt that held the doors closed and thus held them closed even after Berry had worked the lever to open them. Officer Edwards was the Artisan Warder at Exeter Prison at the time. He blamed the iron bearing bars of the gallows as being too light and thus tending to lengthen when significant weight was put upon them. This would explain why the doors jammed solid when weight was placed upon them, but worked perfectly when that weight was removed. Mr. Harris, the Chief Constable for the county of Devon and a witness to the failed execution, remembers the gallows as being cold, wet and damp. He advanced the idea that the gallows had simply become too wet for too long and that, while drying out, the wood had warped and consequently the trapdoors simply jammed under Lee’s weight.

Lee’s Sentence Commuted to Life Imprisonment

The aftermath of the hanging affected different people in different ways. Lee’s death sentence was immediately commuted to one of life imprisonment. He served 22 years, mainly at Portland Prison in the county of Dorset and was released in 1907. He’s said to have left for the United States, where he lived illegally, never becoming a U.S. citizen, until he is said to have died in Milwaukee in 1945, although the precise date and location of his death has never been fully confirmed.

The official reaction to the failed hanging, at least from those who were there, was to simultaneously deny their own responsibility while preferably passing the buck on to someone else. In the official correspondence between various officials and witnesses to the debacle, there is plenty of blame offered around, but very little accepted.

To be fair to the officials of the time, they did at least begin the long-overdue process of modernizing and standardizing the execution methods used in British prisons. A new standard type of gallows and execution suite was designed, meaning that future executions would never again end in such farcical circumstances. This new system was gradually introduced at “hanging prisons” all over the country.
It proved quicker and safe for all concerned (except the condemned, of course), especially when a new breed of executioners such as John Ellis and Albert Pierrepoint began working their own ideas into the execution procedure. The combination of decent, purpose-built equipment and professional and skilled executioners did much to make the British method of execution the fastest and cleanest method available, and it was exported to a large number of countries, some of which still use it today such as Singapore, Malaysia, India and, until abolition in those countries, South Africa, Australia, Austria and Canada.

A Postscript

There is one final, and equally grim, postscript to the case of “The Man They Couldn’t Hang,” that you couldn’t possibly make up, and it is this:
John Lee’s mother was desperate to secure her son’s release and, to do so, engaged the services of a lawyer from Plymouth who felt as strongly as she did and was prepared to try and force his case to be taken up in Parliament.
That lawyer was a certain Herbert Rowse Armstrong.
Armstrong left Devon in 1905 and moved to Hay-On-Wye in the county of Herefordshire, opening his own law practice as he did so. In 1921, he deliberately administered a fatal dose of arsenic to his wife Katherine, whose continued presence was clearly no longer welcome to him. Armstrong was convicted of murder and hanged at Gloucester Prison on May 31st, 1922 by John Ellis, the chief executioner from Rochdale. His final words as the doors fell are said to have been ‘I am coming, Kate!’
This time, the gallows worked perfectly.

His name isn’t going to ring any bells with many Sword and Scale readers, I know, but Horry (an otherwise unexceptional murderer) occupies a singular place in the annals of crime. Horry met, fell in love with and married his wife (and victim) Jane in 1866 and the couple went on to run a hotel together in Burslem, Staffordshire while also having three children. Unfortunately William was both increasingly paranoid about Jane’s alleged infidelity. As time went on he also became increasingly drunk and increasingly abusive. In 1871 the couple split, Jane taking the children to live with Horry’s father (whose backing her daughter-in-law over his increasingly drink-sodden son probably didn’t help the situation. Nor did William’s being banned from visiting his former wife and children due to his increasingly drunken and abusive behaviour when he did actually turn up.

William Horry died never knowing of his place in criminal history.

Having sold the hotel in September, 1871 (being unable to run it properly without remaining sober, a state which he found increasingly elusive), banned from visiting his ex-wife and their children and feeling thoroughly betrayed by his father’s support for Jane and the children, it made things even worse when he found himself serving a short sentence for not providing maintenance payments for his former family. Now living in Nottingham, in desperation Horry made one final, unauthorised and unwelcome visit, pleading with Jane for a reconciliation. Jane turned him down flat. The stage was set for their final encounter.

Horry returned to Nottingham and then came straight back to Burslem, only he’d done a little shopping during his trip away. When he returned to Burslem he was carrying a loaded revolver and was about to murder his wife and seal his own (strangely willing) place in criminal history. He managed both, shooting her in the back and simply waiting calmly for her relatives to detain him. Handed over to the police, Horry’s fate was effectively sealed.

His trial began at Lincoln Assizes in the courthouse within the walls of Lincoln Castle, then also Lincoln’s largest prison. On March 13, 1872 the Crown’s lawyers opened the case for the prosecution. On April 1 he was convicted and the judge lost no time in donning the dreaded Black Cap (a square of black cloth or silk traditionally worn by British judges while passing a death sentence) and reciting what reporters called ‘The dread sentence.’

“William Frederick Horry, 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 where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be afterward 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…”

“Remove the prisoner.”

With a conviction secured, a death sentence passed and Horry (now racked with guilt) refusing to lodge an appeal, all that was needed was for the County of Lincolshire to find a hangman. Lincoln’s last execution, that of Priscilla Biggadyke in 1868, had been a dreadful affair involving the use of the then-standard ‘short drop’ method as exemplified so crudely (and cruelly) by the likes of William Calcraft. With that in mind, Prison Governor Foster and the County Sheriff exercised their right to appoint their own choice of executioner. Until the Prison Commissioners in London formalised the selection, retention and training of hangmen and made it compulsory for officials to choose them only from the ‘Official List’ local officials could appoint pretty much whoever they felt was best for the job. Which, with the Biggadyke disaster in mind and a fast-looming date of 9am on April 1, left them with few options. After some persuasion by a local tradesman, a shoemaker from the nearby town of Horncastle, they agreed to let him officiate in the hope that his fresh approach might avoid yet another botched job.

Enter one William Marwood…

William Marwood, pioneer of the ‘long drop.’

Marwood was a risky choice for the job. Admittedly his sole knowledge of hanging was a lot of reading, he’d never actually performed or assisted at an execution in his life and his novel idea of using the ‘long drop’ method suggested by a group of Irish surgeons (a method never before used in judicial hanging) meant that Marwood’s first execution could easily be his disastrously-bungled last execution. But, pressed for time and with the memory of Priscilla Biggadyke’s botched hanging uncomfortably fresh in their minds, the local officials were hardly prepared to ignore even the possibility of something less gruesome than the ‘short drop’ method then in vogue.

The differences were immense, but so were the risks. If Marwood gave Horry too short a drop then the usual prolonged horror show would ensue, Horry taking up a half-hour to slowly strangle. If the drop were too long then the jolt when Horry reached the end of the rope would instantly decapitate him. The fact that Marwood was, practically speaking, a total novice made either option distinctly possible. But Marwood was engaged and, on that fatal day, was at Lincoln Castle to officiate as planned.

The ‘long drop’ is calculated precisely using a mathematical equation designed to apply just enough force to break a prisoner’s neck and also knock them unconscious. If done correctly death is as near instantaneous and painless as an execution can be. That does little (and often nothing) to ease a prisoner’s mental anguish but, all things considered, Horry didn’t have to descend into a pit of aclohol0fuelled paranoia and jealousy. If he hadn’t descended into that pit he wouldn’t have been about to descend through the trapdoors of a prison gallows and, thereafter, into the grave and possibly Hell itself. Wherever Marwood sent him, He intended that Horry should go there as quickly and with as little suffering as possible.

Having refused to appeal (and seemingly feeling he deserved his date with the hangman, albeit too late to prevent it) Horry spent his has last couple of hours writing a very penitent last letter and receiving the Sacrament from the prison Chaplain Reverend Richter who also accompanied him reciting the specially-bridged version of the burial service used for executions. Shortly before 9am Marwood entered the condemned cell and pinioned Horry’s arms. With two warders, Chaplain Richter, Prison Governor Foster and the prison surgeon in tow. Horry walked calmly and unaided to the foot of Lincoln Castle’s ‘New Drop,’ a purpose-built gallows similar to that at London’s notorious Newgate Prison.

As they reached the scaffold Horry turned to Governor Foster.

“Goodbye, Mr Foster. God bless you. God forgive my poor dear father. God bless my poor children.”

The execution party ascended the scaffold and, as Marwood strapped his ankles together, gently pulled the white hood over his head and carefully positioned the noose below his left ear Horry made one final statement, a brief prayer similar to that of the judge who sentenced him:

“Lord have mercy on my soul.”

At a silent nod from Governor Foster Marwood wasted no time in pulling the lever. Horry plunged vertically downward to the crash of the trapdoors and the sound of a dry branch breaking. It was his neck. Marwood had calculated the drop and positioned the noose perfectly and Horry would have been unconscious immediately and dead within minutes when he reached the end of the rope. The prison surgeon reported his death a virtually instant and without any sign of suffering on Horry’s part. Marwood had taken his entirely-theoretical knowledge and an untested method and proved both to be utterly effective.

The old Victorian prison within Lincoln Castle, now a tourist attraction.

It didn’t end there, either. Horry was the first of 176 prisoners to die at Marwood’s hands, almost all of whom died as quickly and cleanly as they could have done. Granted, the ‘long drop’ didn’t become the national standard until the mid-1870’s, but Marwood’s way was clearly the new and improved form of societal retribution. Always scathing of Calcraft’s crudities, when asked about his predecessor and whether Marwood was a hangman Marwood always said disparagingly:

“Calcraft hanged them. I execute them.”

Marwood went on to become something of a public figure. Widely known for his lethal sideline, he dispensed business cards and always called himself an executioner, never a mere hangman. He’s credited with devising the original ‘Table of Drops’ and with using double trapdoors rather than a single door to ensure the prisoner dropped cleanly to avoid shifting the noose and bringing slow strangulation instead of the now-famous ‘hangman’s fracture’ of the cervical vertebrae. Incidentally, medical professional often still call it the ‘hangman’s fracture’ long after Britain’s executioners (and the British death penalty itself) have gone the way of their deceased ‘customers.’

He even found himself immortalised in a popular children’s riddle of the time which went like this:

“If Pa killed Ma, who’d kill Pa..?”

“Marwood.”

March 7, 1981 marks the bloodiest day in Disneyland’s history. 18-year-old Mel Yorba, along with several friends and their dates, were spending the day at a private party hosted at the happiest place on Earth. They had full access to the open bar and as one could imagine, matters escalated quickly.

At some point during the evening things turned hostile. Mel began making advances towards another man’s girlfriend and at one point had pinched her posterior. The woman’s boyfriend – 28-year-old James O’Driscoll – became increasingly more annoyed with the teen’s behavior and a fight broke out.

O’Driscoll chased Yorba through the park. O’Driscoll eventually caught up with Yorba in the heart of Tomorrowland. The pair exchanged punches before O’Driscoll pulled out a knife and Yorba fell on it during the scuffle.

Though there had been several incidents prior to the stabbing of Mel Yorba where guests had met their end at the theme park, including an incident in 1964 where a teen had stood up on the Matterhorn ride and fell to his death, this was the first incident where a guest had stabbed another guest. Subsequently, it would be that same area of the park that would soak the house of Mouse in blood.

A passing nurse witnessed the altercation and rushed to Yorba’s aide, applying pressure to his wounds. O’Driscoll and his girlfriend, Julie Holdener, attempted to flee the park but soon realized that the exits were blocked by waiting Anaheim police officers. The pair hid within the park until Disneyland’s security team spotted them hiding in some bushes and turned them to the police officers waiting outside.

Yorba, who had fallen on O’Driscoll’s hunting knife twice during the scuffle, may have had a chance of surviving the attack, but Disney had a policy of no police and no ambulances allowed on park grounds because they believed that it may ruin the atmosphere for visiting families. Park medics made the decision to transport Yorba in a first aid van, which took roughly 20 minutes to arrive to the scene. It would take an additional 11 minutes for the van to slowly make its way to the entrance gates where actual paramedics were standing by.

Yorba, not surprisingly, was pronounced dead on arrival.

O’Driscoll was facing first-degree murder charges after he claimed that Yorba had accidentally rolled over his knife twice during their altercation. Charges against Julie Holdener were eventually dropped for a lack of evidence. After two trials, O’Driscoll was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in prison, which was later reduced to as little as eight since Yorba was found to have been the one to throw the first punch.

As for Disney, this was the first time the company had been criticized for their response to a medical situation on park grounds. The Yorba family pursued a civil lawsuit against the park for medical negligence.They were awarded the sum of $600,000. After several other preventable death suits followed that year, Disney finally agreed to hire a professional private ambulance service for their parks.

Blaine Norris was a computer technician by day, but once five o’clock rolled around Norris assumed his moonlight role as a filmmaker. His film, Through Hike: A Ghost Story, may not have turned out to be much more than a low-rent version of The Blair Witch Project to the rest of the world, but to Norris the film was likely to have been his greatest piece of work.

Blaine Norris

Norris wasn’t the only one who had great expectations of the film. Brian Trimble also saw the film’s potential. The only thing that was setting them back was a budget. Neither of the men made enough to fund the film and though it was an extremely low budget flick, they still needed to raise roughly $100,000 in order to see their vision come to life. That’s when they began hatching their decade-long plan.

Brian Trimble had long depended on his wife Randi, who worked two jobs in order to support her husband and to save for a baby she longed to have. Trimble’s multiple sclerosis had forced him out of work, but the film project had reinvigorated him. He knew that Randi had a $100,000 life insurance policy – plenty to get his and Norris’ film project off the ground.

Brian Trimble

One night Randi came home after having dinner with friends. Brian, who was hiding within the couple’s home, attacked Randi, strangling her and stabbing her repeatedly until she stopped struggling. Trimble and Norris agreed that he could keep $20,000 of the money, but the rest would be dedicated to the pair’s found footage film.

Randi Trimble

Norris thought his plan went off without a hitch, but he was horribly mistaken. Trimble was taken into police custody in order to answer some questions about Randi’s death. He admitted to conspiring to kill his wife and how he had planned to use the life insurance money in order to help his friend launch his budget horror flick. Both Norris and Trimble were sentenced to life in prison.

Since the brutal murder of Randi Trimble, her mother has gotten involved in domestic violence activism. She has started two charities – Randi’s Race, designed to raise money for domestic violence survivors and Randi’s Angels, which is a fund to assist children of domestic violence survivors. She tells an ABC affiliate that though she misses her daughter every day, the charity work she does is how she is able to heal and keep going in spite of her tragic loss.

VE (Victory in Europe) marked the official end of hostilities in the European theatre of operations and quite possibly the largest and most joyous celebration in human history.

Unless, of course, you happened to be former US Army Air Forces Private George Edward Smith.

The VE Day celebrations on May 8, 1945. George Smith had nothing to cheer about.

While most of the rest of the world basked in the joy of victory and the relief of the European war being over, Private Smith had a rather more pressing engagement to think about. The rest of the population might be about to enter a brave new world, but Smith was about to depart rather suddenly from the old one.

It was his execution day.

Smith, previously serving at RAF Attlebridge in Norfolk with the US Air Force’s784th Bombardment Squadron, wouldn’t be celebrating the end of the European war. He’d be watching the clock tick relentlessly down to 1 a.m. when he’d be escorted from the Condemned Cell at Her Majesty’s Prison, Shepton Mallet, Somerset (loaned to the US military for the duration of the war). He’d be sat near the gallows pondering a past that was about to cost him his life while hoping for a reprieve that wouldn’t arrive and a future that was already lost.

While most of the world celebrated, George Edward Smith was going to die.

Smith’s guilt wasn’t in any doubt. Near RAF Attlebridge lay the sleepy Norfolk town of Honingham and the stately home named Honingham Hall (demolished in the 1960s).

Honingham Hall and the adjoining land were home to distinguished diplomat Sir Eric Teichmann, a long-serving figure vastly experienced in the Far East and serving as advisor to the British Embassy at Chungking. He’d noticed, as so many country gentlemen do, that he had a problem with poachers. December 3, 1944 would be the last time he had a problem with anything. It was in the small hours of the morning that he met George Edward Smith.

Smith and his accomplice Private Wijpacha had ‘borrowed’ a pair of M1 carbines from the base armoury and decided to do a spot of illicit hunting. Teichmann, familiar with the fact that poachers aren’t usually violent offenders and will usually run if challenged, heard gunshots from nearby woodland and went out to investigate. He went out unarmed, challenged Smith and Wijpacha — and Smith promptly shot him once through the head with his M1. Both men fled hurriedly back to their base, hoping that their absence wouldn’t be noticed.

Of course, a senior British diplomat lying murdered in the woodland was noticed.

Before long both men were arrested and questioned, during which Smith confessed, a confession he later retracted claiming that it was made under duress. That, not surprisingly, cut no ice whatsoever with either the American military or the British authorities. Smith and Wijpacha were court-martialled at RAF Attlebridge and Wijpacha (who hadn’t fired a shot) received a lengthy prison sentence. Smith, the triggerman, drew the death penalty.

Under the Visiting Forces Act, 1942 the Americans were free to try, imprison and condemn their own criminals independent of the British system of justice, not that it would have made any difference to Smith’s case. Murder was then a capital crime in Britain regardless of the criminal’s nationality. If Smith hadn’t been condemned by an American court-martial then a British trial would have seen the judge don the legendary ‘Black Cap’ and pass what British reporters once called ‘the dread sentence’ especially given the status of the victim.

Smith was promptly shipped to the prison at Shepton Mallet in the county of Somerset to await a mandatory review of his case and, if clemency was refused, execution.

Shepton Mallet had been a civilian prison for centuries before being turned over to the British military, who then lent it to the Americans as part of the Visiting Forces Act. Until its final closure a few years ago Shepton Mallet remained the oldest prison in the UK still operational, a dubious distinction now belonging toDartmoor. There were, however, a few difficulties with the arrangement.

The Americans carried out 18 executions at Shepton Mallet during their tenure between mid-1942 and September, 1945. Two (Alex Miranda and Benjamin Pyegate) were by firing squad, upsetting local people, who knew very well what it meant to live next to a military prison and hear a single rifle volley at 8 a.m. The American military also preferred hanging common criminals to allowing them to be shot like soldiers.

The problems were simple. The locals didn’t like firing squads made no secret of it. Not surprisingly, there were complaints. The US military felt being shot was too good for most of its condemned and the British didn’t like the methods and equipment used by American hangmen, who had acquired a nasty and thoroughly-deserved reputation for using badly-designed scaffolds, the wrong type of rope and the antiquated standard drop instead of a drop length scientifically calculated by the prisoner’s weight.

The British also regarded American hanging equipment as outdated, while American military hangmen John Woods and Joseph Malta were entirely unfamiliar with the British kit. And British hangmen had evolved hanging to almost an art, needing mere seconds to complete the procedure.

Another problem was that the gallows at Shepton Mallet hadn’t been used since March, 1926. By 1942 it was considered unfit for service and needed replacing. A compromise had to be reached, and was.

The Americans could continue executions at Shepton Mallet, but the vast majority (16 out of 18) were performed by British hangmen using a British gallows in an extension built onto the end of one of the cellblocks. The Americans were permitted their usual practice of having the condemned stand strapped, noosed and hooded on the gallows while their death warrant and charge sheet were read out and then being asked for any last words. This caused executioner Albert Pierrepoint, master of the speedy hanging, to complain at what seemed to him a cruel, unnecessary delay in ending the prisoner’s misery.

Pierrepoint also complained about overcrowding in the gallows room during executions. At a British hanging there would be the prisoner, the hangman, his assistant, the prison Governor, the Chief Warder, the doctor, the Chaplain and two or four prison officers. At an American military hanging there were usually twenty or so people clustered around the trapdoors and lever. He felt a hanging should be both quick and perfect and that a crowded gallows room invited disaster.

Hangman Thomas Pierrepoint.

By VE Day the arrangement was well-established. Thomas Pierrepoint, uncle of Albert and brother of Henry (both of whom were also hangmen) performed 13 of the 16 hangings at Shepton Mallet while Albert performed the remaining three when he wasn’t busy elsewhere.

Their assistants were Steve Wade, Herbert Morris and Alexander Riley. Tom Pierrepoint had performed the last hanging at Shepton Mallet in 1926 (that of murderer John Lincoln) assisted by Lionel Mann. While the two firing squads were performed at 8 a.m., the hangings would be carried out at 1 a.m. which was discreet enough not to arouse neighbors’ ire.

Smith’s case was reviewed. Not surprisingly, his appeal was denied as were other requests including (most generously, under the circumstances) one from Lady Teichmann, widow of his victim. His date was set for 1 a.m. on what turned out to be the very day Europe’s guns fell silent. Tom Pierrepoint would do the job assisted by Herbert Morris. Smith was transferred to the Condemned Cell a few days prior to the execution date where he was granted free access to the military Chaplain.

When the time came, while the rest of the population celebrated the arrival of a new world and Smith contemplated his departure from the old one, it went as smoothly as could be expected. Smith was taken from his cell wearing standard military uniform, from which any badges or flashes marking him as a soldier were deliberately removed. Paperwork was completed signifying his dishonourable discharge from the US military as a common criminal and the US military were determined that he should die like one.

Given the delays caused by the reading of the charge sheet and death warrant and Smith being asked for his last words (he apparently had none) it took 22 minutes between Smith being taken from his cell and being certified dead by the prison doctor. Compare this with a standard British execution (minus the bureaucracy and speechifying) where 22 seconds would have been considered twice as long as was needed to do the job. Smith’s punishment, however, wasn’t done yet. Executed American servicemen were initially buried at Brookwood cemetery, but then moved to the notorious ‘Plot E’ of the Oisne-Aisne Military Cemetery in France. Plot E is deliberately hidden from the rest of that cemetery. Its residents have no names on their graves, only numbers. They have no headstones or crosses, only flat stone markers. No American flag hangs in their plot. It doesn’t appear on the plan of the cemetery even today and the markers are placed facing away from the graves of other Americans. Visits to Plot E are still discouraged and it wasn’t until a Freedom of Information request in 2009 that the names of those buried there were released.

A view of the “Dishonored Dead” in Plot E, Oise-Aisne American Cemetery. (cc) image by Stranger20824.

Whatever they may have done, and some committed truly dreadful crimes, it seems distasteful to virtually deny their existence and shame them even after death. It also denied their families and friends the chance to visit and grieve, despite the fact that they themselves had committed no crime.

That said, it’s no different to the routine imposed on condemned British criminals. In fact, the British death sentence expressly demanded that inmates be buried in unmarked graves within the prison walls inflicting the same suffering on their friends and relatives. The British hanged were officially designated ‘Property of the Crown,’ many of whom were not properly reburied until after abolition. At many British prisons they still remain in unmarked graves according to the following sentence:

Prisoner at the Bar, it is the sentence of this Court that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be afterwards 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.

Remove the prisoner …

In May of 2015, a concerned neighbor asked firefighters responding to a house fire to assist in a welfare check on an Ensley Township, Michigan couple. Firefighters entered the home to find Martin Duram had sustained five gunshot wounds, while his wife Glenna had been suffering from a single gunshot wound to the head. Martin was pronounced dead on the scene, while Glenna was taken to a nearby hospital.

As Glenna desperately clung to life, a mobile crime lab was dispatched to assist police in collecting evidence from the scene. After nearly a year of investigation, Glenna Duram was arrested in June of 2016 for the murder of her husband in what investigators believe to have been a botched murder suicide attempt.

Glenna, who claims to have lost all memory of the incident, insists that she did not kill her husband. On the scene investigators found three suicide notes, suggesting that Glenna had long been suicidal prior to police uncovering the grizzly scene.

While shocking, a story like this wouldn’t be too terribly unusual if it weren’t for one of the pieces of evidence, and possibly a key witness for the prosecutor. According to The Washington Post the couple’s African grey parrot, Bud, continues to repeat the phrase, “Don’t f—ing shoot!” These are believed to have been some of the last words Martin Duram said as Glenna allegedly shot him before turning the gun on herself.

According to Martin’s family the parrot is known for repeating anything he hears. Nawaygo County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Springstead says that the parrot sounds as if it is mimicking two separate voices and may be repeating the last quarrel in the couple’s torrid love affair. Springstead admits that calling a parrot to the stand as a witness is an unusual move, but the case does provide a unique opportunity to set a precedent for future cases where a parrot’s speech patterns could possibly be used as evidence.

While some argue that it’s impossible to determine whether or not the parrot is mimicking something he saw on TV or an actual argument he witnessed, experts are working with the prosecutor and carefully analyzing the parrot’s speech patterns in conjunction with speech patterns of Glenna Duram in hopes that they can prove that some of the phrases the parrot is repeating came from Glenna’s mouth.

Though the prosecutor is still waiting to hear back from the judge on whether or not the parrot’s testimony will be admissible, it is doubtful that Bud will be called to the stand. Regardless of the judge’s decision, Martin’s family has faith that Glenna Duram will be spending a long time behind bars.

In the early evening of July 22, 1995 Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt and Joseph Fiorella convinced 15-year-old Elyse Pahler to come hang out with them and party at a favorite spot of theirs in a eucalyptus grove on the Nipomo Mesa. Pahler had been well acquainted with the boys, who played in a local heavy metal band known as Hatred. She had no idea that they had spent months plotting her murder.

Jacob Delashmutt was the first to strike. He removed his belt from his waist and wrapped it around Elyse’s neck. Royce Casey held the girl down as Jacob Fiorella pulled a hunting knife from out of a sheath in his pocket and plunged the knife straight into her neck. Elyse prayed and cried for her mother to help her as the stabbings continued. An autopsy report later revealed that she had been stabbed a total of 12 times. All of the stab wounds determined to have been non-fatal, meaning that Elyse was forced to slowly and painfully bleed to death as the boys looked on.

After the boys determined that Elyse was finally dead they started raping her corpse. This continued on for the eight months that Elyse’s body had been hidden in the woods. Though her family had reported her as a missing person, investigators may have never found her body if not for a confession from Royce Casey.

Casey went to police after he claims that he had found God. He led investigators where Elyse’s body had been hidden and began telling investigators the shocking reasons for the killing.

Casey, who played guitar in his Slayer-inspired heavy metal band, said that he and the other band members had been reading up on Satanism. Casey believed that killing the girl as a virgin sacrifice would somehow give him otherworldly powers, including the ability to play guitar better. It was during band practice that Casey, Delashmutt and Fiorella began hatching their devious plot.

According to Casey, it wasn’t the first time the band mates attempted to take Pahler’s life. He said they specifically wanted to kill her because she was a blonde haired, blue eyed virgin and they believed that Satan would be most pleased with the sacrifice, ultimately bestowing the boys with the ability to play so well that they could finally get a record contract.

The teens lured the girl to another remote area where one of the boys pretended to slip down a steep ravine believing that she would follow him down. Fiorella tossed another teen a knife and the boys started chanting “Do it! Do it!” But the other boy just stood there. Casey believes that Elyse must have thought they were joking around, which is why she never reported the incident and had agreed to meet with the boys again.

Both Delashmutt and Fiorella denied any involvement in Satanism, but did admit that they had all played a part in the girl’s death and that they had been inspired by the music of Slayer – a quote that may have been taken out of context, but was a field day for attorneys representing the Pahler famly in civil lawsuit against the band.

The three boys plead no contest. A jury found them guilty and sentenced them all to serve 26 years to life in prison.

The story wasn’t over though. In 2001, the brutal murder of Elyse Pahler was once again in the headlines when her family took Slayer and Sony Music to court on grounds that their music was what had inspired the teens to murder their daughter.

Delashmutt says that though he and the other boys enjoyed Slayer’s music, it wasn’t Slayer that ultimately drove them to kill Elyse Pahler. Delashmutt says that Fiorella had long obsessed over the girl and had become even more obsessed with killing her. Predictably, the case was eventually thrown out based on the band’s First Amendment rights.

Defense attorney Scott Harrington told the press, “There’s not a legal position that could be taken that would make the band responsible. Where do you draw the line? You might as well start looking through the library at every book on the shelf.”

His words seemed to echo a judge’s ruling in another remarkably similar case when two families attempted to sue the band Judas Priest in 1985 for hiding subliminal messages in their songs and claimed to have ultimately inspired two teens to attempt suicide. One of the young men died, while another was able to survive the ordeal. Though bizarrely enough, the judge suggested that he believed subliminal messages had been masked on their records, the band was still protected under the First Amendment.

The case of Chester Gillette inspired Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and Oscar-winning 1951 movie A Place in the Sun. It was, in fact, a rather squalid crime committed by a man who was as incompetent a murderer as he was a lousy boyfriend.

Born in Montana and growing up in Spokane, Washington, there was nothing to suggest that Gillette was ever likely to become either a murderer or, as Dreiser’s ‘Clyde Griffiths’, be immortalised in one of the classics of American literature. His parents were wealthy and eminently respectable people who renounced material wealth as they were also deeply religious. They joined the Salvation Army and toured the United States spreading the word, hence Gillette’s peripatetic childhood that saw him spend much of his time touring the West Coast and Hawaii when he wasn’t living in Spokane.

Unfortunately, the religious fervour of his parents wasn’t matched by the morals and ethics of their son. Chester Gillette was one of life’s loafers, a waster content to drop out of the exclusive Oberlin College Preparatory School after only two years. By 1905 he was falling into a series of odd jobs without ever managing to hold one for very long. Until, that is, he took a job at a shoe factory in Cortland, New York owned by an uncle. It was also where he met and wooed fellow-employee Grace Brown. He would also murder her.

The illicit affair between the two would soon cause problems. Brown was a respectable girl from a respectable family. Like most young women of her time, she wanted to marry a respectable young man, settle down and have children. In short, she was a typical young lady of the age.

Gillette, unfortunately, was a typical young rake of the age. He didn’t seem to have the slightest intention of marrying Grace, instead preferring to string her along with delaying tactics while also courting a number of other young women. Nothing unusual in that, of course, young men will want to sow their wild oats, after all. But, with an increasingly marriage-minded girlfriend came another small problem. In 1906 Grace Brown fell pregnant and was still unmarried.

She wasn’t happy about this. She was progressively more unhappy when Gillette, instead of doing what young gentlemen of the time were expected to do with pregnant girlfriends (which was marry them) continued to stall. She was especially infuriated when she found that he’d also been seeing a string of other women behind her back and returned to her parents in Cortland, only going back to Gillette after much persuasion on his part. It would have been better for her (though not for American literature) if she hadn’t.

During the spring and summer of 1906 the couple argued more and more often and, worrying for Gillette, more publicly. They argued when they were together in private and Gillette was especially perturbed when they did the same at the skirt factory where they both worked. Tongues were starting to wag and Gillette, never a man of great moral courage, decided the situation needed to be resolved.

Permanently.

Gillette’s victim, Grace Brown.

He invited her to a hotel near Big Moose Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains for a few days. Grace, probably thinking that he would resolve their crisis by eloping with her, accepted. What she didn’t know was that he’d registered at the hotel as ‘Charles Graham’ (nicely matching the initials on his monogrammed suitcase) and had brought only a single suitcase. With the suitcase he’d also brought the means with which to permanently resolve his domestic trouble. He’d brought a tennis racquet.

It seems odd that anybody would bring a tennis racquet to a part of upstate New York where tennis isn’t exactly the norm. But, as shall become brutally clear, he was planning to use it. Just not for tennis. On July 11, 1906 he took Grace for a nice paddle on Big Moose Lake, just the two of them. If she thought it was odd that he’d also brought along his tennis racquet then she wasn’t to remain curious for long.

Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be alive for very much longer, either.

Gillette’s solution to his problem was simple. He didn’t want to marry his pregnant girlfriend, but he didn’t want to be publicly disgraced as a lowlife, either. Which he would have been if he’d simply left her high and dry. With marriage of no interest and public disgrace not an option, Gillette had one other idea;

Murder.

Hours later, the boat was found capsized on the lake. Also in the water was Gillette’s hat, but there was no trace of either Gillette or Grace Brown. At least until the next day, when Grace’s body was recovered from the bottom of the lake and Gillette, not the brightest of lightbulbs, simply went to a hotel in the Fulton Chain Lakes area and registered under his own name.

Doubtless, he thought that nobody would link him to Grace Brown if he simply denied all knowledge of her disappearance. He probably also thought that police and witnesses wouldn’t quickly realise that Chester Gillette and ‘Charles Graham’ were in fact the same person. He also didn’t consider that, with his hat being found in the lake, that denying all knowledge of grace’s whereabouts was going to look decidedly incriminating. Especially when her body was recovered and an autopsy disclosed that not only was she dead, having drowned in Big Moose Lake after Gillette blind-sided her with his tennis racquet and tipped her into the water. She was also pregnant.

Once Brown was identified, it didn’t take police long to link her to Gillette who, with characteristic foolishness, was easily picked up in the nearby town of Inlet having done little else to cover his tracks. According to witnesses, he seemed utterly unperturbed until his arrest, behaving as though nothing of any particular importance had happened. Of course, there was the small matter of murdering Grace Brown to consider which, while Gillette might not have thought much of it, the judge and jury certainly would. The stage was set for a dramatic trial, probably followed by even more dramatic appeals and an electrocution in front of journalists, among others. That was exactly what happened.

Gillette was tried for first-degree murder in Herkimer County in the fall of 1906. His trial lasted three weeks and was a national media event. In terms of guilt or innocence, however, it was something of an anti-climax. Prosecutors proved that Gillette had been to the hotel with his victim. They produced her letters to Gillette, pleading letters from a desperate young woman pleading for help and love from her murderer. Her final letter dated July 5 showed the seriousness of her position and how desperate she was to avoid her mother finding out about her being pregnant while unmarried:

“If I come back dead, perhaps if she does not know, she won’t be angry with me…”

Prosecutors also proved that he’d registered at the hotel under a false name, that he’d been stringing her along while courting a string of other women and that he was, in general, a rake, wastrel and habitual liar. To be exact, it was Gillette himself who proved he was an habitual liar.

During the trial he changed his story repeatedly. Initially he denied knowing anything about Grace’s disappearance. Then he admitted having been to the hotel with her and the boat trip on Big Moose Lake. Then he admitted that she’d accidentally fallen into the lake. Then he claimed that she’d deliberately jumped into the lake, distraught at the ending of their relationship. In his own words:

“We talked a little more, then she got up and jumped in the water, just jumped in…”

The jury, decidedly unimpressed with his repeated lies, lack of morals and generally shifty demeanour, lost no time in finding him guilty. He was immediately condemned to death and transported under armed escort to Auburn Prison for an appointment with ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis.

Old Sparky at Auburn Prison, the world’s first electric chair.

The appellate judges were as unimpressed with him as the trial judge and jury had been. They unanimously denied his appeals. The prosecutor described his case bluntly, in terms that left no ambiguity regarding his opinion of Chester Gillette:

“The evidence leaves no escape from the conviction that the defendant committed the crime of murder with premeditation.”

Gillette could do little to prevent his conviction. His lawyers couldn’t do anything to prevent his execution, either. At dawn on March 30, 1908 Chester Gillette was taken from his cell at Auburn on his final walk. Escorted by the prison Chaplain he walked into a room filled with witnesses, reporters, the prison doctor and the Warden. In an alcove near the chair stood Edwin Davis, awaiting the latest of the 203 fees he would collect during his tenure as the world’s first ‘electrocutioner.’

At 6am Gillette was strapped into Old Sparky. With a final look round to ensure nobody was standing too near the chair, Davis awaited a silent signal from the Warden. When he saw the Warden nod, Davis immediately threw the switch. 2000 volts seared through Gillette’s body as Davis, watching him carefully, manipulated his switchboard, raising and lowering the voltage and ampage in what was evolving into his standard two-minute cycle. With the cycle completed and the jolt having done its work, Davis cut the power and the prison doctor waited for Gillette’s body to cool enough to make his formal examination.

Chester Gillette was dead.

The case of John White Webster, murderer of Dr. George Parkman, was a media sensation at the time and is still a classic of true crime. A sordid tale of dark deeds by low people in high places, the social status of both the murderer and his victim guaranteed international media interest. The gruesome nature of the crime didn’t hurt newspaper circulation figures, either.

John White Webster, murderer of George Parkman.

Both men were born into affluent families in Boston, Massachusetts. Parkman was higher up Boston’s social hierarchy, being a Boston Brahmin and thus at the top of the pyramid. Webster was more an upper-middle class man and, unfortunately, not business-minded or sensible with his money or other people’s. His habit of borrowing more money to cover debts he’d already run up would be his downfall and fatal for both he and Parkman.

Both men lectured at Harvard Medical College. Parkman was senior in the medical department while Webster, having failed in private practice as a doctor, lectured in minerology, geology and chemistry while also publishing books on those subjects. Both were married and, by the time of the murder in 1849, Webster’s poor business sense and domestic expenditures saw him in desperate financial trouble. He was in hock to many of his friends and acquaintances. He was over-extended with his bank. All in all, he needed more money than he had and was running out of people to borrow it from. One of his creditors was George Parkman.

Webster borrowed $400 from Parkman in 1842. In 1847 with the original loan still unpaid, Parkman accepted a promissory note from Webster for $2432 comprising both the original loan and even more added on. The use of promissory notes was common between the wealthy, monied gentlemen of the time, they were the forerunner of checks people use today. But, with Webster’s previous unpaid loan still in mind, Parkman insisted that the loan be secured using Webster’s personal possessions as security. They included a large box of unusual mineral samples.

Parkman wasn’t happy about the unpaid debt. In 1848 he became positively enraged that Webster still hadn’t paid him back and, much worse, had used the same box of mineral samples as security on a $1200 loan from a Mr. Robert Shaw. Had Webster paid off Parkman before re-mortgaging the samples then there would have been no problem. But he hadn’t, so there was. Parkman was livid and went stalking around Boston looking for a confrontation with Webster and to resolve their dispute. As it turned out, Webster too had ideas about resolving the Parkman problem.

Permanently.

‘Boston Brahmin’ George Parkman.

On November 22, 1849 Webster visited Parkman at his home to discuss their dispute. He invited Parkman to his lab at the Harvard Medical College at 1:30pm the next day. At 1:45pm the next day, Parkman was seen entering the College grounds. It was the last time anybody would see him alive.

On November 24 Parkman’s family contacted police, having seen or heard nothing from him. On the same day Webster was seen walking through the College grounds carrying a large, unidentified bundle by the College janitor Ephraim Littlefield. We’ll be hearing much more from him later. Living next to Webster on the College grounds and knowing Parkman by sight, Littlefield would prove a decisive witness for the prosecution. Parkman, meanwhile, had completely vanished.

On November 26 a $3000 reward was offered for information leading to the discovery of Dr. Parkman. His disappearance was widely publicised and the search for the missing Boston Brahmin covered a wide area. Local rivers were dragged. Nearby towns were searched. Search parties were despatched around the area. The dragnet for George Parkman was probably bigger than the one that caught John Webster.

Ephraim Littlefield was also taking an increased interest in Webster and feeling increasingly suspicious. To Littlefield, Webster’s actions and behaviour were odd and unsettling, especially as it was an open secret that Webster and Parkman were at daggers drawn over Webster’s debts and his dishonest means of staving off disgrace and bankruptcy. The fact that Webster had been quizzing him about the College’s dissection facility also seemed odd, considering Webster didn’t actually lecture in medicine or anatomy.

Webster’s chickens were about to come home to roost.

Littlefield was in the building next-door to Webster’s lab on November 28 when he noticed that Webster was running the lab’s furnace so hot that he could feel the heat through the basement wall. Peeking under the lab door he could see Webster frantically stoking the furnace while burning a number of unidentified objects. Littlefield spent the next day digging down to the outside of the basement wall where the bricks were still warm to the touch. Now even more suspicious, he broke through the wall into the furnace itself.

Where he found the charred bones and teeth of what the jury were later convinced had once been George Parkman.

Webster was arrested in early-December, 1849 while Parkman’s remains were buried on December 6. When police came to arrest him Webster initially denied all knowledge of Parkman’s whereabouts. Realising that the detectives weren’t buying his story he then attempted suicide with a dose of strychnine, which didn’t kill him. The Massachusetts hangman wouldn’t be cheated of his fee. Webster was formally indicted on January 26, 1850.

The charge was murder. The penalty, if convicted, was death.

The trial started on March 19 until April 1, 1850. The courtroom was packed every day with people itching to hear of low deeds in high places, of dishonesty, betrayal and murder most foul. Reporters even came from as far afield as London, Paris and even Berlin to cover the story.

Webster had always been a poor businessman. Now he proved himself to be an even worse defendant, not that his lawyers were exactly the cream of Boston’s crop. As no lawyer of any substance was willing to take his case, Webster had to pick two court-appointed lawyers from a list. Having secured lawyers whose legal sharpness resembled a butter knife rather than a scalpel, he then hampered them even further by insisting they work entirely to a detailed 194-page plan he’d drawn up instead of letting them do their job and use their own judgement. Not that their judgement was exactly good to start with.

Facing off against Webster’s discount defence team were Boston’s legal heavyweights. State Attorney-General (and later State Governor) John Clifford led the prosecution, although much of the trial was fought by his assistant, Harvard law graduate George Bernis. The presiding judge was no less a figure than Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Webster entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty.’

Ephraim Littlefield, the star witness for the prosecution.

The defence made a number of blunders from the start. Ehpraim Littlefield had a lucrative side-line selling fresh corpses to medical students and lecturers. He would also collect the $3000 reward for his services and his testimony. They never brought this up even though it might have made him seem less savoury and less credible a witness. They didn’t force the issue of identification enough. The law at the time stated that human remains had to be identified with ‘absolute certainty’ which, given forensic science at that time, wasn’t possible. What the prosecution could do was persuade the jury that the remains were indeed those of George Parkman rather than conclusively identifying him. Mrs Parkman identified the remains as being her missing husband and, given Webster’s now-established reputation for dishonesty, this proved evidence enough.

Other medical evidence included blood-stained clothes belonging to Parkman. Clothes belonging to Webster were admitted into evidence and proved to have bloodstains and stains of copper nitrate, a substance well known to be effective at removing blood. Evidently for the jury, Webster’s use thereof hadn’t been quite effective enough.

On April Fool’s Day, 1850 the judge summed up very heavily in favour of the prosecution. Not surprisingly, the jury didn’t take too long to render their verdict. They left the courtroom at 8pm. At 10:45pm they returned having made their decision.

Their decision was guilty.

The sentence was death.

Webster was promptly sentenced to death and lodged in a cell to await the outcome of his appeals and possible execution. His appeals didn’t work out any better than his defence. His appeals were met with denial after denial as the days, weeks and hours ticked down to his date with the hangman.

An artist’s impression of Parkman’s murder.

A few days before his execution Webster, who had for so long insisted upon his innocence, finally admitted killing George Parkman. Killing him, that is, not murdering him. He claimed that Parkman had become enraged and attacked him and that he, Webster, had been forced to kill him in self-defence. Therefore he claimed that, despite being the admitted killer of George Parkman, he wasn’t a murderer. Quite how that squared with Parkman having suffered multiple blows from a blunt object and having a number of stab wounds he never quite explained but, in his own mind if in nobody else’s, Webster was an innocent man, wrongly convicted and about to be unjustly executed. Unfortunately for Webster, while innocent in his own mind, his opinion hadn’t been shared by any appellate judges and the State Governor didn’t agree, either.

The end finally came on August 30, 1850. Webster was taken from his cell at Leverett Street Jail to greet his final audience. The final indignity was still to come. Webster would hang in public, standard practice for the time and not outlawed until the late 1930’s. It would also have weighed heavily on his mind that America’s hangmen were (and remained) a careless crew. They didn’t have the same way of doing the job as their British counterparts who would elevate their grim calling to a science (albeit with a hint of dark art about it). In Webster’s case they were relatively competent. He dropped and strangled for only four minutes before dying, far quicker than many who slowly strangled and far less messily than those given too long a drop, only for their heads to be torn off when they reached the end of the rope.

Webster’s family, left destitute by his debts, found themselves the focus of much public sympathy. A fund was set up to support them, taking in public contributions so they would be able to clear his debts and still have something to live on. In a gesture of great magnanimity, the first donation was made by George Parkman’s widow.

“No one is going to convict me of killing white trash.” – John Wallace, on his victim William Turner.

The case of Georgia murderer John Wallace, Sheriff Lamar Potts and victim William Turner is now largely forgotten outside of Coweta County (where the crime was committed) and Meriwether County, where Wallace, a wealthy landowner, ruled a vast estate known locally as ‘The Kingdom.’ If reports are to be believed (and there are many of them), Wallace pretty much ran the whole of Meriwether County as well, through his control over County Sheriff Hardy Collier. Wallace was also well known for running his ‘Kingdom’ with an iron fist.

Murderer John Wallace (centre) and Sheriff Lamar Potts (on the right).

One person who felt that fist in the worst way was a former tenant farmer, William Turner. In 1948 Wallace, in addition to his land holdings and rental incomes, was running a large bootlegging operation making and selling moonshine in the area. Wallace used his tenants to make, store and deliver the shine in return for a cut of the profits (and for not being rendered jobless and homeless if they refused). Some of the money went on buying Wallace a good name with regular charitable donations such as new chair and pews for the local church. The rest Wallace kept for himself.

Bootleg moonshine was a big earner for Wallace, even after Prohibition

Unfortunately, the bootlegging was lucrative but also illegal. Wallace’s operation had already attracted the attention of revenue agents and Wallace, who knew Collier had no control over their activities, feared their wrath. The most Collier could do was warn Wallace of their presence and tip him off as to their activities which included staking out local roads to try and catch shine runners. With that in mind, Wallace ordered a temporary closure of the bootlegging and suspension of deliveries. Sharecropper William Turner, however, thought otherwise. Turner had a wife and a sick child and, farming not being the most lucrative occupation, got by as much on delivering shine as he did on working Wallace’s land. He defied Wallace’s order and, in doing so, attracted yet more attention by a run-in with the revenue men on a local road.

Wallace, hearing of the incident through Collier, was livid. Being minor Southern aristocracy, Wallace ruled by decree and never saw defiance as anything other than a personal slight and a threat to his power. He was never one to let defiance or threats go unpunished, either. Wallace promptly fired Turner and threw him, his wife and their child off his land. Turner left, nursing a grudge, and just as promptly returned late one night having decided to take a couple of Wallace’s prize cows as severance pay. In nearby Carrolton County (where he’d stashed the cows until he could sell them) he was arrested by Chief of Police Threadgill for the theft. Things looked bad for William Turner and were about to get infinitely worse.

Granted, the cows were discovered in Carrollton. However, the theft itself had been committed in Meriwether and that meant Turner’s transfer to the custody of Meriwether Sheriff Hardy Collier. Collier being Wallace’s property, Turner now faced the tender mercies of a certain John Wallace. But not for long.

Having been held incommunicado, denied the chance to even tell anybody he was back in Meriwether, Turner was suddenly released without further explanation. He didn’t need any explanation whatsoever when he walked out of the Meriwether County jail and saw Wallace waiting with several of his henchmen. Running to his truck, Turner charged down the road with two cars bearing Wallace and his heavies in hot pursuit. Taylor didn’t know that they’d siphoned off most of the contents of his gas tank. Wallace and his bruisers didn’t realise, until it was too late, that they hadn’t siphoned off quite enough gas. Turner’s truck carried him just over the line into neighbouring Coweta County and out of the jurisdiction of tame Sheriff Hardy Collier.

It later proved disastrous for Wallace’s heavies and fatal for Wallace. Having left Collier’s jurisdiction where Turner’s death could have easily been dressed up as a failed escape attempt, they caught up with Turner inside the jurisdiction of Coweta County Sheriff Lamar Potts. At the Sunset Tourist Camp near Moreland they found Turner’s abandoned truck. Having caught Turner, multiple witnesses later testified that Wallace clubbed him with a shotgun until he went limp and the gang bundled him into a car and disappeared back into Meriwether County. Even though the witnesses would also later testify that at one point Wallace hit Turner so hard that his un-cocked shotgun went off, Wallace still thought he was safe hiding within his Kingdom.

He was actually anything but…

Lamar Potts was something of an oddity by the standards of 1940’s Georgia Sheriffs. He was unusually competent, leaving not a single unsolved felony case during his entire 32-year tenure. He was dedicated, once tracking a murderer as far as Kansas before personally bringing him back for trial. He was also even-handed, well known for not showing racial prejudice. To Potts crooks were crooks regardless of social demographic, they existed to be caught and punished. In a time when many Georgia Sheriffs were also members of the Ku Klux Klan, Potts had no time for race-baiting when reporting a lynching to some Southern lawmen would have meant unwittingly reporting it to the lynch mob’s leader. Potts was also utterly immune to either bribes or threats, so Wallace’s money and power in Meriwether would do him no good at all in Coweta.

John Wallace had just met the crusading knight who would lay waste his Kingdom…

Potts set to work with a vengeance. Aided by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (particularly their crime lab) he toured Meriwether County looking for answers regarding where William Turner might be. Initially he met with a wall of silence, locals were either too loyal to Wallace (or too afraid of him) to come forward. Eventually, however, an anonymous informant gave him two names; Albert Brooks and Robert Lee Gates.

Potts, well aware of Wallace’s iron-fisted rule over Meriwether and Sheriff Hardy Collier, met secretly with them. After some persuasion they spilled the beans. Turner was dead. Wallace had forced them to take his body and dump him in an abandoned well somewhere within the Kingdom. Fearing that Turner might be discovered, he then forced them to remove Turner’s body and burn it. Brooks and Gates took Potts and others searchers to the well and the remains of the burn site. In the well they discovered brain matter that the crime lab proved to be human. At the burn site and in a nearby creek they found ash and bone chips. The crime lab proved the bone chips were also human. Both the well and the burn site were located within the Kingdom. Wallace and several of his henchmen were arrested.

The trial was widely publicised. Wallace hired eminent and expensive lawyers to defend him, not surprising considering he faced a possible death sentence. The problem with Wallace’s defence was Wallace himself. Long used to simply inventing stories that people fearful of him were obliged to pretend they believed, Wallace insisted on testifying in his own defence. In doing so he ruined the efforts of his lawyers to attack the scientific evidence, claim that while the bone and brain might have been human they were not specifically those of William Turner and try to confuse the jury as to whether Turner (if the remains were indeed his) had died in Coweta or Meriwether County. If Turner had died in Meriwether, they argued, then Potts had no jurisdiction to investigate anything.

Brooks and Gates turned State’s evidence in return for immunity. They proved very convincing, but it was considered less than likely that a wealthy white defendant would be convicted, never mind executed, on the word of poor black witnesses. The witnesses from the Sunset Tourist Camp also proved very credible. The scientific evidence swayed the jury significantly, as did Wallace’s bone-headed insistence on playing to the jury when he didn’t have to and certainly shouldn’t have. All Wallace accomplished was to make himself look even more guilty to the jury and then insult their intelligence with his half-baked story about how Turner was still conscious after arriving in Meriwether and how Wallace had shot him in a tragic accident.

The jury, not surprisingly, chose to believe the scientific evidence, witness evidence and the word of Potts (a hugely-respected lawman) over that of Wallace, a man known to run his domain with an iron fist, who had already served two years for bootlegging and whose violent and vindictive tendencies were well known in the area. Outside his Kingdom, stripped of his heavies, tame Sheriff Hardy Collier and faced with an investigator who was skilled, relentless, even-handed and immune to being bought or bullied, Wallace’s empire simply fell apart. The jury lost little time before they rendered their verdict;

Guilty as charged, with a mandatory sentence of death.

Wallace thought he’d never see Old Sparky, especially not on the evidence of black witnesses.

After sentencing Wallace was shipped to the Georgia State Prison at Reidsville in Tattnall County. Never before had Georgia’s Death Row welcomed so wealthy a resident. Never before in Georgia history had a white defendant, a wealthy, white defendant at that, been convicted on the evidence of black witnesses. But, Wallace stood convicted of murder and condemned to a seat in ‘Old Sparky’ unless his expensive lawyers could do better on appeal than they had at trial.

They couldn’t. Convicted in 1949, Wallace managed to stay the executioner’s hand until November 3, 1950. At 11am that morning he was escorted, head shaved and bowed in prayer, on his last mile. As he reached the chair Wallace is said to have knelt before it offering a final (if rather equivocal) prayer:

“Oh God, if there is one, save my soul, if I have one.”

His prayer completed, he sat in the grim white chair, impassive as the straps and electrodes were adjusted. At precisely 11am the switch was thrown. Minutes later John Wallace was dead.

In the 1983 TV movie John Wallace was played by Andy Griffith and Johnny Cash played Lamar Potts.

After his funeral at Pine Mountain Cemetery, where he was buried some distance from other members of the Wallace clan, his name and legacy lingered on. The book ‘Murder in Coweta County’ revived divisive and, for some, bitter memories of Wallace and his Kingdom. The TV movie of the same name starring Andy Griffith as Wallace and Johnny Cash as Sheriff Potts, also raised the story again. That said, rural Georgia is a place where memories and tales often far outlast the people involved in them. Even today there is debate and doubt about Wallace’s guilt, about whether gasoline and wood can sustain sufficient heat for long enough to entirely consume a human body, about whether the human remains were even those of William Turner at all.

Oddly, Meriwether County now has a road leading off Highway 18 named ‘Wallace Road’ in his memory. Not to be outdone, Coweta County has a road named after Lamar Potts.

Perhaps, in all the stories, legends, memories and myths about Lamar Potts and John Wallace, people might care to remember William Turner.

And his widow and orphaned daughter.

Growing up in a rough neighborhood in the South Bronx, Jonathan Luna was no stranger to the violence that disparages entire cities. Though he was not ashamed of his humble beginnings, Luna knew that he had to work hard and study if he ever wanted to break away from the life he knew in order to achieve the life he wanted.

Jonathan Luna

It was his hard work and dedication that would take him through his four years at Fordham University, and later through law school at the University of North Carolina. During that time he also met an equally determined young doctor, whom he married and fathered two children with.

When Luna landed a job working for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, he knew he had finally made it – a great job, an equally successful wife and two great kids – but life would only get better for Luna. In 1999 he applied to become an assistant to the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, MD. Out of thousands of hopeful candidates, Luna was selected for the position.

Through his work in Baltimore, Luna found himself putting away drug dealers, gang members and sex traffickers, and the case he was working on throughout the evening of December 3, 2003 was no different.

Two men had been accused of running a drug ring from a music studio. Luna had spent that morning and most of the evening working out a plea deal for the defense, which was due to be presented to the judge on the case the following morning. At around 9 PM that night, Luna phoned one of the defense’s lawyers and told him that he was packing up and heading home for the night, but promised the deal would be ready for court in the morning.

At 11:38 PM Luna’s car was logged as having left the parking garage. His glasses and cellphone were later found left on his desk. From there he was tracked to Delaware, where he used his EZ-Pass to enter onto the toll road and withdrew $200 from a rest station ATM at around 1 AM.

Luna’s late night drive continued on. At 2:47 AM Luna purchased a ticket to cross the bridge from Delaware to the Pennsylvania turnpike. From there he traveled along the road until 3:20 AM, when he had to stop for gas at a Sunoco station. 4:04 AM would be the last record of Luna being alive. He exited the turnpike at the Reading-Lansing interchange, spots of blood on the ticket indicating that Luna had sustained some sort of injuries. It wouldn’t be until an hour later when employees of the Sensenig & Weaver Well Drilling company arrived to work that anyone would even realize that Luna had been missing.

Behind the building an employee spotted Luna’s car idling halfway into a stream with the lights still on. Blood was smeared all over the driver’s side door and on the front left side of the vehicle. Face down in the water was the body of Jonathan Luna. He had sustained 36 stab wounds from his own penknife. In spite of the extent of his injuries, his official cause of death was drowning according to medical examiners.

FBI investigators speculated that Luna’s death had been the result of a suicide. Medical examiners weren’t so certain. Defensive wounds found on Luna’s body suggest that his death had been the result of a homicide. Several theories have since been raised on how Jonathan Luna found himself 95 miles away from his home in the heart of Amish Country.

Luna’s car after being impounded by state and FBI officials.

Life in Baltimore wasn’t exactly what Luna had expected it to be. Luna and former U.S. attorney DiBiagio did not see eye to eye, and it was well known around the office that DiBiagio had it in for Luna, according to an article written by The Washington Post. After $36,000 was reported missing from a case that Luna had worked on everyone was ordered to submit to a polygraph test. There has been some suggestion that Luna was in fear of losing his job and had hired on his own attorney.

There were also pressures in his personal life. He and his wife struggled to raise two boys while they both juggled long hours at work. Accounts belonging to Luna on adult websites advertising for sex partners have also suggested that his marriage wasn’t as strong as he would lead people to believe. In addition to raising his own family, Luna was also responsible for caring for his elderly parents. Some say that the stress brought on from his work and home life may have been his motive for suicide.

Another theory that has been raised is that Luna attempted to fake his own kidnapping. Luna stabbed himself with his penknife in order to gain sympathy and deflect attention away from the missing money. William Keisling, who wrote the book “The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna” told an ABC affiliate,

“The police reports say there was a pool of blood in the rear passenger seat. So what are they saying … that a U.S. attorney was driving across four states stabbing himself in the back, cutting his throat? Is the Justice Department hiring insane people? It’s ridiculous.”

Keisling, like others who have researched the case say that this was a clear cut murder. A pool of blood found in the backseat of Luna’s car suggests that someone else had been driving the vehicle as Luna bled out in the backseat. Keisling and others, including State Representative Mark Cohen, believe that Luna may have been killed in revenge by someone involved in the drug trade, possibly connected to the case he had been working on the night he went missing.

Unfortunately, it’s been 13 years since the body of Jonathan Luna was discovered and investigators are no closer to answers today as they were back then. The only consensus between those who have followed the case can come to is that the investigation into his death has been sub-par at best. A grand jury was convened in 2009 to conduct their own investigation into Luna’s death, but no report was ever issued. The case is officially still open and being investigated as a homicide in both the state of Pennsylvania and by the FBI. A $100,000 reward is on the table for anyone who can provide information that could lead to a conviction.

Sing Sing is a name synonymous with a grim history. Even its original name ‘Sinck Sinck’ translates into English as ‘Stone upon stone.’ A myriad of tales abound of harsh discipline, bad food, forced labor and executions, especially executions.  The legendary harshness of New York’s attitude to murderers led to Sing Sing (already notorious) acquiring an equally legendary new building.

The ‘Death House.’

Nowadays it has long fallen into disuse for executions. New York abolished the death penalty in 1972, the last execution being that of Eddie Lee Mays in August, 1963. He was the 695^th person executed in New York State since the adoption of the electric chair and the world’s first electrocution, that of murderer William Kemmler, at New York’s Auburn Prison in August 1890. Mays was the 614^th in Sing Sing.

Upstate New York’s most infamous address, Sing Sing Prison.

Single executions were the norm, while doubles, triples and multiples were less frequent, but still a regular feature. But one day, August 12, 1912, stands out for being the busiest day in Old Sparky’s long and checkered history, a day when the world’s first ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis earned more money for one hour’s work than most manual workers in 1912 earned in a year, and Sing Sing emptied more ‘Death House’ cells than on any day in its history.

Seven of them.

John Collins was slated to die for what seems more like manslaughter than murder. He’d been drunk. Very, very drunk, in fact. So drunk that when he started randomly firing a pistol into the walls and ceiling of his own apartment (which, for some reason, led to neighbours calling the police) he shot the first officer who came through the door. Patrolman Michael Lynch took a bullet in the chest and died shortly afterward. On August 12 Collins was set to follow him.

Joseph Ferrone was a different breed of cat. A violent, aggressive, nasty character, Ferrone had murdered his wife. His response to being convicted and condemned was to break a glass in the courtroom, use the jagged end to wound a juror, spit at the trial judge and then attempt suicide then and there. If he wanted to die then Edwin Davis was slated to grant him his death wish right after he’d finished with Jon Collins.

A double execution wasn’t unusual at Sing Sing. But, as fate and the trial judge would have it, it wasn’t going to be a double. Six Italian immigrants had attempted a robbery at the farm of one Henry Giffin, expecting to find $3000 to rob from what they thought would be an easy target. It was, only three women were there on the night of November 8, 1911 when they forced their way in. They fled with pennies, not finding the $3000 they expected. What they didn’t know was that, after the others had left the building, one of them had fatally knifed one of those women, Mary Hall.

They were equally unfamiliar with New York State’s rules regarding joint criminal enterprise. Rules stating very clearly that, as one of them had committed a murder and all of them had committed the bungled robbery, they were now all equally liable for a seat in Old Sparky. This would become terrifyingly apparent to them very, very soon.

It was Santo Zanza who committed the murder. His accomplices in the robbery were the Demarco brothers (Felipe and Salvatore), Lorenzo Cali, Angelo Guisto (who later blamed Zanza and claimed to have tried to stop him stabbing Mary Hall) and Vincenzo Cona. Zanza committed the murder. All would die in the chair.

Zanz, Guisto, Cona and Felipo Demarco were arrested the next day in the vicinity of the farm. Cali was arrested two days later at his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Salvatore DeMarco would remain at large until December 6, 1911 when he was arrested at his apartment in East Flatbush, New York.

Their trials were remarkable for their brevity, if not necessarily their fairness or taking things methodically and patiently. New Yorkers were up in arms about the crime. They were often prejudiced against immigrants in general and Italian ones in particular. The courthouse in White Plains was kept under heavy guard amid fears of hordes of Italian gangsters storming it to free their obviously (in the eyes of many New Yorkers of the day) guilty brethren.

Felipo DeMarco and Santo Zanza chose to be tried together while Guisto, Cona and Cali were tried separately. Salvatore DeMarco was arrested on December 6, 1911. By that time, in four trials lasting a total of less than thirty hours, Cali, Zanza, Guisto, Cona and Felipo DeMarco were all tried and convicted, the juries deliberating for less than fifteen minutes over every defendant except Guisto (whom they found guilty on a later date). It made no difference.

On December 4, 1911, two days before Salvatore DeMarco’s arrest and only 26 days after the murder of Mary Hall, all five men arrived in court to hear their sentences. Under New York law at the time there could only be one sentence which was duly passed on all of them.

Death by electrocution.

In fairness, lacking any understanding of the idea of joint enterprise, they had done much to convict themselves. They’d thought that, if they were to admit going on the robbery while strenuously denying the murder, they would serve time for the robbery only. In doing so they did the District Attorney’s job for him. By admitting their parts in the robbery they, under New York’s rules on joint enterprise, had by default set themselves up to be convicted of murder, a crime for which New York State then had a mandatory death penalty.

Two days after their sentencing Salvatore Demarco was arrested at his apartment in East Flatbush, New York. In another striking example of New York pursuing lightning justice in every sense, his trail began on December 19, 1911. It also ended on December 19, 1911 with his being convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. By Christmas Day, 1911 all six men would have a no doubt emotional reunion within the grim walls of the Sing Sing ‘Death House.’ Collins and Ferrone were, of course, already there.

Not a very Merry Christmas.

Zanza, to his credit, not only freely admitted his guilt, but did all he could to save his friends from a brief acquaintance with ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis. He not only accentuated his own guilt (dooming himself in the process, assuming anybody had been minded to seek a reprieve), but also stated repeatedly that he and he alone had committed the murder. Guisto had firmly blamed Zanza at trial, claiming that he’d tried to stop Zanza committing the murder. It was probably that testimony along with being the youngest of the defendants that caused the jury to take an extra few minutes before deciding to send him to the chair anyway. Zanza, having probably guessed his goose was cooked, spent the remaining months of his life trying in vain to help his friends. He failed, but not for lack of trying.

Which left Sing Sing’s boss, Warden John Kennedy, with a seriously unpleasant date in his diary. New York’s judges didn’t have any set schedule for setting execution dates. Granted, prisoners known as ‘rap partners’ who committed capital crimes together would usually walk their last mile together as well. With Collins and Ferrone already slated to die on August 12 and their appeals having failed, the new date for the DeMarco brothers, Cali, Cona and Guisto was also set for August 12. In the meantime, Santo Zanza had gone to his death on July 8 still admitting his guilt and their innocence. The executioner, who until 1919 was paid a flat rate of $50 per inmate instead of $150 for the first and $50 for each additional inmate when executing more than one, had picked up his $50.

On August 12 he would earn $350 more, more than immigrant laborors like the men he was about to execute would earn in a year.

Warden Kennedy wasn’t looking forward to it. He wasn’t fond of executions anyway, few prison wardens really are. They’re unpleasant, stressful, an administrative nightmare and a public relations hassle even when the public aren’t baying for blood and the press aren’t intent on selling as many papers as possible describing all the gory details. In this case both press and public were doing exactly that, with the additional media interest created by the simple fact that New York had never electrocuted seven men in one batch and, in fact, no other American prison had electrocuted so many at once, either. All in all, he wasn’t a happy man.

He would be even less happy with how things went.

The original execution chamber at Sing Sing. It would never see a busier day.

Zanza had already walked his last mile on July 8 in a triple execution, George Williams and Guiseppe Cerelli having formed the rest of what Illinois prison officials nicknamed a ‘triple hitter.’  Zanza wasn’t a problem. Neither were John Collins or Joseph Ferrone who, as it turned out, went to their deaths without resistance as did one of the condemned Italians, Guisto.

The other four were far less co-operative.

Salvatore and Felipo DeMarco, Vincenzo Cona and Lorenzo Cali didn’t understand the idea of joint enterprise and so didn’t see the reason for their executions. In the hours leading up to their executions and even while they were being taken one-by-one through Sing Sing’s infamous ‘green door’ they shouted, screamed, hollered, sobbed and generally went mad. This was bad enough for the staff and official witnesses in the execution chamber, separated as they were by only a single door. For the other condemned inmates (there being 18 in total until the seven walked their last mile) it would have been torture.

The original ‘Death House’ had the cells and execution chamber in adjoining rooms. Separated by only the notorious ‘green door’ inmates could hear each and every detail during an execution. They could hear the last words if an inmate had any. They could hear the sound of the switch being thrown, of the generator cranking up, of the power flowing through the cables, the voices of prison doctors and the Warden. Worst of all, New York law required an autopsy immediately after an execution and, the autopsy room adjoining the death chamber, the inmates could hear the bone saw as the prison doctor removed the top of an inmate’s skull to confirm the cause of death.

Not exactly what anybody wants to hear when they’re looking at that green door, knowing all the time that they’re likely to be walking through it sooner or later.

Collins went first to the accompaniment of Cali, the DeMarco brothers and Cona’s symphony of the damned. Witnesses and officials stood around growing ever more uncomfortable as Collins walked in, and sat down at 4:59am. Minutes later he was dead. Next up was Felipo DeMarco, who incoherently protested his innocence while his three rap partners continued their acapella arias. He died quickly and without further incident. After him came Cona, then Giusto (the only Italian that day to go quietly), then Cali followed by Salvatore DeMarco. Last of the seven was Joseph Ferrone, who went relatively quietly, the baying and insane howlings of Cona, the DeMarco’s and Cali having been permanently silence by Edwin Davis, much to everybody’s relief.

Collins had entered the room at 4:59am. Ferrone was wheeled out at 6:14am. In that time seven men had died, the eleven waiting their turn had been traumatised along with the staff and witnesses and Edwin Davis had made his hefty payday. The bloodlust of the public and the media’s desire for higher circulation figures had been satisfied.

But not everybody was as pleased with the event. New York’s Italian community were outraged and disgusted. Local banker and member of the Italian Chamber of Commerce Giovanni Lordi described it thus:

“It’s a fine advertisement for the United States. Brutal butchery is what I call it.”

He then went further:

“The most rabid advocate of ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ cannot justify such an outrage.”

Mrs. Champ Clark, wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was no less disgusted:

“The seven executions today by New York State are shocking examples of the inefficiency of the death policy. I believe with Bulwer Lytton that ‘The worst use to which you can put a man is to hang him.’”

Despite the seeming harshness of these men dying for a crime that only one of them committed it was all perfectly legal according to the laws and standards of the time. They had all gone to commit a robbery. During the robbery a murder was committed. Hence, as they were all guilty of the robbery, they were all equally guilty of the murder.

With an innocent victim like Mary hall and rampant public prejudice against immigrants, especially Italian ones, the case was never going to attract public sympathy. As such, and facing an election in November, 1912 only three months after the executions, Governor John Alden Dix wasn’t going to sacrifice himself to the voters when he could sacrifice a group of admitted criminals to the law and public attitudes. It’s somewhat ironic, therefore, that if he allowed the executions to go ahead in order to protect his electoral interests he was doomed to be disappointed. Dix didn’t even get as far as fighting for re-election, instead losing the Democratic nomination to William Sulzer who also won that election.

Rather ironic, all things considered.

The story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865 at Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth is a well-known tale from American History. What many people don’t know is the story of Henry Rathbone, the Union Major who attempted to apprehend Booth, and his steady decline into madness since that tragic day.

Major Rathbone and his fiance Clara had been personally invited to attend the play that evening by their longtime friends President Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln after several others, including Ulysses S. Grant and Thomas Eckert, had declined the offer. It was during the play that Rathbone had noticed Booth enter into the Presidential box and watched in horror as the President was shot in the back.

Rathbone ran up to the President’s box in an attempt to apprehend Booth. Booth fought off Rathbone and slashed the length of his left arm from elbow to shoulder. In spite of the extent of his injuries, Rathbone attempted to grab Booth as he went to jump from the Presidential Box. Rathbone grabbed hold of Booth’s coat, causing Booth to tumble down to the stage below. His left leg broke just above his ankle, but he successfully escaped.

President Lincoln was taken to the nearby home of William Peterson, where he would perish the following day. Rathbone, not realizing the severity of his injuries, escorted Mary Todd Lincoln to the Peterson home and helped stand watch over Lincoln as his health rapidly deteriorated. Rathbone eventually loss consciousness from blood loss. The slash had cut him nearly to the bone and had hit a major artery. A surgeon tended to Rathbone’s wounds and sent him and Clara home.

12 days after shooting the President, Union forces surrounded Booth and put him to death. As for Rathbone, he was able to make a full recovery from his injuries, but that night would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. He had felt, at least in part, responsible for Lincoln’s death.

Rathbone went on to marry his fiance Clara, but married life didn’t cure him of his inner demons. He resigned from the Army in 1870 after having risen to the rank of Colonel. Things only took a turn for the worst for Rathbone. He struggled to find work due to his mental instability. He, his wife Clara and three children spent time traveling around Europe, visiting spas and other health clinics in hopes of finding a cure for Rathbone’s mental illness.

Clara had become fed up with Rathbone’s mood swings, but ultimately decided to stay with him on account of the children. Eventually he was appointed to the U.S. Consul General’s office in Handover, Germany. The family relocated and Clara believed that a fresh start was exactly what was needed to cure Rathbone of his deteriorating mental state, as well as their deteriorating marriage. Instead the relocation had the opposite effect on Rathbone.

Believing that his wife had been having an affair, Rathbone and Clara fought constantly. The tensions within the couple’s unhappy marriage would finally come to a head in the early hours of December 23, 1883.

Clara awoke just before daybreak to find her husband fully clothed and pacing about the room. She asked what he was doing and he began demanding to see the children. Clara refused and the two got into a heated argument. Rothbone set out towards the children’s bedroom, but Clara managed to fight him off just enough to get him back into the master bedroom. Clara blocked Rothbone’s passage back to the doorway. That’s when Rothbone pulled out a gun and shot his wife, then proceeded to stab her multiple times.

Horrified by what had just happened, Rothbone turned the knife on himself. He stabbed himself five times. Rothbone’s suicide attempt had failed, but Clara died as a result of her injuries.

After their father’s arrest the children were sent back to the United States in order to live with their uncle. Rothbone was charged with murder, but was declared legally insane by doctors who conducted extensive interviews with him. Rothbone had insisted that it was an intruder who had killed his wife and attempted to stab him. He was forced to live out his years in Hildesheim, German at the Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

He would eventually go on to die there in August of 1911. He was buried next to Clara.

Nearly every parent who works and has children under school age dreads the idea of dropping them off at daycare. In most cases parents do everything within their means to ensure that they are dropping their children off in a safe environment. Unfortunately, there are times that even those checks are not enough to keep predators and abusers at bay, and even the best of parents question what they could have done differently when they find that the place they’ve entrusted their children to is responsible for some of the most reprehensible acts imaginable.

Throughout the 1980s the daycare abuse hysteria, which heavily tied into the Satanic panic, caused many families to forego daycare altogether, but in today’s times that notion is not always a feasible one. While we can rest assured that most daycare providers strive to give children the best environment possible for them to be able to learn and grow, there are some who enter into the field for much darker reasons.

Background checks are in place to prevent some of the more sinister elements from ever having the opportunity to step foot on the center’s grounds, but sometimes people fall through the cracks and even the best preventative measures could not have prevented some of society’s worst monsters from having access to our children. Today we will look at five of the most horrible cases of daycare abuse.

ABC Kidz Child Rape

In 2013, sheriffs deputies conducted a standard check on registered sex offender James Osborne and discovered an unregistered laptop in his possession. On the laptop, footage of daycare worker Heather Koon was discovered. In the videos Koon can be seen carrying out sexual acts with young children who attended ABC Kidz Child Center in Elyria, Ohio, some as young as one and two years old. Koon had been dating Osborne at the time of her arrest and through his encouragement, Koon agreed to engage in sexual encounters with four of the children she cared for.

Koon has since pleaded guilty to charges including rape, illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, kidnapping and pandering obscenity involving a minor. She is currently facing life in prison, but may be able to serve 15, on the condition that she registers as a sex offender for the rest of her life.

As for Osborne, he has also pleaded guilty to all charges, which include complicity to rape, complicity to kidnapping, pandering obscenity involving a minor, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, failure to register as a sex offender and use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. He also faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, but may be able to serve as little as 15 depending on the judge’s decision.

The Boston Child Rapist

At 25-years-old John Burbine had been convicted of molesting three young children aged 5 to 7 years old. Burbine had been hired as a babysitter for the boys and it wouldn’t be long thereafter that one of the boys would report that Burbine had been fondling him to his parents. Burbine was charged, but received only a 6-month sentence and ordered to serve a two-year probation. The family believed that Burbine, now being a convicted sex offender, would never be able to care for children again. They thought wrong.

Between 2010 and 2013 Burbine and his wife owned and operated an unlicensed daycare called Waterfall Education Center. Burbine advertised the service online, including on parenting message boards and coupon sites. Burbine would go on to rape 13 young children ranging in age from 8 months to 3-years-old.

The prosecutor’s office began to receive complaints about the center and Burbine in September of 2012. Burbine was placed under arrest and officials assured the public that, if convicted, Burbine would never again see the light of day and certainly would never step foot near a child again. Burbine committed suicide in his jail cell as he awaited trial.

Baby Fight Club

Two workers at the Minnieland Academy daycare center in Virginia were charged with cruelty or injury to a child and assault and battery after social workers investigated complaints against the center. Allegations against Kierra Spriggs and Sarah Jordan included stepping on children’s bare toes as a form of punishment, dunking children into portable pools, tossing children into their cots at naptime, beating a child with an easel, spraying children in the face with hoses and feeding kids spicy hot cheetos. Additionally the pair were accused of running a “baby fight club” from the center, where toddlers were forced to fight one another for their amusement.

As soon as Minnieland Academy got word of the allegations against the workers they were fired immediately. Spriggs was found guilty of child cruelty and assault and battery after a two week trial. Jordan was also found guilty of similar charges. Both are still awaiting their sentencing, but could receive up to 40 years in prison.

Drugged Children

When Adam Seagull suddenly died at an in-home daycare operating in Fairfield, Connecticut his death was initially explained away as SIDs. The baby was found with no apparent trauma and had not been reported to have been ill prior to his death. It wouldn’t be until an autopsy report revealed extremely high levels of Diphenhydramine, most commonly known as Benadryl, found in the infant’s system.

No criminal charges have been filed over the March 2016 incident, but the 4 month old’s death has been ruled a homicide.

Fire While Worker Shops

24-year-old Jessica Tata was sentenced to 80 years in prison after she left four children left within her care to go shopping. Tata, who had been running an in-home daycare at the time, allowed seven children to stay at the home unsupervised as she went shopping at a nearby Target store. Two children were seriously injured, while a 16-month-old perished in a fire that erupted in the home after a pan of oil Tata had left boiling on the stove ignited.

During her trial it was discovered that Tata had often left children she had been paid to care for home alone while she ran her errands and it was only a matter of time before a fatal accident occurred. Tata was found guilty of murdering the 16-month-old in her care due to her gross negligence.

According to a report published by Bloomberg in May of 2015, senior citizen crimes are on the rise. Countries worldwide are seeing a sharp rise in crimes committed by perpetrators over 65-years old, particularly in European and Asian countries. Today we will take a look at five people who have earned the title as the world’s oldest known criminals.

Reginald Davies (arrested at age 78)

Compared to the rest of the people to make this list, Reginald Davies seems like a spring chicken at the ripe old age of 78. Since the end of the first World War Davies began a disturbing pattern of grooming and raping young girls. 63 years after committing his first heinous act against a child, Davies was finally apprehended. In 2012 Davies was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison after being convicted for 13 counts of rape, attempted rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child.

Victor Twartz (arrested at age 91)

Victor Twartz earned the title as “world’s oldest drug mule” after he was caught trying to smuggle 4.5 kilograms of cocaine disguised as bars of soap into a Sydney airport after traveling to New Delhi. Twartz’s lawyers claimed that he had been taken advantage of by people in India whom he had met online prior to making the trip. After a lengthy trial, Australian courts agreed to drop the charges against the retired oral surgeon, believing that he had been the victim of a scam and tricked into smuggling the illegal substance across international borders.

J.L. Hunter Rountree (arrested at age 92)

Though J.L. Hunter Rountree had been very successful in his younger years, eventually his wife passed away, depression took hold and his retirement savings were running dry. At the age of 82 he made the decision to turn to bank robbery, after bank loans forced him to file for bankruptcy.

For 10 years, Rountree would walk into banks, hand tellers with a simple note stating “robbery” and walk out with thousands of dollars. Though he had been caught three times, Rountree said he felt a certain amount of satisfaction after he robbed a bank. His last thrill would be in the the summer of 2003. After a short high-speed chase with police he was arrested and received a sentence of 12 years in prison. He died at the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners on October 12, 2004.

Amanda Rice Stevenson (arrested at age 96)

In September of 2011, Amanda Rice Stevenson would become Florida’s oldest murderer after fatally shooting her nephew. Stevenson and her nephew, Johnny Rice, had a long history of problems and police had been called to the home a number of times for domestic disputes between the two. It is unclear what sparked Stevenson’s decision to shoot her nephew or where the gun came from, but Johnny’s wife came home to find his body. After pushing her way into the door, which Johnny’s body had been blocking, his wife walked in to find his aunt sitting in the back room and a handgun on the floor. Stevenson was arrested, but the charges against her were eventually dropped after it was proven that the elderly woman had been suffering from dementia.

Gaston John Pinsard (arrested at age 96)

Gaston John Pinsard became the oldest prisoner in the British Isles after his conviction for molesting two young girls during the 1950s and 1960s. Pinsard had been questioned by police about the attacks and later confessed. Pinsard claims that he had suffered from years of sexual and physical abuse himself at a Jersey children’s home and it wasn’t until he joined the Army that he realized his sexual curiosities differed from other young men his age. Pinsard has referred to himself as a “filthy devil” and claims that he had stopped touching the girls once he realized that what he was doing was inappropriate. The judge sentenced Pinshard to serve 18 months, taking the man’s age and health into consideration.

A subset of our audience really has an issue with episodes that feature any crimes being done to children. That’s understandable, since they are the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. But there are cases, however rare, where the “monsters” are the children themselves.

In this episode we explore three cases in which children killed, seemingly for the sheer pleasure of it. Beware though, you may not ever want to have children after this episode.

Sources

• Confession
• Sumner County Teen To Be Tried As An Adult
• Hendersonville teen ruled competent for murder trial
• Zachary Davis on Dr. Phil Part 1, Part 2
• Teen Who Killed Mom With Sledgehammer Learns Fate
• Teen Murders Mother With Sledgehammer Nancy Grace Transcript
• Teen accused of killing mom with sledgehammer
• Teen laughed as he killed his mother with a sledgehammer and tried to burn his brother alive
• I went to school and had class with Zachary Davis Reddit Post
• Kids who kill – the most infamous cases of children who murdered parents
• ‘Soap fantasy’ son killed mother
• Coronation Street – Richard Hillman Kills Maxine
• YouTube Channel for Danielab1702Gold
• YouTube Channel for Danielab1702
• Murderers And Their Mothers ~ Daniel Bartlam The ‘Coronation Street’ Killer
• Mary Bell Wikipedia Page
• The Mary Bell Case
• Meet Mary Bell: The 10-Year-Old Prostitute Killer Who Got a Second Chance at Life
• Child killer Mary Bell becomes a grandmother at 51

Music

• Flex Your Trunk – Kalabi
• 14 Space 1 – Brain Douche
• Believe – Carlos Schwarz
• Surely – Brain Douche
• Northeastern Corridor – DAC Crowell
• Across The Night – Rildrim
• Tugboat Road – allMeadow and Rob Costlow

In May of 2015, a concerned neighbor asked firefighters responding to a house fire to assist in a welfare check on an Ensley Township, Michigan couple. Firefighters entered the home to find Martin Duram had sustained five gunshot wounds, while his wife Glenna had been suffering from a single gunshot wound to the head. Martin was pronounced dead on the scene, while Glenna was taken to a nearby hospital.

As Glenna desperately clung to life, a mobile crime lab was dispatched to assist police in collecting evidence from the scene. After nearly a year of investigation, Glenna Duram was arrested in June of 2016 for the murder of her husband in what investigators believe to have been a botched murder suicide attempt.

Glenna, who claims to have lost all memory of the incident, insists that she did not kill her husband. On the scene investigators found three suicide notes, suggesting that Glenna had long been suicidal prior to police uncovering the grizzly scene.

While shocking, a story like this wouldn’t be too terribly unusual if it weren’t for one of the pieces of evidence, and possibly a key witness for the prosecutor. According to The Washington Post the couple’s African grey parrot, Bud, continues to repeat the phrase, “Don’t f—ing shoot!” These are believed to have been some of the last words Martin Duram said as Glenna allegedly shot him before turning the gun on herself.

According to Martin’s family the parrot is known for repeating anything he hears. Nawaygo County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Springstead says that the parrot sounds as if it is mimicking two separate voices and may be repeating the last quarrel in the couple’s torrid love affair. Springstead admits that calling a parrot to the stand as a witness is an unusual move, but the case does provide a unique opportunity to set a precedent for future cases where a parrot’s speech patterns could possibly be used as evidence.

While some argue that it’s impossible to determine whether or not the parrot is mimicking something he saw on TV or an actual argument he witnessed, experts are working with the prosecutor and carefully analyzing the parrot’s speech patterns in conjunction with speech patterns of Glenna Duram in hopes that they can prove that some of the phrases the parrot is repeating came from Glenna’s mouth.

Though the prosecutor is still waiting to hear back from the judge on whether or not the parrot’s testimony will be admissible, it is doubtful that Bud will be called to the stand. Regardless of the judge’s decision, Martin’s family has faith that Glenna Duram will be spending a long time behind bars.

On February 19, 2016, firefighters were called to a Edgerton, Missouri residence. What started out as a routine house fire call quickly escalated into a murder investigation as the wee hours of February 20^th broke. Two of the home’s elderly residents, as well as a young mother, her infant son and the family dog were all found shot prior to being set on fire. Three of the victims and the dog were found in the yard, while the patriarch of the family was found near a shed in the backyard.

Russ and Shirley Denham, the two elderly residents who were found shot and lit on fire at their suburban Missouri home.

Missing from the scene was the grandson of the elderly couple and brother of the young mother who perished in the murders. Greyden Denham was immediately considered a person of interest, but until a thorough investigation could be conducted, investigators could only issue a warrant for car theft after a Nissan was found missing from the scene.

Heather Ager and her 3-month-old baby Mason were also among the victims found at the scene.

It wouldn’t be until several days later that Denham would be found wandering around naked and intoxicated in Arizona. The missing Nissan belonging to Denham’s grandfather was located at a nearby hotel, but records did not show that Denham had ever checked in as a guest there.

Greyden Denham poses with his mother Shelly Denham.

Months after Denham had been taken into custody he was charged in the murder of his grandfather Russell Denham, his grandmother Shirley Denham, sister Heather Ager and his 3-month-old nephew Mason Schiavoni. In addition to the murder charges, Denham is also facing charges including armed criminal action, animal abuse, 2^nd degree arson and tampering with physical evidence.

It wasn’t the first time Denham had been in serious legal trouble. Last year records show that Denham had assaulted a corrections officer. Denham also had active warrants out for his arrest in Kansas City and Smithville and had lost his license due to failure to pay his child support.

In spite of what may seem like an open and shut case, Denham’s mother Shelly tells The Platte County Citizen that her son is not the monster the media is portraying. Shelly, who lost both her parents, her daughter and grandchild in the murders, says that her son has a warm heart and claims that she has “strong evidence” that he is clear of any wrongdoing.

Shelly goes on to say that her daughter Heather had written to her while Denham had been staying with his grandparents and had told her that they had all been having a great time and did not make mention of any hostility within the home while Greyden Denham had been temporarily staying at the residence. It is Denham’s mother’s belief that her son had been drugged and left in Arizona.

Greyden Denham has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

As of June 29^th, 2016 Denham has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is still in the process of obtaining a lawyer.