Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (15 page)

William Duell

Under eye-catching headlines, the
London Magazine
of November 1740 gave a detailed account of a macabre incident which followed the hanging of 16-year-old William Duell for ravishing, robbing and murdering Sarah Griffin at Acton.

After being hanged by John Thrift (not the most dependable of hangmen), Duell’s body was, in accordance with a law designed to deter other wrongdoers and also to provide specimens for medical students, brought to Surgeons’ Hall to be anatomised,

‘but after it had been stripped and laid on the board and one of the servants was washing him in order to be cut into, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to be coming quicker and quicker, on which a surgeon took some two ounces of blood from him. In two hours he was able to sit up in his chair and groaned very much and seemed in great agitation, but could not speak, tho’ it was the opinion of most people that if he had been put in a warm bed and proper care taken, he would have come to himself. The surgeons attributed his recovery to ‘a full flow of vital blood which enabled his system to resist tightening of the veins.’

He was kept at Surgeons’ Hall until twelve o’clock at night, the sheriff ’s officers, who were sent for on this extraordinary occasion, attending. He was then conveyed to Newgate Prison, to remain there until he is proved to be the very identical person who had been ordered for execution on 24 November [i.e. that Duell himself hadn’t somehow escaped, his place having been taken by a substitute]. The next day he was in good health in Newgate, ate his victuals heartily, and asked for his mother. Great numbers of people resorted continually to see him. He did not recollect being hanged but said that he had been in a dream; that he had dreamt of Paradise, where an angel told him his sins were forgiven.’

At least he didn’t ‘go west’ again (the direction from Newgate to Tyburn, hence the saying), for on appearing at the next session at the Old Bailey he was sentenced to be transported to the American colonies for life.

When sentenced to die by the guillotine, M. Moyse, having been found guilty of murdering one of his sons, exclaimed indignantly, ‘What – would you execute the father of a family?’

David Evans

In 1829, the first year of his being appointed hangman, William Calcraft ran into considerable difficulties when he was ordered to travel to Carmarthen in Wales and hang David Evans, a young man found guilty of killing his sweetheart. On the scaffold it immediately became evident that a hangman’s lot is not a happy one, for the crowd wasted no time in directing their abuse when, on operating the drop, the rope suddenly snapped and the victim fell to the boards, unhurt but not unnaturally in a severe state of shock. At the distressing sight the onlookers chorused, ‘Shame! Let him go!’ and the victim, staggering to his feet, gasped, ‘I claim my liberty – you’ve hanged me once and you have no power or authority to hang me again!’

Nor was that all; as the crowd surged forward, crushing up against the scaffold, the gallows were seen to sway dangerously, threatening to come crashing down on those gathered below, and it was then discovered that the carpenter responsible had failed to secure the crossbeam sufficiently. Evans, now distraught, was heard to shout, ‘It is against the law to hang me a second time!’ But Calcraft, determined to impose his authority as executioner on the situation, said firmly, ‘You are greatly mistaken. There is no such law as that, to let a man go if there is an accident and he is not properly hanged.’ He clinched the argument by declaring, ‘My warrant and my order are to hang you by the neck until you are dead. So up you go, and hang you must, until you are dead.’ And with the assistance of two warders

– and risking attack by the now infuriated mob – he proceeded to dispatch the still-protesting Evans into the next world.

Sentenced to death for murdering a policeman, James Murphy was held in York Castle. The night before his execution, while having his dinner, he was informed that the hangman was coming to have a look at him. Totally unperturbed, Murphy commented, ‘Oh, show him in!’ and continued to chew on a mutton bone as the executioner entered the cell.

On mounting the scaffold the following day, he noticed that the hangman was far from being calm and collected. To encourage him, Murphy exclaimed, ‘Now then, you’re trembling – don’t be nervous, or you’ll bungle the whole thing!’

Champ Ferguson

During the American Civil War the Confederates organised bands of their men to harass the enemy by attacking their lines of supplies and isolated units in much the same way as the British Army’s Long Range Desert Group operated in North Africa in World War II. Most of the American guerrillas were well-trained and disciplined, but others were little more than thieves and murderers, one of their leaders being Champ Ferguson, a man known to have killed at least twenty-two people in cold blood, including an officer lying wounded in a hospital. On 24 May 1865 he was captured, court-martialled and found guilty, the death sentence being passed on him.

On 20 October everything had been prepared for his execution, which was to take place in the courtyard of the Penitentiary; sentries were on duty at the gates, soldiers paced the walls, and a hearse was parked within containing a coffin (despite Ferguson expressing a wish for one made of cherry wood, the one awaiting his body was of stained poplar). At ten o’clock it was taken out of the hearse and deposited in front of the gallows with its lid removed.

There were about three hundred spectators gathered around the scaffold. There had been a new crossbeam fitted and to the ring in the centre of it a four-strand manila rope had been attached, its strength having previously been tested with a two-hundred-pound weight. Ominously, the rope had been adjusted to permit just a two-foot drop.

The
Nashville Daily Press
published on the following day described the events as they unfolded:

‘At twenty minutes past eleven Ferguson, his elbows and hands pinioned, was escorted out, to ascend the six steps which led up on to the scaffold, calmly and without assistance, apparently paying no heed to the coffin as he walked past it. He was dressed with scrupulous neatness in a black frock coat with vest and pants of the same material and black gloves and new gaiters.

The noose was then placed around his neck and for the first time he showed signs of emotion. His face flushed a deep scarlet, the perspiration broke forth profusely and his lips closed with a convulsive quiver. The realisation of his awful predicament seemed to have flashed over his mind in all its fullness, overpowering his fortitude. Colonel Shafter wiped the sweat away for him and the prisoner gradually recovered, then said, ‘I want to be sent home to my family; I don’t want to be buried in this soil.’ After another pause he continued in an excited tone, ‘Don’t give me to the doctors. I don’t want to be cut up here.’ Colonel Shafter answered, ‘You shan’t, Mr Ferguson.’

A short silence followed and then the prisoner again said, ‘I want to be put in that thing,’ pointing to his coffin, ‘and taken to White County, where I can have my family around me. If I had only had my way I wouldn’t have been here. Whenever you are ready I am done. My last request is to be sent away with my wife.’ The white cap was then drawn over his face. His last words were, ‘O Lord, have mercy on me!’

As he uttered the last word, Detective Banville, at one blow of a hatchet, severed the rope which sustained the drop and the body fell some two feet with a heavy thud. He died easy, there being no death struggle as is often the case. Twice he slightly shrugged his shoulders and soon the desperate guerrilla whose crimes and cruelties had made his name a terror, was a corpse.

The first examination of the body took place thirteen minutes after the drop fell. The surgeon opened Ferguson’s coat and vest and applied his ear to his chest. The heart was still beating forcibly. Five minutes subsequently, faint and indistinct murmurs of the heart were still heard. In four and a half minutes more, life was gone. The neck was not broken by the fall, but the rope had completely embedded itself in the front part of the neck, the knot having slipped to the rear. Considerable extravasation of blood occurred from the nostrils, as shown by the cap which covered his head.

At twenty-four minutes past twelve the body was cut down. The remains were placed in the coffin, the lid was screwed down and the spectators dispersed. In accordance with the opinion of the attending surgeons the immediate cause of death was cerebral apoplexy, the fall not being enough to break the neck. It is probable that he suffered little or none, though life was not extinct for some time, yet sensation ceased the moment the body dropped.’

But did it? One wonders, because his heart continued to beat for more than twenty minutes, whether he was still alive for that length of time.

In 1859, John Brown, the ardent American opponent of slavery (he whose body ‘lies a-mouldering in the grave’), stood on the scaffold with the noose around his neck and then had to wait for ten minutes while the troops on parade marched and countermarched as they took up their correct formation. John Brown, on being asked by the gaoler whether he was tired, replied, ‘No – but don’t keep me waiting longer than necessary!’

Laurence Shirley, Earl Ferrers

In a more enlightened age this gentleman would have been diagnosed as having a serious mental deficiency, and confined somewhere where he could neither harm himself nor anyone else; as it was, he was simply put to death.

For the account of his crime we are once again indebted to the
Newgate Calendar & Malefactors’ Bloody Register
, which described the Earl as being a man who was highly intelligent when sober, but a madman when drunk:

‘Some oysters had been sent from London which, not proving good, his lordship directed one of the servants to swear that the carter had changed them, but the servant declined to take such an oath; the Earl flew on him in a rage, stabbed him in the breast with a knife, cut his head with a candlestick and kicked him in the groin with great severity. On another occasion, during a dispute with his brother and his wife, who were staying there, Lady Ferrers being absent from the room, the Earl ran upstairs with a large clasp-knife in his hand and asked a servant whom he met where his lady was. The man said, ‘In her own room!’ and, being directed to follow him thither, Lord Ferrers ordered him to load a brace of pistols with bullets. This order was complied with, but the servant, being apprehensive of mischief, declined to prime them, so the Earl did so himself. He then threatened that, if the man did not go immediately and shoot his brother, he would blow his, the servant’s, brains out. Upon the servant hesitating, the Earl pulled the trigger of one pistol but it missed fire.

Earl Ferrers Shooting Mr Johnson His Steward

Hereupon the countess dropped to her knees and begged him to appease his passions, but in return he swore at her and threatened her destruction if she opposed him. The servant managed to escape from the room and warned the brother, who promptly roused his wife from her bed and they left the house, though it was then two o’clock in the morning.’

At this stage the really unfortunate victim enters the scene, a man named Johnson, who was steward (the keeper of accounts) to the household. The Earl had formed the opinion that Johnson was conspiring with the trustees over a contract for some coal mines, and had made up his mind to kill the man. And on Sunday 13 January 1760, he sent orders for Johnson to come up to the big house. When he arrived, the Earl took him into his own room and locked the door. Then, as graphically described in the
Calendar
,

‘he produced a paper to him, purporting, as he said, to be a confession of his villainy, and required him to sign it. Johnson refused and expostulated, and his lordship, then drawing a pistol which he had charged and kept in his pocket for the purpose, presented it and bid him kneel down. The poor man then knelt down on one knee, but Lord Ferrers cried out, so loud as to be heard by one of the maids in the kitchen, ‘Down on your other knee; declare that you have acted against Lord Ferrers; your time is come – you must die!’ and then immediately fired.

The ball entered Johnson’s body just below the last rib, yet he did not drop, but rose up, and expressed the sensations of a dying man both by his looks and by such broken sentences as are usually uttered in such situations. The report of the pistol having alarmed the women in the wash house, the Earl shouted, ‘Who is there?’ and ordered one of the women to send for one of the men and another to assist in getting Mr Johnson to bed. He then sent for Mr Kirkland the surgeon.