Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (19 page)

A spectacle now presented itself which equalled anything witnessed on the streets of Paris during the Revolution; the unhappy Johnston, half-alive, stripped of part of his clothes and his shirt turned up so that the whole of his naked back and the upper part of his body was exhibited, lay extended on the ground in the middle of the street in front of the police station. At last, after a considerable interval, some of the police officers, laying hold of the unfortunate man, dragged him trailing along the ground for about twenty paces, into their den, which is also the old Cathedral.

Johnston remained in the police station for about half an hour, where he was immediately attended to by a surgeon, who bled him in both arms and in the temporal vein, by which the half-suspended animation was restored; but the unfortunate man did not utter a word. In the meantime a military force consisting of men of the 88th Regiment arrived from the Castle under the direction of a magistrate. The soldiers, having been ordered to load with ball ammunition, were drawn across the street surrounding the police station and the place of execution.

It was now within thirteen minutes of four o’clock when the wretched Johnston was carried out of the police station to the scaffold. His clothes were thrown about him in such a way that he seemed half-naked, and while a number of men were around him, holding him up on the table and fastening the rope again about his neck, his clothes fell down in such a manner that decency would have been shocked, had it even been a spectacle of entertainment instead of an execution. Simpson then released his victim temporarily, in order to shorten the rope by taking a few turns round the hook above, then noosed Johnston again.

While they were adjusting his clothes, the unhappy man was left vibrating, upheld partly by the rope and partly by his feet on the table. At last the table was removed from beneath him, when, to the indescribable horror of every spectator, he was seen suspended with his face uncovered, and one of his hands broke loose from the cords with which it should have been tied, and his fingers could be seen straining to loosen the noose. Dreadful cries were then heard from every quarter. A chair was brought and, the hangman having mounted on it, disengaged by force the hand of the dying man from the rope. He then descended, leaving the man’s face still uncovered and exhibiting a spectacle which no human eye should ever be compelled to behold. It was at length judged prudent to throw a napkin over the face of the struggling corpse.

The butchery, for it can be called nothing else, continued until twenty-three minutes past four o’clock, long after the street lamps were lighted for the night, and the moon and stars distinctly visible, and the execution continued until nearly half an hour after, controlled by the magistrate who had earlier summoned the military force. The soldiers, who had behaved throughout with the utmost propriety, remained at the spot until the body was cut down, and as it was then dusk, the crowd gradually dispersed.’

So appalled were the authorities at the fiasco that had taken place that Simpson was instantly dismissed; he moved to Perth, taking on the job of hangman there, but died soon afterwards, for which, no doubt, the criminal fraternity of that fair city were duly thankful.

In court in May 1896, Albert Milsom and Henry Fuller accused each other of the murder of their victim. Both were found guilty and continued their violent quarrel while being taken back to their cells. Later, on the scaffold, they were kept apart by having another murderer, John Seaman, positioned between them on the drop, and it is reported that Seaman’s last words were, ‘It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever been a bloody peacemaker!’

Captain Kidd

There may have been a small procession accompanying the infant William Kidd on his way to be christened at the local church; there was certainly a much more elaborate cavalcade on the day on which he died, the 23 May 1701. It assembled at Newgate Prison and was led by the Deputy Marshal of the Admiralty, carrying the Silver Oar, the symbol of the jurisdiction which that court held over all mariners. He was followed by the Marshal of the Admiralty, resplendent in his traditional uniform, riding in his official coach, his coachmen also clad in their distinctive livery, and behind them came the City of London marshals on horseback. The next vehicle, without which there would have been no need for such a parade of pomp and splendour, was far more commonplace but just as traditional, for, escorted by the sheriff ’s men, it had as passengers the City’s hangman, the Newgate Ordinary – and the victim, pirate Captain Kidd.

The procession travelled to the bend of the River Thames at Wapping and Execution Dock, the site at the river’s edge reserved for the execution of those who committed maritime crimes. Thousands packed every conceivable viewpoint, the riverside inns and jetties being jammed with spectators. Near to the shore, long lines of barges accommodated those who could afford such front row seats, while further out in the river, larger ships were moored, their decks and even their rigging swarming with sightseers, all eager to witness the death of such a notorious pirate.

In his younger days Captain Kidd had moved to New York, where he bought a small vessel and traded among the pirates who infested the area, although outwardly he professed to be such an honest and trustworthy man that the Earl of Bellamont, the Governor of New England and New York, employed him to assist in suppressing the pirates, and furthermore persuaded the authorities in London to raise £6,000 to subsidise such measures. Accordingly a vessel named
Adventure Galley
was fitted out and in 1695 Kidd and his crew sailed to Madeira, thence to Bonavista and St Jago, and eventually to Madagascar. Not encountering any of the pirate fraternity, he headed out into the Indian Ocean, where he stopped and captured the
Quedah Merchant
, a ship of 400 tons’ burden, the master of which was an Englishman named Wright, the crew members being of Dutch, French, Moorish and African nationalities.

At that stage, reasoning that if he couldn’t catch a pirate he might just as well become one himself, he sailed back to Madagascar, burnt the
Adventure Galley
, and divided the prize money (the cargo of his latest catch) proportionally between the members of his crew, depending on their rank, keeping forty shares for himself. Having transferred his spoils to another sloop, he disposed of the
Quedah Merchant
to a man named Bolton who, for whatever reason, decided to expose him to the authorities as a pirate; accordingly when Captain Kidd later sailed his sloop into Boston Harbour in 1699, Bolton was there – as were the governor’s men, who promptly arrested him.

The following year he was sent, a prisoner under guard, to England, and appeared before the bar of the House of Commons, the members of which were investigating the grounds on which Kidd had been recruited in the first place as a ‘pirate-catcher’. It was reported that ‘the prisoner, who was in some degree intoxicated, made a very contemptible appearance in the House, on which a member, who had been one of the most earnest to have him examined, violently exclaimed, “This fellow! I thought he was a knave, but unfortunately he happens to be a fool likewise!”’ He was committed for trial at the Old Bailey; his defence, that he had thought the
Quedah Merchant
was a pirate ship because it was manned by Moors, was rejected, there being no proof that the ship had ever committed any act of piracy, and he was sentenced to death.

Kidd went to his death drunk, a state which, as the Newgate Ordinary observed at the time, ‘had so decomposed his mind that, now, it was in a very bad Frame.’ But the frame that really did the damage was the structure to which the intoxicated Captain was secured – the gallows. Perhaps it was just as well that the felon had partaken of a few flagons of ale that day ‘for the rope broke and he fell to the muddy foreshore again, but being immediately tied up again, the Ordinary again entreated him to prepare his soul to meet its important change. These exhortations appeared to have the wished-for effect, and he was left to swing, having professed his hopes of salvation through the merits of the Great Redeemer and his charity to the world.’ Whether his hopes of salvation were ever granted, is not known; what is known however, is that his ‘charity to the world’ stopped short of informing the chaplain or anyone else where he had buried his piratical treasure.

After a suitable interval had elapsed and the tide was at its lowest, the executioner and his assistant cut the cadaver down and chained it to a wooden stake driven deep into the sands, its head and limbs to loll in rhythm with the waves of the next three high tides as a dire warning to the thousands of seamen who entered or left the City via the Thames each year.

Guilty of murdering one of his crew, Captain James Lowry was another who had been sentenced to be hanged at Execution Dock but, unlike that of Captain Kidd, his corpse was to be coated with tar, trussed in a tight-fitting ‘suit’ of iron straps, and suspended from a gibbet as a dire warning to all felonious mariners. He accepted the verdict of the court philosophically but on being visited by the blacksmith who had come to measure him for his new metallic outfit, he fell back on his bed in a dead faint, thereby making it easier for his ‘tailor’ to carry out his task. On regaining consciousness the Captain explained apologetically that it was not the fear of death that had upset him, but the disgrace of the public exposure!

Another condemned seafarer, William Jackson, awaiting execution in Newgate Prison in 1739, saw the blacksmith enter the condemned cell with his tape measure – and promptly dropped dead with fright.

John Henry George Lee

John Lee had been a servant in the household of an elderly lady, Miss Emma Anne Whitehead Keyse, who lived in Babbacombe on the Devon coast. Employing him had been an act of charity on her part, for when Lee was sentenced to prison for stealing from a previous employer, she had suggested to the authorities that rather than incarceration, it would help him correct his ways if he were to take a job in her house as footman and gardener. A fatal mistake, for on the night of 14 November 1884 one of the maids was woken by the smell of smoke and on venturing downstairs she found the dead and partially charred body of her mistress on the dining room floor. Shocked, she returned upstairs for help, there to be joined by Lee who, on seeing her faintness, supported her; she was later to discover that her nightdress bore traces of blood.

Investigations by the police revealed that Miss Keyse had been dealt a violent blow by a hatchet to the back of her head, her throat had been cut, and that at least five fires had been started in various rooms, paraffin oil having first been poured over the carpets and furniture. There were no signs of a forced entry, and in view of Lee’s criminal record, he was arrested.

At the inquest, evidence was given regarding the blood found by the maid on her nightdress just after she had found her dead mistress; Lee refuted the allegation, saying that he had cut his arm on breaking open a window to allow the smoke to escape. What he apparently could not explain was the presence of hairs matching those of the dead woman found on his socks, and the fact that he had, in the recent past, uttered threats against her.

At his trial in Exeter Castle he appeared quite indifferent; so composed in fact that when the judge commented on it, he replied, ‘Please, my lord, allow me to say that I am so calm because I trust in my Lord and He knows I am innocent.’ However, despite the evidence being mainly circumstantial, the jury did not agree with him, and brought in a verdict of guilty.

Incarcerated in Exeter Gaol, he maintained his unconcerned attitude, and the atmosphere within the prison, tense at any time an execution was about to happen, grew even more jittery when the chaplain, the Revd John Pitkin, reported that Lee’s warders had related how the prisoner had apparently dreamed of being on the scaffold, had heard the bolts drawn, but that the trapdoors remained immovable no fewer than three times.

At the appointed time on execution day, Lee, accompanied by the chaplain, the governor and other officials, was escorted from his cell to the coach house and calmly took his place on the drop, the soles of his feet bridging the slight gap between the doors. The hangman, Berry, strapped his legs together, slipped the white cap down over his head, noosed him, then stepped back and pulled the lever. But, other than a slight grinding sound, nothing happened. For a split second, no one moved; then Berry jerked the lever again – still nothing.

Half-Hanged Lee On The Drop

Desperation starting to creep in, he stamped on the trapdoor nearest to him, again with no results. The warders present then risked a rapid descent by also adding their weight to the doors, but the hazard was non-existent, for the drop remained closed. All this time, about five minutes or so, Lee stood immovable where he had been positioned, and one wonders whether he was unconcerned because, having been so convinced, or mentally programmed by his dream, he just knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was not going to hang.