Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (21 page)

When the service ended the sheriff said, ‘James McDonnell, have you anything to say before I proceed further?’ McDonnell replied in a low voice as if a little embarrassed at speaking before so large an audience, ‘Me and Sharpe have been together often. He is innocent of killing Smith. I am innocent of any murder except the one I confessed’ (that of a man named Patrick Burns).

The sheriff turned to Sharpe and asked him if he had anything to say. Sharpe replied in a firm voice, ‘I declare I am as innocent of the murder of George K. Smith as a child unborn.’ Turning to McDonnell he then said with emphasis, ‘James McDonnell, you are innocent of the Smith murder.’ He whispered a few words to Father Bunce and then said, ‘I desire to return my thanks to the sheriff and his family and the turnkey,’ and McDonnell blurted out, ‘I the same.’ Then McDonnell looked toward one of his brothers who was standing at the foot of the scaffold and said abruptly, ‘Give that man five dollars,’ but no one knew what he meant, and his dying legacy will probably never be paid.

The arms and the legs of the criminals were pinioned and the priests left the gallows. The sheriff and his assistants soon followed, the sheriff taking with him the rope attached to the drop, and waited a few moments for Father Bunce to give the signal by dropping his handkerchief. However, just as the sheriff descended from the scaffold, a telegraph boy with a reprieve rang the jail’s front door bell, but neither the prisoners nor the executioner heard or heeded the sound. Father Bunce’s handkerchief dropped, the sheriff pulled the rope, and Sharpe and McDonnell fell with a heavy thud. Their bodies twirled until the twist was out of the rope; Sharpe struggled violently for a minute and then both men hung as limp as wet rags.

All at once there was a commotion and the word ‘reprieve’ was on everybody’s lips. The news of the receipt of the dispatch nearly crazed the brothers of Sharpe and McDonnell, who had stood almost unconcernedly throughout the whole proceedings, the nearest men to the scaffold. They called the sheriff a murderer and denounced the authorities generally, but Father Bunce took the poor men aside and explained the matter to them, and they then became quieter. The good father explained that the executions had to go ahead when they did because the timing had been agreed on by himself and the sheriff with the consent of the prisoners.

In the excitement the bodies had been completely forgotten and were not cut down for thirty minutes. Sharpe’s heart ceased to beat eight minutes after the drop fell, but McDonnell’s neck had been broken and he was thirteen minutes in dying. Friends took possession of the remains and they were taken to their former homes by the first train.’

And the reprieve? Well, that had been granted by the State Governor on a minor legal point which was decided later that day, and the men would have been hanged on the following Monday anyway.

In 1761 Isaac Darking, a notorious highwayman, was caught and sentenced to death. Nonchalant to the last, he spent his last night drinking in the condemned cell and reading
The Beggars’ Opera
. Next morning on the scaffold he blithely waved the hangman away and casually positioned the noose around his own neck.

John M’Naughton

A dashing and debonair Irishman, M’Naughton proved attractive to most women, but the young lady he had set his sights on was the teenaged daughter of Richard Knox, a local landowner, and he redoubled his efforts on discovering that her dowry would amount to no less than £15,000. Accordingly he consistently declared the depth of his affections for her and, eventually finding her alone in her parents’ house one day, he produced a prayer book and read out the marriage service to her. It would seem that Miss Knox, although so overwhelmed by this handsome and much sought after man’s declaration of devotion for her that she gave the correct answers, was nevertheless cautious enough to add after each reply the proviso ‘provided my father consents.’

M’Naughton took no notice of the verbal codicil and proudly boasted of his married state to all and sundry. However, on then being warned by her father not to see her again, his mood changed to one of defiance and he repeated his claim in the local newspapers. The Knoxes retaliated by issuing a statement on oath, describing in detail the mock ceremony which had taken place in their house. On realising that the dowry was now beyond his reach and insensate with vengeful rage M’Naughton lay in wait for Miss Knox’s coach and, forcing the coachman to rein in the horses, flung open the door and fired five shots from his pistol, killing her outright.

Arrested and put on trial at Lifford, he claimed that his intention was not to harm her but simply to take her home as his lawfully wedded wife; moreover he produced in evidence a letter purportedly written by her, in which she declared her longing to be with him. His fate was sealed, however, when the letter was proved to be a forgery.

Despite the murder he had committed, the public had fallen victim to his daredevil charisma and found excuses for him, the general opinion being that he had been driven to it by being thwarted of winning the woman he loved; indeed, so inclined were they in his favour that the authorities found it impossible to find carpenters willing to construct a scaffold, and the girl’s family had to set to and make one themselves – though doubtless they took a certain amount of vengeful satisfaction in so doing. The carpenters were not the only ones declining to cooperate; before M’Naughton was led out to the scaffold it was necessary to have his leg-irons removed, however, the local blacksmith refused to do so until compelled by soldiers who had been summoned by the Sheriff.

The execution took place at Strabane on 13 December 1762. M’Naughton lived up to his reputation; smartly dressed, wearing a white waistcoat, he bowed to the immense crowd before the cap covered his face and the noose settled around his neck, a gesture the onlookers no doubt appreciated. But his moment of truth had arrived: he might have charmed women; he might have mesmerised the general public, but it was the hangman he really fell for! However, that official let him down – although not until he had hanged him twice, for without warning the condemned man suddenly leapt from the scaffold, snapping the rope, and so had to be brought back to wait until a new one was procured and its ends attached, one round the beam, the other encircling M’Naughton’s neck, death coming none too quickly.

An assassination attempt on 28 July 1835 by Corsican Marco Fieschi failed to kill King Louis-Philippe but caused death and injury among the crowd, the more so because the weapon employed consisted of nearly fifty rifles mounted in a wooden frame, all set to fire simultaneously. On leaving for the guillotine the executioner, noticing that the would-be assassin wore only vest and pants, offered him a coat. Cynical to the last, Fieschi replied, ‘Don’t waste your time – I’ll be a lot colder when they bury me!’

Mohammed Ali

Scaffolds are usually made large enough to accommodate not only the victim and executioner, but also officials such as the chaplain, prison governor, sheriff and surgeon, but this was definitely not the case at one particular execution in India, as related by Robert Elliot in
The Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore
, published in 1871. He wrote:

‘The criminal, Mohammed Ali, after his fetters had been removed, was handed his breakfast, which, strange as it may seem, he slowly consumed in the presence of some five hundred onlookers, and within sight of the tree with its dangling rope, and the newly dug grave for the reception of his corpse.

Having eaten and drunk his fill, he took leave of his wife and relatives, and mounted the six-foot-high narrow platform directly under the rope. His hands and feet were pinioned, a bag fixed over his head, and the noose coiled in readiness. But the rope was then found to be too short; it was ordered to be lengthened, and in the confusion that ensued, the policemen who were supporting the victim both commenced to fumble at the rope. The bench on which they stood was not eighteen inches wide and the consequence was that, in a second, the prisoner, unable to see, lost his balance and fell off, with stunning force, on to his face. He uttered no cry, but groaned heavily two or three times. As they raised him off the ground, apparently half insensible, I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the sight of the limply dangling limbs, and the blood which, streaming down his face, stained crimson the white cotton cloth with which his head was enveloped.

The rope had now been lengthened, and the unhappy man was half-lifted, half-supported on to the bench, and he died without a struggle. I turned immediately to scan the countenances of the people, in order to gather, if possible, the impression the scene had made on them, and as I looked at man after man, and expression after expression, I felt convinced that these, at any rate, were not the apathetic Asiatics I had read of, and that, on the whole, they felt much as I did.’

Sergeant Raoulx was one of the ‘Four Sergeants of La Rochelle’ who were condemned to death for plotting mutiny against the French royal family. On 21 September 1822 the executioners Henri Sanson and his son went to the prison for the routine preparation of their prisoners. Resigned but still spirited, they submitted to having their hair cut short; Raoulx was the most cheerful, alluding to his own lack of inches, he joked, ‘Poor me – how much will remain of me when my head is gone?’

James Murphy

Probably the most important piece of the hangman’s equipment was the rope. Of course it had to be strong; nineteenth-century English executioners generally used ropes made of Italian hemp, about three quarters of an inch thick, consisting of five strands, each of one-ton breaking strain. It also had to be pliable, so that the noose would tighten quickly, thin enough to run through the noose easily, but not thin enough to act like a cheesewire and decapitate the victim. It is to be regretted therefore that the American hangman who dispatched murderer James Murphy in 1876 did not follow the English example.

The execution took place in Ohio, and after the felon had been allowed to voice the almost traditional warnings to the audience against the inherent dangers of drink and sinful living, the hangman operated the drop. And the rope promptly snapped above Murphy’s head. He fell through the gaping hole beneath his feet and collapsed on the ground below in a huddled heap, where he was heard to moan, ‘My God, I ain’t dead!’

Warders rushed to his assistance and he was helped to his feet, being comforted by the priest while others hastily attached a new, thicker rope to the gallows’ beam. Then the limp, choking victim was supported up the steps, back on to the scaffold, there to be repositioned on the trapdoors where, with a warder on each side holding him upright at arm’s length lest they too accompanied him into the pit, the drop was operated – and this time the rope held.

Notorious murderer Charles Peace was condemned to be hanged on 25 February 1879. Eating his last breakfast, he exclaimed, ‘This is bloody rotten bacon!’

Later, in the lavatory, he shouted to an impatient warder, ‘You’re in a hell of a hurry – who’s going to be hanged, me or you?’

Native Americans

During the American Civil War, Native Americans took advantage of the government’s preoccupation with hostilities to attack the white farming families who lived along the Minnesota border. Large numbers of braves, led by Little Crow, brutally killed more than 490 settlers, nor did they spare the women and children. A strong force of soldiers under the command of General John Pope met and defeated the warrior force, 308 of the survivors being captured and sentenced to death by military court. President Lincoln, however, ruled that only the most savage of the killers, 38 in number, should be hanged. Their executions were scheduled to take place simultaneously, on 26 December 1862, at Mankato, Minnesota.

The preparations were organised with military precision; four days earlier an order was read out for the benefit of everyone living in that township and the adjoining territory for a distance of ten miles from the headquarters, requiring them not to sell or give any intoxicating liquors to the enlisted men of the United States’ forces.

Meanwhile the 38 condemned Native Americans had been moved into a separate apartment away from their comrades, and were visited by the colonel and others, the officer reading out to them the President’s approval of their sentences and the order confirming their execution, the statement being translated into the Dakota language. It read:

‘Your Great Father in Washington, after carefully reading what the witnesses have testified in your several trials, has come to the conclusion that you have each been guilty of wantonly and wickedly murdering his white children; and for this reason he has directed that you each be hanged by the neck until you are dead, on next Friday, and the order will be carried into effect on that day at ten o’clock in the forenoon.’

The
St Paul Pioneer
reported:

‘the Indians listened attentively and at the end of each sentence, gave their usual grunt or signal of approval.

On the Tuesday evening they extemporised a dance with a wild Indian song. It was feared that this was only a cover for something else which might be attempted, and the chains which tied them in pairs were fastened to the floor. It seems, however, rather probable that they were singing their death song. Their friends from the other prison had been in to bid them farewell and they were now ready to die. On Thursday the women employed as cooks for the prisoners were admitted to the prison. Locks of hair, blankets, coats and almost every other article in the possession of the prisoners were given in trust for some relative or friend.