Taking another human’s life is a deeply unsettling act, whether it is a criminal sentence or a state‑mandated decree. Executions have shadowed civilization almost as long as humanity itself, and the people who actually pull the trigger—or tighten the rope—have stories that are both chilling and human. Below, we present 10 executions as told by the executioners themselves, offering a front‑row seat to the psychological weight, the procedural quirks, and the evolving conscience of those who have carried out the ultimate punishment.
10 executions as: Inside the Minds of Those Who Deliver Death
10 Fred Allen
Fred Allen served on the “tie‑down team” at the Walls Unit Prison in Huntsville, Texas, where he helped restrain inmates during more than a hundred and twenty executions. He recalls the moment the weight of the job finally broke through, saying, “I was just working in the shop and all of a sudden something just triggered in me and I started shaking… And tears, uncontrollable tears, were coming out of my eyes. It was something that just… everybody… all of these executions all of a sudden all sprung forward.” The emotional surge was so powerful that he walked away from the job immediately afterward.
His former supervisor, Jim Willett, reflected on Fred’s breakdown, noting, “I don’t believe the rest of my officers are going to break like Fred did, but I do worry about my staff. I can see it in their eyes sometimes…” The admission underscored how the relentless rhythm of state‑sanctioned death can erode even the steeliest of nerves.
9 Unnamed Wardens and Chaplains
Not every participant in an execution wants their name on record, yet many still share their haunting experiences. One warden describes how the condemned are offered a final microphone to speak their last words—some pray, some sing, some proclaim innocence. He recounted, “And then there have been some men who have been executed that I knew, and I’ve had them tell me goodbye.” The solemnity of those last utterances lingers long after the chamber doors close.
Another warden paints a visceral picture of a mother’s grief, stating, “You’ll never hear another sound like a mother wailing when she is watching her son be executed. There’s no other sound like it. It is just this horrendous wail. It’s definitely something you won’t ever forget.” The raw anguish of families adds another layer of tragedy to each case.
Chaplains, though not executioners per se, are often present to offer spiritual comfort. One chaplain described his ritual: “I usually put my hand on their leg right below their knee, you know, and I usually give ’em a squeeze, let ’em know I’m right there. You can feel the trembling, the fear that’s there, the anxiety that’s there. You can feel the heart surging, you know. You can see it pounding through their shirt… I’ve had several of them where I’m watching their last breath go from their bodies and their eyes never unfix from mine. I mean actually lock together. I can close my eyes now and see those eyes. My feelings and my emotions are extremely intense at that time. I’ve never… I’ve never really been able to describe it. I guess in a way I’m kind of afraid to describe it. I’ve never really delved into that part of my feelings yet.” The chaplain’s confession reveals the profound emotional toll that extends beyond the act itself.
8 Kenneth Dean
Kenneth Dean rose to lead the “tie‑down team” at Huntsville by the year 2000, having participated in roughly 130 executions—a number he never formally tallied. When his seven‑year‑old daughter asked, “What is an execution? What do you do?” he answered, “It’s hard explaining to a 7‑year‑old. She asked me, ‘Why do you do it?’ I told her, ‘Sweetie, it’s part of my job.’” The exchange illustrates the personal strain of reconciling a brutal profession with ordinary family life.
Dean confessed to an ongoing inner debate, saying, “All of us wonder if it’s right… You know, there’s a higher judgment than us. You second‑guess yourself. I know how I feel, but is it the right way to feel? Is what we do right? But if we didn’t do it, who would?… That was one part I had to deal with. You expect to feel a certain way, then you think, ‘Is there something wrong with me that I don’t?’ Then after a while you get to think, ‘Why isn’t this bothering me?’ It is such a clinical process. You expect the worst with death, but you don’t see the worst in death.” The paradox of clinical detachment versus emotional turbulence defines his experience.
7 Meister Franz Schmidt
Meister Franz Schmidt held the official title of executioner in the Holy Roman Empire from 1573 until 1617, documenting his grim trade in a personal journal. Over his career he carried out 361 executions and oversaw countless acts of torture, maiming, flogging, burning, and disfigurement. His first entry, dated June 5 1573, reads, “Leonardt Russ of Ceyern, a thief. Executed with the rope at the city of Steinach. Was my first execution.” The terse notation sets the tone for a career recorded in stark, bureaucratic detail.
Schmidt’s journal gradually evolved from cold statistics to richer narratives. On July 28 1590 he recorded, “Friedrich Stigler from Nuremberg, a coppersmith and executioner’s assistant. For having brought accusations against some citizens’ wives that they were witches and he knew it by their signs… Executed with the sword here out of mercy.” The entry mixes legal justification, personal observation, and a hint of moral contemplation, offering a rare window into the mind of a state‑sanctioned killer during the early modern period.
6 John Ketch
John Ketch was appointed England’s official executioner in 1663, quickly earning notoriety for his clumsy beheadings. Contemporary accounts note that he sometimes needed up to eight strokes to fell a condemned head, a fact that sparked public outrage. In his own defense, Ketch penned a letter asserting, “But my grand business is to acquit myself and come off fairly as I can… I might justly be exclaimed as guilty of greater inhumanity… But there are circumstances enow to clear me… the Lord himself was the real obstruct that he had not a quicker dispatch out of his world.” He blamed the difficulty on the condemned, Lord Russell, suggesting the victim’s resistance impeded a swift cut.
The backlash culminated in an almost‑lynching after a particularly botched execution, where the condemned explicitly requested a cleaner death. Ketch survived the mob’s fury, yet his name entered the English language as a synonym for a low‑life executioner, cementing his infamy in the annals of capital punishment history.
5 Fernand Meyssonnier
Fernand Meyssonnier, the second‑generation executioner of French Algeria and the nation’s final bearer of the guillotine, experienced his first beheading at the tender age of sixteen, under his father’s stern tutelage. “He made me stand to one side so I wasn’t in the way,” Fernand recalled. The moment the call to prayer echoed from a nearby mosque, his father announced, “It’s time,” and the condemned was thrust onto the wooden plank. “I saw the head go between the two uprights, and then in a tenth of a second it was off. And at that moment I just let out a sound like this—Aaah! It was strong stuff,” he recounted, describing the visceral rush of the blade.
In his later memoirs, Meyssonnier dissected the mechanics of the guillotine, likening a successful beheading to a “high‑speed film” where the blade’s descent ends the drama in two seconds. He emphasized the need for laser‑focus: “You can’t think of the guy you’re guillotining. You have to concentrate on your technique… I thought of the victims, what they went through. I was their means of vengeance.” The narrative blends technical precision with a haunting acknowledgement of personal responsibility.
Decades after laying down the guillotine, Meyssonnier’s stance on capital punishment shifted dramatically. He argued, “Three or four years after the execution, the parent of the victim still wants vengeance and won’t be able to have it. It is better to leave people in prison forever.” He even swapped the blade for a pest‑control sprayer, declaring, “I got into a different form of execution—pest control.” The evolution from state‑sanctioned killer to anti‑death‑penalty advocate underscores the complex moral journey of an executioner.
4 Henry Sanson
The Sanson dynasty supplied France with executioners for roughly two centuries, and Henry Sanson was a direct heir to that grim lineage. His grandfather famously convinced a prospective father‑in‑law that marrying an executioner’s daughter was acceptable only by becoming an executioner himself, solidifying the family’s occupational heritage. Henry chronicled the family’s deeds, providing vivid details of individual executions and public reactions. He described one particular case involving a 21‑year‑old accused of matricide and theft, noting, “When we reached the prison of Bicêtre… we heard his cries through the walls as he learned death was imminent. He appeared, supported by two warders, and as we cut his hair and undressed him he uttered frantic shrieks. The only words I could catch were ‘Mercy!’, ‘Pity!’, ‘I am innocent!’, ‘Do not kill me!’ He tried to rise but could not. The black veil was spread over his head, and we proceeded to the guillotine. Benoit fainted several times on the way… whenever he recovered he exclaimed in a piteous tone: ‘M. Chaix d’Est‑Ange has caused my death. My poor mother, you know I am innocent!’” The account captures both the procedural gravity and the human desperation of the condemned.
Later, reflecting on his own retirement, Sanson wrote, “My dismissal did come at last, and while some fifty eager individuals were competing for the office of executioner I greeted it as a deliverance.” The line reveals a weary yearning for release after generations of carrying out the state’s most irreversible sentence.
3 Henry Pierrepoint
Henry Pierrepoint, a butcher‑turned‑hangman, oversaw 99 executions for Britain between the turn of the century and 1910. He vividly remembered one particular hanging, describing, “With all the quickness possible we pinioned McKenna, and then was enacted a scene such as I will never forget as long as I live. The man knew that his last moments on this Earth had come. He broke out into great sobs and in the silence of that prison cell his voice wailed upward in one great tearing cry, ‘Oh Lord help me’. It was only a few steps to the fateful spot but McKenna walked slowly and falteringly—we could see that the strain was almost too much for the man we had to hang. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. The moment he toed the chalk mark on the scaffold he cried out aloud: ‘Lord have mercy on my soul!’” The passage captures the raw emotional surge of a condemned soul in their final minutes.
Pierrepoint’s career came to an abrupt halt after he arrived at a hanging severely intoxicated. In that state he cursed his assistant and attempted to fight, prompting the Home Secretary to note, “Make certain this fellow is never employed again.” The incident illustrates how even seasoned executioners could falter under personal duress, ending a prolific but tumultuous career.
2 Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint inherited his father’s grim vocation and went on to execute roughly 400 men over a fifteen‑year span, resigning in 1956. Nine years later, in 1965, Britain abolished capital punishment, just a year after the final execution. Albert’s professional demeanor was strikingly detached; he wrote, “Every person has a different drop… Then in the morning at seven o’clock you go to the execution chamber again and get all ready, make the final arrangements for the job itself. Then we finish there about half an hour before the execution is going to take place, and that is all there is to it.” The description underscores the mechanized routine that defined his later years.
In his autobiography, Albert reflected on the broader implications of the death penalty, stating, “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people. The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off.” His words echo a deep‑seated skepticism about the efficacy and morality of state‑sanctioned killing.
1 Jerry Givens
Jerry Givens served as Virginia’s state executioner from 1982 until 1999, participating in 62 executions. When asked about his preferred method, he remarked, “If I had a choice, I would choose death by electrocution. That’s more like cutting your lights off and on. It’s a button you push once and then the machine runs by itself. It relieves you from being attached to it in some ways. You can’t see the current go through the body. But with chemicals, it takes a while because you’re dealing with three separate chemicals. You are on the other end with a needle in your hand. You can see the reaction of the body. You can see it going down the clear tube. So you can actually see the chemical going down the line and into the arm and see the effects of it. You are more attached to it. I know because I have done it. Death by electrocution in some ways seems more humane.” His comparison highlights the psychological distance he felt between the two execution methods.
Givens eventually walked away from the job after a federal grand jury implicated him in money‑laundering and perjury related to buying cars for a friend who had obtained money illegally. He served 57 months in prison and reflected, “I knew then that the system wasn’t right. I don’t believe I had a fair trial, so I realized maybe some of the people I executed weren’t given a fair trial.” The experience reshaped his view of the criminal justice system.
When pressed about his biggest regret, Givens answered without hesitation, “Biggest mistake I ever made was taking the job as an executioner. Life is short. Life only consists of 24 hours a day. Death is going to come to us. We don’t have to kill one another.” His candid admission serves as a sobering conclusion to the collection of testimonies, reminding readers that the burden of the death penalty extends far beyond the condemned.