For centuries, societies that wielded the death penalty have needed a grim professional to pull the trigger, and the histories of these executioners often end as dramatically as the sentences they delivered. In this roundup we explore how ten notorious executioners met their own dark ends, revealing the irony that the very hands that dealt death sometimes became the victims themselves.
How Executioners Met Their Own Doom
1 Simon Grandjean
On May 12, 1625, the Dijon executioner Simon Grandjean and his assistant‑wife were tasked with beheading Helene Gillet, a 21‑year‑old mother accused of murdering her infant. Helene insisted on her innocence, claiming the child resulted from an illicit liaison with a family tutor, yet the courts ordered a swift execution.
Rumors swirled that a monk from nearby Bernadine Abbey had foreseen Helene dying of natural causes, but the law demanded the blade. Grandjean, however, failed spectacularly: his first sword swing clipped her shoulder, and a second swing was thwarted by the knot in her hair.
The crowd, already incited, began pelting the platform with objects. Grandjean fled to a chapel, while his wife dragged the condemned beneath the scaffold and finished the job with a pair of shears. The mob broke through, killing Madame Grandjean first, then dragging the executioner from his hiding place and tearing him apart.
Helene survived with only minor injuries, leaving Dijon without an executioner. She was later pardoned by Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII, and spent the remainder of her life in a convent.
2 Artur Braun
In the early 1930s Poland struggled to keep a steady supply of executioners; one predecessor even took his own life after claiming he was haunted by the souls he had sent to the afterlife. Another sued the state after a sheriff ordered an execution without the customary black hood, allowing the condemned to kick the executioner.
In November 1932, out of 120 hopefuls, the authorities selected Artur Braun. Instead of beginning his grim career, Braun celebrated his appointment with a night of drinking that quickly turned violent.
The revelry ended in a suburban bar where Braun brandished a pistol, turning the evening into a chaotic brawl. Broken bottles became weapons, innocent bystanders were beaten, and before the night was over Braun was dismissed from his post without ever having performed an execution.
The Ministry of Justice later declared that the next chief executioner would be a teetotaler, underscoring the disastrous start to Braun’s brief, ill‑fated tenure.
3 Dick Bauf
Born in Ireland, Dick Bauf saw his parents arrested for burglary and murder when he was just twelve. The court offered him a grim bargain: he could live if he agreed to execute his own parents.
Reluctantly, Bauf carried out the execution, but the trauma left him unable to find honest work. He turned to petty crime, first as a pickpocket and then as a member of a thieves’ gang that specialized in scouting churches for loot.
Bauf eventually tried his hand at highway robbery, gaining a fearsome reputation. After a series of crimes, including burning a group of men alive in a barn, he fled to Scotland to evade capture.
His downfall came when he attempted to romance a married woman, provoking the husband’s wrath. Arrested and sent back to Ireland, Bauf was hanged on May 15, 1702, meeting the very fate he had once administered.
4 Cratwell
When Saint Thomas More was executed on July 6, 1535, the executioner behind the block was a man known only as Mr. Cratwell. Serving Henry VIII, he likely juggled many duties, yet he still found time for the city’s annual Bartholomew’s Fair.
The fair in August was a bustling spectacle of stalls, acrobats, musicians, and oddities. Cratwell, unable to resist the temptation, was caught stealing from one of the market stands.
The incident sparked a massive public outcry; around twenty‑thousand spectators gathered to witness the executioner—described as “a conninge butcher in quarteringe of men”—being hanged for his crime.
5 Capeluche
In the early 1400s, Paris was under Armagnac occupation, prompting fierce uprisings. After a series of revolts, the city’s executioner, known only as Capeluche, led a mob that slaughtered members of the upper class.
When the Duke of Burgundy intervened, he struck a deal with Capeluche to spare certain prisoners. Capeluche reneged on the agreement, killing those he had promised to release.
The duke then bluffed, claiming an army of Armagnacs gathered at the gates. Capeluche led his men out of the city, only to be captured along with two lieutenants.
The following day Capeluche was executed for his role in the uprising. With his head on the block, his own valet was forced to swing the blade, and Capeluche reportedly spent his final moments instructing his stand‑in on how to carry out the execution.
6 William Curry
York’s 19th‑century executioner William Curry never applied for the job; convicted of stealing sheep and facing transportation to Australia, he accepted the executioner’s post to avoid exile.
While still serving his prison sentence, Curry relied on alcohol to cope with the grim work, earning the nickname “the bungling executioner.” By 1821 his drunkenness was evident as he taunted an impatient crowd to try the noose themselves.
Later, tasked with hanging five men at once, Curry’s inebriation caused him to lose track of the proceedings and even fall through the trapdoor.
His final assignment was the hanging of Ursula Lofthouse, a woman convicted of poisoning her husband. After the execution, Curry staggered to a nearby pub, retired from the trade, and spent his remaining years confined to a workhouse.
7 John Price
Even as a youth, John Price was a notorious liar, bragging about robbing a woman on the road to London. Magistrates, oddly, took his confession as a sign of innocence and sent him on his way.
He later fell into criminal activity, was sentenced to Newgate Prison, and shipped on a merchant vessel where his behavior led to a brutal keel‑haul before being dropped in Portsmouth.
After multiple returns to Newgate, Price married Betty, a Newgate employee, and leveraged the connection to become the executioner of Middlesex, supplementing his income by selling the clothes of the dead.
His violent streak caught up with him when he savagely assaulted pastry‑seller Elizabeth White, causing her eyes to burst from her skull. After her death, Price was arrested, sentenced to hang, and displayed as a gibbet in Holloway. His skeleton, still wearing irons, was unearthed in 1834 and later displayed at the Coach and Horses pub.
8 Louis Congo
In 1725 Louisiana, a freed slave named Louis Congo was appointed the state’s executioner—a deliberate move to grant a former slave the power of life and death, sending a stark message to those who considered themselves superior.
Records show Congo’s involvement in a range of punitive duties: administering beatings, banishing people from town, and overseeing hangings or breaking on the wheel. The role earned him the scathing insult “bourreau,” one of the era’s harshest slurs.
A year after taking office, three runaway slaves broke into his home and beat him severely. Congo later had to punish his own attackers, delivering sentences designed to deter any future assaults on officials.
The last official record of Congo’s activities dates to 1737; his fate after that remains a mystery, with historians debating whether he retired, disappeared, or met a worse end.
9 John Ellis
Born in 1875, John Ellis transitioned from spinner to hairdresser before becoming a hangman in 1901. He served until 1924, resigning amid rumors that the 1922 execution of Edith Thompson had shattered his psyche.
Prior to that, Ellis had carried out the deaths of notorious figures such as Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and Sir Roger Casement. Thompson’s execution was particularly troubling; she appeared semi‑conscious, and after the hanging her undergarments were found soaked in blood, sparking rumors of pregnancy.
The distress drove Ellis into a deep depression. He performed one more hanging—the execution of Susan Newell—before retiring. He later penned memoirs, attempted suicide by hanging upon their publication, and eventually ended his life in 1932 by slashing his throat with a razor.
10 Paskah Rose and Jack Ketch
Jack Ketch, one of England’s most infamous executioners, lent his name to the phrase “a Jack Ketch” and appeared in Punch and Judy shows. However, Ketch landed in prison for “affronting” a sheriff, and during his incarceration his assistant, Paskah Rose, was promoted to chief executioner.
Rose, unable to sustain the role financially, teamed up with accomplice Edward Smith to break into the home of William Barnet on April 31, 1686, stealing a coat and other garments. Caught in daylight, Rose attempted to hide the stolen clothing by stuffing it into his trousers.
Both Rose and Smith were convicted and hanged at Tyburn on May 28 of the same year. Ketch, released from jail to carry out Rose’s execution, died later that year.