Taking another human’s life is a deeply troubling thing. In many cases this is a criminal act, considered one of the worst offenses possible. Other times it is mandated by the state. Executions have been performed for almost as long as there has been human civilization, meaning there have been executioners for just as long. No one is in a better position to comment on the death penalty than the people who carry out the act. Below are the stories of ten executioners, in their own words, on the subject of capital punishment.

10Fred Allen

Fred Allen was a member of “the tie-down team” at Walls Unit Prison in Huntsville, Texas. He participated in some 120 executions, tying the inmates down to keep them still during their final moments. He reports, “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, was coming out of my eyes. And what it was was something triggered within and it just — everybody — all of these executions all of a sudden all sprung forward.”

He left his job just after that. His boss at the time, Jim Willett, said, “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 . . .”

9Unnamed Wardens and Chaplains

Understandably, not all who participate in executions want their name to be shared, but they do share their stories. One such man, a warden, describes that the executed are offered the chance to say final words. A microphone descends from the ceiling. Some men pray, some sing, or profess their innocence. The warden said, “And then there have been some men who have been executed that I knew, and I’ve had them tell me goodbye.”

Another warden describes the event, “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.”

Chaplains, while not executioners themselves, are usually present at the event. One reports, “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. And 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. And 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.”

8Kenneth Dean

Kenneth Dean was the head of “the tie-down team” at Huntsville as of 2000 and he had then participated in 130 executions. He did not like to keep count. His daughter would ask him, “What is an execution? What do you do?” He said, “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.’ ”

“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 do it? . . . 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.”

7 Meister Franz Schmidt

Meister Franz Schmidt worked as a professional executioner in Germany from 1573 to 1617, during which he maintained a personal journal. Schmidt, empowered by law, executed 361 people and tortured, maimed, flogged, burned, and disfigured many hundreds more. His journal describes each execution in detail: who was killed, what crime they had committed, and how the execution was carried out. His first entry, on June 5, 1573 reads, “Leonardt Russ of Ceyern, a thief. Executed with the rope at the city of Steinach. Was my first execution.”

That entry set the tone for the rest of his journal, just cold facts, but over time the entries included more details and insights into the morality of Schmidt’s world. One entry, dated July 28, 1590 reports, “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. However, he wittingly did them wrong. Also said that they gave magic spells to people. Likewise for having threatened his brother, the hanged Peterlein, on account of which threat he had appeared before the court at Bamberg several years ago, but was begged off. Lastly, for having taken a second wife during the life of his first wife, and a third wife during the life of the second, after the death of the first. Executed with the sword here out of mercy.”

6 John Ketch

John Ketch was appointed as executioner in England in 1663 and soon gained a very particular reputation. He was apparently so bad at his work that it caused much public disdain, sometimes he took as many as eight strokes to behead a man. Public backlash was so strong against him, he wrote a letter in defense of himself, “But my grand business is to acquit myself and come off fairly as I can, as to those grievous Obloquies and Invectives that have been thrown upon me for not Severing my Lords Head from his Body at one blow, and indeed had I given my Lord more Blows then one out of design to put him to more than ordinary Pain, as I have been Taxt, I might justly be exclaim’d on as Guilty of grater Inhumanity then can be imputed even to one of my Profession, . . . But there are circumstances enow to clear me in this particular, and to make it plainly appear that my Lord himself was the real obstruct that he had not a quicker dispatch out of his world.”

John Ketch blamed the man executed, Lord Russell, for why it took so many strokes. After yet another botched execution, one in which the man to be executed specifically asked not to be hacked up like Lord Russell, John Ketch was almost lynched but survived and his name became slang for lowlife executioners.

5 Fernand Meyssonnier

Fernand Meyssonnier, a second generation executioner and France’s last man to hold the position saw his first beheading at 16, with his father, who taught him the grim task. “He made me stand to one side so I wasn’t in the way.” Meyssonnier Reports, “Then we heard the call to prayer from the mosque round the corner and my father said, ‘It’s time’. The guy came out flanked by two guards. They pushed him on to the 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.”

In his published memoirs Meyssonnier discusses the executions that went wrong, the gritty details of a beheading, but also of his state of mind. He said, “It’s like a high speed film when the blade comes down. In two seconds it’s over. It gives you a feeling of power . . . You can’t think of the guy you’re guillotining. You have to concentrate on your technique. During the execution . . . I thought of the victims, what they went through. I was their means of vengeance.”

In the decades since he stopped being an executioner, Meyssonnier’s view of the death penalty has changed and he is now opposed to it. “Three or four years after the execution,” He says, “the parent [of an executed criminal’s victim] will still want vengeance and won’t be able to have it. It is better to leave people in prison forever.”

Meyssonnier also took up a new profession, “I got into a different form of execution—pest control.”

4 Henry Sanson

The Sansons were a family that supplied executioners to France for some 200 years. Henry, his father, and grandfather were all executioners and this heritage went back even further on his grandmother’s side of the family. His grandfather found it necessary to convince his would-be father-in-law that he could marry the daughter of an executioner and not despise her. The solution was to become an executioner himself. Two generations later and it was Henry’s turn. Henry wrote a record of his family’s deeds in the profession. In it, he spoke of their executions, the public reaction to them, and his family’s thoughts on the matters.

One such execution was of a young man, 21 years old, who was accused of murdering his mother and one other to cover it up, in addition to theft. Sanson writes, “When we reached the prison of Bicetre, where the unhappy young man was incarcerated, we heard his cries through the walls of the cell when he was informed that death was at hand. He appeared in the hall, where we were waiting for him, supported by two warders. This was the first time I beheld such weakness before death. He said nothing while my assistants were cutting his hair, but when they undressed him he uttered frightful shrieks. The only words of his I could understand 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 started for 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 priest who supported him did not spare his encouragements, but Benoit still persisted in saying he was innocent. It was only when he saw the guillotine that he knelt and confessed his guilt. This confession I distinctly heard, although it was only intended for the ears of the priest, and I was relieved when it came out, for I had followed the trial, and in my humble judgment Benoit had been convicted on proofs which appeared to me anything but conclusive.”

About his eventual 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.”

3 Henry Pierrepoint

A butcher, husband, and father to five children, Henry Pierrepoint carried out 99 executions over ten years for Britain, right up until 1910. He described one of these many executions, “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!’ ”

Henry Pierrepoint’s career ended abruptly when he arrived before a hanging very drunk. In that state he cursed his assistant and struck him, wanting to fight. His name was then removed from the approved list of hangmen. In his Home Secretary file is the note, “Make certain this fellow is never employed again.”

2Albert Pierrepoint

Albert, the son of Henry Pierrepoint, took up his father’s profession and executed some 400 men over the course of 15 years and resigned in 1956. Nine years later in 1965, capital punishment was ended in Britain, one year after the last execution.

He wrote once, professionally detached, about his work, “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.”

In his autobiography he shared his thoughts on capital punishment, “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.”

1Jerry Givens

Jerry Givens was the Virginia state executioner from 1982 to 1999 and participated in executing the death penalty on 62 people.

“If I had a choice, I would choose death by electrocution.” He said, “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.”

As for why he stopped, he said, “To make a long story short, the grand jury said I was involved in money laundering and perjury for buying cars for my friend who obtained the money illegally. I told them I thought he had straightened out. But I did 57 months in a federal institution. 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.”

When asked about his biggest mistake as an executioner he answered, “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.”

Throughout history, societies have found many different ways to execute criminals, including beheading, hanging, a firing squad, an electric chair, a gas chamber, and lethal injection. Unfortunately, for all forms of executions, there will be some cases that don’t result in a timely death—some executions might not work at all, or some might take multiple tries or a long time to work.

Here we reveal ten executions that didn’t go according to plan.

Related: Top 10 Dark Facts About The Death Penalty [DISTURBING]

10 Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, came from a royal lineage and was related to several kings. Unfortunately, she got caught up in the conflicts surrounding King Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Catholic Church and his attempts to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

Pole’s son, Reginald, was made a cardinal in 1536 and started speaking out very vocally against Henry VIII. Shortly after, he fled to Rome and out of Henry’s reach. Unable to pursue Reginald Pole, Henry had Margaret Pole arrested in 1539 instead. She was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and her execution by beheading was scheduled for 1541 when she was 67 years old.

The executioner wasn’t very experienced, and the first blow of the ax missed her neck. Subsequent blows also did not land cleanly and instead hacked away at her neck, head, and back. It reportedly took 11 blows before Pole was finally beheaded, a rather gruesome way to go. In 1886, Pole was beatified by Pope Leo XIII and became Blessed Margaret Pole under the Roman Catholic Church.^[1]

9 Joseph Samuel

In 1801, Joseph Samuel was transported from England to the Australian penal colony for theft. Two years later, Samuel and a gang of thieves decided to rob a house. During the course of their robbery, a constable showed up and was killed. Samuel and several others in the gang were eventually caught. Samuel confessed to the robbery but not the killing. However, he was still sentenced to death by hanging.

On the date of his execution, Samuel continued to claim his innocence. Samuel was transported to Parramatta with another man, both scheduled to be hung. With a noose around his neck, the cart was moved from beneath the gallows. However, the noose around Samuel’s neck broke, and he fell to the ground. A second noose was brought, but this one unraveled. A third noose was used, but this one broke as well. The ropes were inspected, and no signs of tampering were found. The governor decided to release Samuel after this, citing divine intervention.

Samuel still didn’t learn his lesson. He was caught again a few years later, committing another crime, and sentenced to jail. Shortly afterward, he and eight other inmates escaped and stole a boat. They were never seen again and presumed to have drowned.^[2]

8 John “Babbacombe” Lee

John Lee was another “man they could not hang.” In 1884, Lee was convicted of murdering Emma Anne Whitehead Keyse, a resident of the small village of Babbacombe in England. Although the evidence against Lee was weak and circumstantial, he was sentenced to die by hanging at Exeter Prison in 1885.

Prior to his execution, the executioner at Exeter Prison tested the trap door underneath the gallows several times to make sure that it worked. Yet when they went to execute Lee, the trap door that Lee was supposed to drop through got stuck and would not open. They tried a second time and a third time but bit with the same result. The trap door just would not open. Lee’s execution was postponed and eventually commuted to a life sentence in prison. After serving 22 years of his life sentence, he was released from prison.^[3]

7 Ginggaew Lorsoungnern

In 1978, Ginggaew Lorsoungnern worked as a domestic helper for a family in Bangkok, Thailand. She kidnapped their 6-year-old son and gave him to a criminal gang, who held him for ransom. The ransom payment didn’t go as planned, and the gang ended up killing the boy. He was wounded with a knife and buried alive.

Lorsoungnern and the gang were caught and sentenced to die by firing squad. On the execution day, Lorsoungnern was tied to a cross, and the executioner shot ten bullets into her body. When the medical examiner couldn’t find a sign of life, she was taken to the morgue, where she started making sounds and tried to sit up. She was rolled over to help her bleed out faster while a second accomplice was brought for his execution. When the execution team discovered later that she was still alive, they tied her up again and shot her with 15 more bullets, which finally killed her.

A similar issue occurred with the third person to be executed in the plot. The first 13 bullets didn’t kill him, so they had to shoot him 10 more times.^[4]

6 Jimmy Lee Gray

In 1976, while he was on parole for killing his girlfriend, Jimmy Lee Gray kidnapped, raped, and murdered a three-year-old girl. He was sentenced to die in the gas chamber in Mississippi in 1983.

On his execution day, Lee was strapped to the chair in the gas chamber. Cyanide pellets were released and dropped into the sulfuric acid solution underneath the chair, which released the poisonous gas. Gray was said to have taken a deep breath, then started gagging and banging his head against the steel pole behind his chair. Although the doctors on hand have stated that his heart stopped beating after two minutes, witnesses say he was moaning and banging his head for the whole eight minutes that they were allowed to watch. They were quickly escorted out of the viewing area after eight minutes.

Shortly after Lee’s execution, Mississippi installed a headrest on the execution chair. A few months later, they switched to lethal injection for executions.^[5]

5 Frank Joseph Coppola

In 1978, Frank Joseph Coppola, a former policeman, was convicted of beating a woman to death while robbing her home in Newport News. He was sentenced to death in Virginia. Although maintaining his innocence, Coppola requested his execution by the electric chair during the summer of 1982. At that time, he dropped all further appeals to further spare his family more grief
.
In theory, during execution by electric chair, two jolts of electricity are sent through the condemned prisoner’s body—the first is supposed to cause unconsciousness and the second to cause death. In Coppola’s case, the first jolt did not make him unconscious; witnesses could see and hear him writhing in pain. During the second jolt, which lasted nearly a minute, witnesses could hear the sound of and smell flesh sizzling. Both Coppola’s head and leg caught on fire. There was so much smoke in the chamber that the witnesses say they could barely see Coppola at all.^[61]

4 Jesse Tafero

Jesse Tafero was convicted of fatally shooting two police officers during a routine traffic stop in Florida in 1976. He was sentenced to die in 1990 by electric chair even though he claimed he was innocent.

Before Tafero’s execution, the sponge used in the electric chair’s headpiece had to be replaced. Instead of replacing it with another natural sponge, which could handle the electric current without starting a fire, officials used a synthetic sponge. When the first jolt of electricity was delivered, the headpiece caught on fire. Witnesses said they saw flames nearly a foot high shooting up from Tafero’s head. It would take seven minutes and two more jolts before Tafero was declared dead. Inmates at the prison claimed to have smelled his burning flesh for days after the execution.

The saddest part of the Tafero story occurred after his death—it turns out he was innocent as he had maintained all along. An accomplice in the car with Tafero eventually confessed to the shooting.^[7]

3 Brian Steckel

In 1994, Brian Steckel talked his way into Sandra Lee Long’s apartment. He then raped and strangled her and set her bedroom on fire, killing her. Steckel was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection in 1997. While in prison, Steckel sent taunting letters to Long’s mother. The execution was carried out in 2005 in Delaware.

During his execution, officials noticed the anesthetic that Steckel had been injected with started leaking into the tissue surrounding the needle in his arm, but they didn’t fix the problem. He was then injected with a paralytic drug and a very painful heart-stopping drug. There was also a blockage in the line, which was eventually cleared, though again with no anesthesia. The process took so long that Steckel wondered out loud why it was taking such a long time. Prison officials have denied that there was any problem with the execution and claimed that they had simply wanted to give Steckel more time to say his goodbyes.^[8]

2 Joseph Wood

In 1989, Joseph Wood shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and her father. He was sentenced to die by lethal injection in Arizona in 2014.

Wood was strapped to a gurney, and the execution began normally. Officials didn’t have any problems inserting the needle or with the injection itself. However, due to issues with obtaining certain drugs for use in executions, Arizona was using an experimental two-drug combination that it had never used before. The same drug combination had been used in a recent Ohio execution, where the condemned took nearly 30 minutes to die. Nonetheless, Arizona officials expected the execution to take mere minutes. Instead, it ended up taking much longer.

Witnesses to the execution say they started seeing Woods gasping for air and making noises a few minutes into the execution. It would eventually take nearly two hours, 15 injections, and several hundred gasps before Woods finally died, making it one of the longest executions in U.S. history.^[9]

1 Romell Broom

Romell Broom was convicted of abducting, raping, and killing a 14-year-old girl in 1984 and sentenced to die.

In September 2009, Broom was supposed to be executed via lethal injection. The execution team tried 18 times to insert the needles necessary to inject the lethal combination of drugs but failed. They tried to find useable veins in both Broom’s arms and legs and, at one point, struck his bone instead. Broom even tried to assist the team several times by turning over onto his side and moving his arms up and down while flexing his fingers. Finally, they were able to insert the needle, but his vein collapsed as soon as they tried to inject saline. After two hours, the state finally halted the execution attempt.

The governor issued a one-week reprieve, and Broom’s attorneys appealed. Broom appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court on the grounds that a second execution would put him in double jeopardy and constitute a cruel and unusual punishment. His appeal was denied by both the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. His execution was rescheduled for 2017 but delayed again until 2022. However, Broom died in prison in December 2020 before a second execution could take place.^[10]

Whether one stands for or against the death penalty, there is no denying it has been part of human existence throughout history. Once calculated to ensure an excruciating death before witnesses, with long suffering before blessed relief (such as crucifixion), it was later changed in many societies to be quick and merciful, at least in some cases. Often piety has served as a part of the execution, a priest participating to demonstrate human subservience to divine judgment. And often the execution has not been as incident free as the executioners’ desired.

Today, most executions are performed with at least a nod towards merciful speed and minimal suffering. Such has not always been the case. And yet, on regrettable occasions, some executions designed to be horrific for the miscreant being dispatched have somehow been botched to become even more horrific than their perpetrators intended. Here are 10 examples of executions which did not work out exactly as the executioners planned. Though in the end, the hoped for result was achieved.

10. Mary, Queen of Scots, beheading, 1587

Mary Stuart, often mistakenly believed to have been a half-sister of England’s Queen Elizabeth I, was in fact her first cousin, once removed. She was the daughter of Scotland’s King James V, and as his only surviving child, (or rather, legitimate child) claimed the title Queen of Scots. The complicated interaction between the rulers of Scotland, England, and France are far too complex to discuss here, beyond saying that her claim to the Scottish throne was disputed. So was her one time claim to the throne of England, despite both English and Scottish Catholics supporting her, to say nothing of the French. Her cousin Elizabeth, a Protestant, was not amused by Mary’s pretensions, and when Mary fled to England and threw herself on Elizabeth’s mercy, desirous of her protection, the Queen had her placed under house arrest.

Mary resided in several different castles and great houses as a prisoner of Elizabeth’s, while she and her followers involved themselves in intrigues and plots to obtain the throne. In 1586, while in the 19th year of existing as an involuntary guest of Elizabeth, Mary was convicted of treason against the Queen and sentenced to death. Elizabeth ignored pleas for mercy. Mary was scheduled to be beheaded in February, 1587, at Fotheringhay. An executioner and an assistant were selected to accomplish the deed in the Great Hall, using an axe. Of course, church officials and other high-placed personages were on hand to establish the legitimacy of the execution, as well as to ensure the salvation of Mary’s immortal soul.

While her soul may have found mercy, her corporeal being did not. The first blow of the axe struck Mary not across the neck, but in the back of her head. A second blow proved to be more accurately aimed, but it did not fully sever her head from her body. It took a third swing of the axe to complete the deed and allow the executioner to hold her head aloft for the witnesses to contemplate. After several burials and exhumations, Mary eventually was interred in Westminster Abbey, where she lies in a chapel shared with, among others, her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I. Mary’s son later ruled as King of England and Scotland as James the VI and II.

9. William Kidd, hanging, 1701

Under his title of Captain, William Kidd is nearly synonymous with pirate. Tales of Captain Kidd’s piracy, his ruthless dealings with friends and foes, and his buried treasure, are a major vein in the lode of pirate lore. Evidence indicates he was likely not a pirate at all, but a privateer of singularly poor judgment and inept political skills. He did make a small fortune capturing ships of his sovereign’s enemies. And he made enemies of his own among royal governors and military leaders in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and in colonial New York. Whether he buried vast hordes of loot in the latter, or anywhere else for that matter, has intrigued treasure hunters ever since. Kidd’s life and career has always presented a murky picture. Yet all agree he was executed for piracy in 1701, in London.

During the trial which preceded his execution, Kidd produced evidence in the form of warrants and letters of marque, as well as personal correspondence. The documents supported his assertions of innocence of piracy and other crimes. During the trial the evidence vanished, making conviction easier for his enemies to obtain, though they were discovered in the early 20th century. At any rate, his enemies obtained a conviction, and Kidd was sentenced to be executed by hanging at Execution Dock, London, on May 23, 1701. In the custom of the day he was allowed to purchase food and drink while spending his last days in prison, and did so extravagantly, especially the drink. When he was delivered for his execution, he was drunk.

After delivering a harangue protesting his innocence Kidd was dropped from the gallows. The rope broke, and instead of finding himself standing before his maker, Kidd groveled on the ground with the noose around his neck, likely considerably more sober. He reiterated his claims of innocence to the shocked crowd as he mounted the gallows a second time, citing divine intervention as proof of his assertions. The unabashed executioners produced a second rope and assisted Kidd to a second drop, which proved more effective. His tarred body was displayed suspended from a gibbet by the Thames, a warning to seafarers over the perils of piracy. Remnants of his body were said to be there for three years after his death.

8. Robert-Francois Damiens, dismemberment by horse, 1757

Regicide, the assassination of a monarch, has been frowned upon throughout history, with some of the more horrifying means of execution reserved for those who committed, or attempted to commit, such a horrid crime. In France up until the 18th century, the penalty of execution by dismemberment was the preferred means of dispatching regicides. Dismemberment was the forcible removal of the limbs from the living body. In the cradle of civilization which was Bourbon France, the use of horses to provide the motive force to achieve dismemberment was favored by the 18th century. Such a method was applied to Robert-Francois Damiens, a lowly servant convicted of the attempted assassination of Louis XV in 1757.

Damiens succeeded in wounding the King with a knife, which inspired His Majesty to confess his numerous extramarital affairs to his wife, Queen Marie, before he realized the injury was not serious. Serious or no, the attack led Damiens to being tried and convicted for attempting to assassinate the King, and his conviction led to his sentence of execution by dismemberment. But first the former servant was submitted to torture to ensure any co-conspirators did not escape justice. Damiens was burned with red-hot irons, the hand which struck the King was covered in molten lead, and he was liberally doused with boiling oil. He was then handed over to his executioner, who castrated him before tying each of his limbs to a horse. When started, the horses were to complete the dismemberment.

The horses’ combined strength proved insufficient to separate the assassin’s limbs from his body. While witnesses watched the application of justice the executioner used a knife to sever the tendons holding together Damiens’ tortured body. The horses were then reattached, and Damiens partially disjointed body was more readily rent asunder. The successful separation of limbs from body brought applause from the assembled witnesses. One of the witnesses who left behind an account of the proceedings was Giacomo Casanova, who wrote, “We had the courage to watch the dreadful sight for four hours…” Damiens body was burned. Some say he was still alive, though that assertion defies belief.

7. Henry Wirz, hanging, 1865

Washington DC’s Old Capitol Prison had a long and interesting history by the time of the American Civil War. Originally built as an expedient, to serve as a temporary capitol in the aftermath of the British burning of Washington in 1814, it had been a warehouse, a schoolhouse, and a boarding house before the Civil War. John C. Calhoun, former Vice President and a Senator from South Carolina, died there while in residence in 1850. In 1861 the government purchased the building to serve as a prison for captured Confederates and their sympathizers. Belle Boyd and John Singleton Mosby were both imprisoned there. In 1865 Henry Wirz, former commander of the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia, was incarcerated in the prison.

Wirz was tried for war crimes committed during his tenure at Andersonville, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and other lesser crimes. Over the past century apologists and revisionists have claimed he was railroaded, that no witnesses identified him as committing any of the crimes for which he was accused, and that he was used as a scapegoat. Be that as it may, a military tribunal led by General Lew Wallace, a veteran of Gettysburg and the future author of Ben Hur, convicted him of the charges, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. The execution was scheduled for November 10, 1865, at Old Capitol Prison, after President Andrew Johnson did not grant clemency. About 200 witnesses were on the grounds of the prison to witness the hanging, along with over 100 Union troops as guards.

Execution by hanging required the hangman to accurately ascertain the weight of the condemned, to ensure the fall was of sufficient length to break the neck. Too long of a drop could result in decapitation, too short and the victim would slowly strangle. The latter occurred in Wirz’s case, and the 200 witnesses watched as the condemned writhed and twisted, kicking and twitching, as he was gradually choked to death. Wirz was one of just two men executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War, though several others were executed for spying or for crimes committed as guerrillas during the conflict.

6. William Kemmler, electrocution, 1890

William Kemmler holds the distinction of being the first human formally executed using electricity. Convicted for the brutal murder of his common law wife, Kemmler was incarcerated in New York as Westinghouse and Edison’s “voltage wars” argued whether AC or DC current was the preferred method of providing electrical power to America. Edison conducted a lengthy and well-hyped campaign to demonstrate the dangers of AC current, as well as a coincident campaign demonstrating the effectiveness of using electricity for capital punishment. As part of his campaign he electrocuted animals, including an elephant, which he conveniently filmed using his relatively new motion picture technology.

New York authorized execution by electrocution in 1888, using AC current (after extensive lobbying by Edison), and Kemmler simply was the first in line by schedule. Westinghouse opposed the use of his AC technology for the purpose, as well as Edison’s unrelenting propagandizing, but eventually the scheduled execution took place in Auburn Prison, Auburn, New York. Rather than humane and quick, it was gruesome and protracted. After a first jolt and a pronouncement of death by the attending physician, Kemmler displayed signs of life. Additional charges of electricity were ordered, leading to several minutes of evident torture experienced by the victim.

Kemmler’s body smoked and charred, convulsed and changed color, filling the execution chamber with the smells of burnt meat. Several witnesses were forced to turn away, sickened by the display. The skin split and bled, hair smoldered, and approximately eight minutes transpired before the physician again announced Kemmler was dead. George Westinghouse later commented that an axe would have been a more efficient method of execution. A New York Times report of the execution headlined “Far Worse Than Hanging”. According to the report one witness, Sheriff O. A. Jenkins of Buffalo, New York, came to the opinion that execution by electrocution, “…would never do”.

5. William Williams, hanging, 1906

As of the end of 2022, William Willams, a convicted murderer, is the last person executed for his crimes by the State of Minnesota. Williams was convicted of killing a teenage boy of whom he was enamored, as well as the boy’s mother, who died in a separate shooting a week later. Williams admitted the murder of the boy, attempted to escape punishment via the insanity defense, and after conviction was sentenced to death by hanging.

Once again, the professional estimation of the hangman failed to address the realities of the execution. The hangman used a rope which was too long for its intended purpose, and Williams dropped to the floor, his neck intact, and with insufficient tension to stimulate strangulation. While Williams awaited, the hangman was forced to solicit assistance for him to complete his duty to the state.

Three or four strong men (depending on sources) were forced to seize the rope and haul upwards, lifting Williams off the floor and strangling him. No reporters were allowed to attend and record the execution, but over thirty witnesses observed Williams’ involuntary struggles against strangulation, which lasted over 14 minutes. Williams was executed in 1906. The state has not conducted an execution since.  In 1911, Minnesota abolished the death penalty.

4. Ginggaew Lorsoongnem, firing squad, 1979

Ginggaew Lorsoongnem was one of six Thai criminals who conspired to kidnap and murder a child. For the purposes of readability the other five shall remain nameless here. Convicted in a trial which was sensationalized in the press and media, Lorsoongnem was sentenced to death in early 1979. In Thailand at the time the preferred method of execution was through a firing squad.

Unbeknownst to her executioners, the convicted criminal was afflicted with situs inversus, meaning her heart, as well as other major organs, was on the opposite side from normal, as in a mirror image. At her execution, Lorsoongnem was struck by at least ten rounds, and since she was unconscious declared dead. Her body was then transferred to the morgue, located nearby in the same compound as that of the execution, where it was deposited to await autopsy.

Authorities, who were busily preparing additional executions, were startled by her screams from the morgue, and her reported attempts to stand once she regained consciousness. She was removed to the execution chamber, and a second firing squad pumped additional rounds into her body. According to Thai reports, the second firing squad completed the execution satisfactorily, at least as far as Thai justice was concerned.

3. John Louis Evans, electrocution, 1983

John Louis Evans’s execution in 1983 was notable at the time as being the first in Alabama since the United States Supreme Court allowed the states to return to the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia (1976). As such it drew considerable media attention in the United States and internationally. Evans was a career criminal, having committed more than two dozen armed robberies, numerous kidnappings, and the murder of a pawn shop owner during the course of a robbery. Evans attempted to plead guilty to the latter, which was rejected by prosecutors, since acceptance of the plea would prevent them from seeking the death penalty.

Scheduled for execution on April 22, 1983, Evans was electrocuted in an electric chair which had been built in the 1920s. and last used in 1965. His execution, witnessed by members of the press, his attorneys, and others, took more than 24 minutes after the first shock was applied. Eventually three were required, and his body smoldered, smoked, and produced sparks while it convulsed with each application of current.

“A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans’ face”, according to a witness, who attended the execution. “An overwhelming stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room”. He was describing the results of the first of the three shocks required before Evans was declared dead, after medical examinations following the first two revealed him to still be alive.

2. Stephen McCoy, lethal injection, 1989

In 1982 Texas became the first American state to use lethal injection, the intravenous administration of a “cocktail” of drugs, as the preferred means of legal execution. Eventually 32 states and the federal government adopted lethal injection, under the belief the method was more humane than hanging, gas, electrocution, or firing squad. In 1989 Stephen McCoy was sentenced to death in Texas. McCoy was a serial killer who, along with a partner named James Paster, was guilty of at least three murders, including the rape of two of the victims. Paster too was executed for his crimes.

For reasons which seem inexplicable to some, lethal injections are typically carried out by medical professionals, who create sanitary fields around the injection site. Although it seems as if post-injection infection is of minor concern to the victim, adherence to procedures is strictly followed. So are the amounts of the drugs administered as well as the rate of administration. In the case of McCoy, rather than simply slipping into a drug-induced coma followed by death, the victim reacted strongly and adversely to the injections.

McCoy’s reaction to the drugs included a physical spasm in which his body arched violently, causing at least one witness to faint. He also audibly gasped for air. Texas officials later admitted the execution had been less than ideal in its completion. According to Jim Mattox, then Attorney General for the State of Texas, “The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose…” McCoy’s execution was one of the earliest examples of the pitfalls of relying on lethal injection as a humane method of dispatching those sentenced to death.

1. Joseph Lewis Clark, lethal injection, 2006

Joseph Lewis Clark was sentenced to die for the murder of a gas station attendant during a robbery which netted Clark all of $60. Arrested in January, 1964, Clark confessed to the murder (as well as another) after a failed suicide attempt while in custody. Tried and convicted, following the lengthy appeals process, his execution took place in Lucasville, Ohio on May 2, 2006. His execution took place before witnesses, but for an extended period their view was obscured by a curtain. They heard, rather than saw, what transpired in the execution chamber.

What they heard were repeated groans and protests that it wasn’t working, including verbal complaints uttered by the condemned man. When the curtain was opened, the witnesses observed the condemned man raise his head several times and look about him. The procedure took more than 90 minutes, delayed because the medical technicians involved failed to find a vein capable of bearing the intravenous injection. One vein selected collapsed more than a half hour into the execution. One witness reported the victim protesting, “It don’t work”, several times throughout the procedure.

A post-mortem on Clark’s body revealed 19 puncture wounds administered during the search for a suitable injection site. Clark’s execution eventually succeeded, though protests based on what witnesses reported led to increased debate over lethal injections as a means of state executions. Over the centuries humanity has sought a means to humanely dispatch those deemed to be the least humane in society. Despite persistence in trying, it appears the perfect answer to the difficulty continues to be elusive.