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This is Botched Executions from Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar.
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For nearly 400 years, states have been putting people to death,
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and some of those executions went horribly wrong. Trap doors
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wouldn't open, flames rose from the electric chair, and needles
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couldn't find a vein. In this series, I'm taking you
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through my book, Botched Executions, one chapter at a time.
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Everything you'll hear comes from the witnesses, the court records,
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and the state's own written reports. Where the accounts disagree,
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you'll hear both. Whatever you believe about capital punishment, these
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are the cases where a state set out to kill
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someone and got it wrong. A word of warning before
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we begin. These are real deaths, described by the people
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who watched them, and some of the details are hard
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to hear. And now, botched executions, four centuries of failed hangings, Electrocutions, gassings, injections,
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and firing squads. Chapter 7. William Kemmler and 17 Seconds. Auburn,
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New York. August 6th, 1890. The gallows, Governor David B.
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Hill had told the New York Legislature, has come down
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to us from the Dark Ages. And he asked whether
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science couldn't find a less barbarous way to kill the condemned.
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A commission went looking. Its answer was electricity. The new
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law took effect on January 1st, 1889, and the first
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man sentenced under it was a buffalo huckster, or peddler,
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named William Kemmler. On the morning of March 29th, 1889,
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At the back of 526 South Division Street, Kemmler took
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a hatchet to Matilda Ziegler, the woman he lived with
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as his wife. One doctor at the trial counted 26 wounds.
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Another found 22 distinct wounds on her head. Kemmler told
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a neighbor, Mrs. Mary Reed, I've killed her. In a saloon,
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he told a man named Asa King, Yes, I have,
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and I'm willing to take the rope for it, the
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sooner the better. An Erie County jury convicted him of
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first-degree murder in May 1889, and the judge sentenced him
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to have a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to
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cause death passed through his body within the walls of
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Auburn State Prison. The sentence was set for the week
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of June 24, 1889. It didn't happen that week, because
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his case went all the way to the Supreme Court
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of the United States. His lawyers argued that death by
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electricity was a cruel and unusual punishment, and the fight
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dragged on for more than a year, with George Westinghouse
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widely believed to be paying for it. The chair was
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going to run on alternating current, the kind his company sold,
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and the camp around his rival Thomas Edison, who sold
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direct current, had been pushing alternating current as the deadly one.
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On the morning after, the New York Times put it plainly,
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Kemmler's life had been the bone of contention between the
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alleged humanitarians who supported the law on one side and
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the electric light interests, who hated to see the commodity
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in which they deal reduced to such a use as that.
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The prison's instruments had been stolen in the first place,
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the New York Herald said, and when the makers offered
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to build the state a machine that could be relied on,
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they were told that they were merely making a hue
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and cry to save themselves. Westinghouse's lawyer, Paul D. Kravath,
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told the Times that the company had no interest in
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doing away with this form of execution. On May 23, 1890,
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the Supreme Court turned Kemmler down. Punishments are cruel when
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they involve torture or a lingering death, Chief Justice Melville
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Fuller wrote, but the punishment of death is not cruel
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within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution.
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Kemmler was resentenced to die in the week of August 4th.
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The machine that would kill him was a Westinghouse dynamo,
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and it sat in one of the prison shops several
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hundred feet from the death chamber by the official report
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and nearly a thousand by the Times. C.R. Barnes of
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Rochester ran the dynamo room, and an electrician named Edwin F.
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Davis had charge of the switchboard. The switches were in
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the room next to the chair, and the warden would
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signal the man at the lever by ringing electric bells.
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The meter that measured the current wasn't in the death
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chamber either. so none of the official witnesses could know,
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as the state's own physician later wrote, precisely what the
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voltage was. Before Kemmler was brought in, the warden asked
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the doctors how long to keep the current on. Dr.
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Carlos McDonald said 20 seconds, and then agreed to 10,
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he wrote, in deference to the opinion of my associate
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physician that a considerably less period of time would suffice.
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That associate was Dr. Edward Spitzka. On Wednesday, August 6th,
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there were only a few streaks of gray in the east,
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the New York Tribune reported, when men and boys began
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gathering at the prison gates. Kemmler woke to footsteps outside
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his cell. By the light of a gas jet, the warden,
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Charles Durston, read him the death warrant, and when he finished,
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Kemmler said, All right, I am ready. Then he turned
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to Joseph Vailing, a deputy sheriff he had known in Buffalo. Joe,
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I want you to stay right through this thing. Don't
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let them experiment upon me more than they ought to.
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The deputy slid open the back of Kemmler's trousers for
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the electrode, then cut his hair, and the two of
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them made breakfast together. When the chaplains had prayed with him,
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Durston took him in. Twenty-five official witnesses sat in a
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half circle, and fourteen of them were doctors. Gentlemen, Durston said,
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this is William Kemmler. Kemmler bowed. Gentlemen, he said, I
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wish you all good luck. I believe I am going
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to a good place and I am ready to go.
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I want only to say that a great deal has
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been said about me that is untrue. I am bad enough.
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It is cruel to make me out worse. An ordinary
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chair had been set beside the death chair, and he
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started to sit in it. Then he saw Durston step
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forward and dropped into the right one instead. They had
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him stand again so Durston could check his clothes. His
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outer clothes had been cut away at the base of
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his spine for the electrode, but the shirt underneath hadn't been,
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so Durston took out a pocket knife and cut two
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small triangles out of it. Kemmler sat back down. As
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Durston fitted the headpiece, Kemmler spoke to him, in such
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tones as one might speak to a barber who was
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shaving him, the Times reported. Now take your time and
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do it all right, warden. There is no rush. I
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don't want to take any chances on this thing, you know,
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Durston said. All right, William. With the headpiece on, Kemmler
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shook his head, as one might when trying on a
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new hat, and said, Warden, just make that a little tighter.
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We want everything all right, you know. There were eleven straps,
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and as each one was buckled, Kemmler pulled against it
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to see if it was tight enough. The electrodes were
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rubber cups with wet sponges inside, one pressed to the
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top of his head and one at the base of
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his spine. Durston stepped to the door and asked, Is
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all ready? Nobody answered. Goodbye, William, he said, and the
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witnesses heard a click. Simultaneously with the click of the lever,
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the body of the man in the chair straightened, the
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Times reported. Every muscle of it seemed to have drawn
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to its highest tension. It seems as though it might
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have been thrown across the chamber were it not for
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the straps which held it. The body was as rigid
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as though cast in bronze, save for the index finger
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of the right hand, which closed up so tightly that
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the nail penetrated the flesh on the first joint, and
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the blood trickled out on the arm of the chair. Dr.
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Daniels of Buffalo held a stopwatch. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds.
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Fifteen seconds. Sixteen and seventeen. It was just 6.43 o'clock. Dr. Spitzka,
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shaking his head, said, He is dead. Durston pressed the
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signal button, and the dynamo stopped. The witnesses let out
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their breath, and then they looked at the chair again.
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The men rose from their chairs impulsively and groaned at
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the agony they felt.' Great God, he's alive!' someone said.'
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Turn on the current!' said another.' See, he breathes!' said
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a third.' For God's sake, kill him and have it over!'
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said a representative of one of the press associations. and then,
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unable to bear the strain, he fell on the floor
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in a dead faint. Kemmler's chest was rising and falling.
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Durston had already started to loosen the head electrode, and
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he screwed it back on.' Have the current turned on again, quick!
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No delay!' Spitzka told him, and Durston ran to the
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door and rang the bells. This time, the dynamo didn't
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seem to run smoothly.' The current could be heard sharply snapping,'
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the times said.' Blood began to appear on the face
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of the wretch in the chair.' It stood on the
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face like sweat. An awful smell filled the room. And then,
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as those two capped the climax of this fearful sight,
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it was seen that the hair under and around the
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electrode on the head and the flesh under and around
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the electrode at the base of the spine was singeing.
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The stench was unbearable. That September, McDonald's official report to
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the governor put the smoke rising from the spinal electrode
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down to momentary scorching of the edge of the sponge.
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But the autopsy he supervised found the muscle along Kemmler's
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spine cooked through their entire thickness. Nobody could say afterward
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how long it went on. Those who held watches were
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too much horrified to follow them, the Times reported. Some
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said afterward that it lasted a minute. One said it
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lasted fully four minutes and a half. Spitzka put it
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at no more than a minute. McDonald's report gave it
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as about 70 seconds in one place and nearly one
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and a half minutes in another. At 6.51, the signal
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went out to shut it off, and when Durston unbuckled
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the straps, the body was limp. This time, he was
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surely dead. There was no doubt of that. The two
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papers didn't agree on who passed out. The Times had
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the Press Association man fainting on the floor, while the
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District Attorney of Erie County, George Quimby, groaned and rushed
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from the room. In the Herald, Quimby told the warden
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he had to get out before it was half over,
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and when he got into the upper hallway, he fainted,
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and he was the only member of the party who
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gave way completely. By that afternoon, people were already arguing
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over whether the experiment had worked. Dr. Alfred Southwick of Buffalo,
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whom the Times called the father of the electrical execution law,
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was delighted. This is the grandest success of the age,
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he said. After the execution today, I turned to Warden Durston,
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congratulated him, and said that I was one of the
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happiest men in the state of New York. Spitzka ranked
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the methods for the Times. First, the guillotine, second, the gallows,
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and last of all, electrical executions. He'd seen hangings, he said,
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immeasurably more brutal than this execution, but I've never seen
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anything so awful. His verdict was, the execution was a success,
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for the man is dead, but the method is a failure.
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He even wondered aloud whether the machinery had been allowed
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to fail. The interests of the company who manufactured the
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dynamos would certainly be advanced by the defects in the machinery,
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he said, though he added, there are no facts to
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warrant it. The Herald said the day proved either that
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the dynamos were faulty or that the interested company had
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bribed someone to make them seem so. Over in New Jersey,
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Edison told a reporter he'd only glanced at the account
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and it was not pleasant reading. The mistake, he said,
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was in leaving everything to the doctors. Kemmler's hair didn't
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conduct and the top of the head was a poor
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place to give a shock. The better way was to
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put the condemned man's hands in jars of water with
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a little potash in them. In Pittsburgh, George Westinghouse was
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asked whether he had anything to say. Both the Times
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and the Herald printed his reply word for word. I
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do not care to talk about it. It has been
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a brutal affair. They could have done better with an axe.
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My predictions have been verified. The public will lay the
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blame where it belongs, and it will not be on us.
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I regard the manner of the killing as a complete
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vindication of all our claims. The next morning's headlines split
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the same way. The Tribune headlined its story, The Electric
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Current Performs the Work Expected of It. The Times called
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its own, Far Worse Than Hanging, and opened by calling
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the execution a disgrace to civilization. The killing of Kemmler,
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the Herald's correspondent wrote, marks, I fear, the beginning and
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the end of electrocution. It was only the beginning. Other
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states copied the chair, and New York kept using it
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for 73 more years. Eddie Lee Mays, the last man
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the state electrocuted, died at Sing Sing on August 15, 1963.
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Thanks for listening. I've been reading from my new book,
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Botched Executions, Four Centuries of Failed Hangings, Electrocutions, Gassings, Injections,
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and Firing Squads. If you'd like a list of sources
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I used for this episode and for the book it's
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narrated from, you can find the full list at weirddarkness.com
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slash botched executions. Scroll to the bottom of the page
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for the sources used. If you'd rather not wait for
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the next section to be shared in the podcast, The
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whole book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback,
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as well as Kindle Unlimited.
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This is Botched Executions from Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar.
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For nearly 400 years, states have been putting people to death,
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and some of those executions went horribly wrong. Trap doors
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wouldn't open, flames rose from the electric chair, and needles
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couldn't find a vein. In this series, I'm taking you
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through my book, Botched Executions, one chapter at a time.
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Everything you'll hear comes from the witnesses, the court records,
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and the state's own written reports. Where the accounts disagree,
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you'll hear both. Whatever you believe about capital punishment, these
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are the cases where a state set out to kill
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someone and got it wrong. A word of warning before
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we begin. These are real deaths, described by the people
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who watched them, and some of the details are hard
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to hear. And now, botched executions, four centuries of failed hangings, Electrocutions, gassings, injections,
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and firing squads. Chapter 7. William Kemmler and 17 Seconds. Auburn,
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New York. August 6th, 1890. The gallows, Governor David B.
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Hill had told the New York Legislature, has come down
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to us from the Dark Ages. And he asked whether
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science couldn't find a less barbarous way to kill the condemned.
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A commission went looking. Its answer was electricity. The new
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law took effect on January 1st, 1889, and the first
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man sentenced under it was a buffalo huckster, or peddler,
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named William Kemmler. On the morning of March 29th, 1889,
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At the back of 526 South Division Street, Kemmler took
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a hatchet to Matilda Ziegler, the woman he lived with
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as his wife. One doctor at the trial counted 26 wounds.
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Another found 22 distinct wounds on her head. Kemmler told
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a neighbor, Mrs. Mary Reed, I've killed her. In a saloon,
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he told a man named Asa King, Yes, I have,
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and I'm willing to take the rope for it, the
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sooner the better. An Erie County jury convicted him of
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first-degree murder in May 1889, and the judge sentenced him
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to have a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to
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cause death passed through his body within the walls of
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Auburn State Prison. The sentence was set for the week
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of June 24, 1889. It didn't happen that week, because
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his case went all the way to the Supreme Court
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of the United States. His lawyers argued that death by
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electricity was a cruel and unusual punishment, and the fight
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dragged on for more than a year, with George Westinghouse
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widely believed to be paying for it. The chair was
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going to run on alternating current, the kind his company sold,
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and the camp around his rival Thomas Edison, who sold
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direct current, had been pushing alternating current as the deadly one.
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On the morning after, the New York Times put it plainly,
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Kemmler's life had been the bone of contention between the
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alleged humanitarians who supported the law on one side and
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the electric light interests, who hated to see the commodity
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in which they deal reduced to such a use as that.
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The prison's instruments had been stolen in the first place,
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the New York Herald said, and when the makers offered
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to build the state a machine that could be relied on,
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they were told that they were merely making a hue
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and cry to save themselves. Westinghouse's lawyer, Paul D. Kravath,
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told the Times that the company had no interest in
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doing away with this form of execution. On May 23, 1890,
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the Supreme Court turned Kemmler down. Punishments are cruel when
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they involve torture or a lingering death, Chief Justice Melville
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Fuller wrote, but the punishment of death is not cruel
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within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution.
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Kemmler was resentenced to die in the week of August 4th.
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The machine that would kill him was a Westinghouse dynamo,
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and it sat in one of the prison shops several
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hundred feet from the death chamber by the official report
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and nearly a thousand by the Times. C.R. Barnes of
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Rochester ran the dynamo room, and an electrician named Edwin F.
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Davis had charge of the switchboard. The switches were in
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the room next to the chair, and the warden would
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signal the man at the lever by ringing electric bells.
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The meter that measured the current wasn't in the death
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chamber either. so none of the official witnesses could know,
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as the state's own physician later wrote, precisely what the
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voltage was. Before Kemmler was brought in, the warden asked
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the doctors how long to keep the current on. Dr.
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Carlos McDonald said 20 seconds, and then agreed to 10,
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he wrote, in deference to the opinion of my associate
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physician that a considerably less period of time would suffice.
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That associate was Dr. Edward Spitzka. On Wednesday, August 6th,
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there were only a few streaks of gray in the east,
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the New York Tribune reported, when men and boys began
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gathering at the prison gates. Kemmler woke to footsteps outside
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his cell. By the light of a gas jet, the warden,
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Charles Durston, read him the death warrant, and when he finished,
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Kemmler said, All right, I am ready. Then he turned
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to Joseph Vailing, a deputy sheriff he had known in Buffalo. Joe,
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I want you to stay right through this thing. Don't
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let them experiment upon me more than they ought to.
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The deputy slid open the back of Kemmler's trousers for
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the electrode, then cut his hair, and the two of
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them made breakfast together. When the chaplains had prayed with him,
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Durston took him in. Twenty-five official witnesses sat in a
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half circle, and fourteen of them were doctors. Gentlemen, Durston said,
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this is William Kemmler. Kemmler bowed. Gentlemen, he said, I
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wish you all good luck. I believe I am going
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to a good place and I am ready to go.
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I want only to say that a great deal has
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been said about me that is untrue. I am bad enough.
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It is cruel to make me out worse. An ordinary
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chair had been set beside the death chair, and he
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started to sit in it. Then he saw Durston step
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forward and dropped into the right one instead. They had
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him stand again so Durston could check his clothes. His
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outer clothes had been cut away at the base of
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his spine for the electrode, but the shirt underneath hadn't been,
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so Durston took out a pocket knife and cut two
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small triangles out of it. Kemmler sat back down. As
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Durston fitted the headpiece, Kemmler spoke to him, in such
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tones as one might speak to a barber who was
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shaving him, the Times reported. Now take your time and
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do it all right, warden. There is no rush. I
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don't want to take any chances on this thing, you know,
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Durston said. All right, William. With the headpiece on, Kemmler
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shook his head, as one might when trying on a
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new hat, and said, Warden, just make that a little tighter.
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We want everything all right, you know. There were eleven straps,
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and as each one was buckled, Kemmler pulled against it
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to see if it was tight enough. The electrodes were
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rubber cups with wet sponges inside, one pressed to the
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top of his head and one at the base of
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his spine. Durston stepped to the door and asked, Is
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all ready? Nobody answered. Goodbye, William, he said, and the
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witnesses heard a click. Simultaneously with the click of the lever,
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the body of the man in the chair straightened, the
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Times reported. Every muscle of it seemed to have drawn
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to its highest tension. It seems as though it might
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have been thrown across the chamber were it not for
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the straps which held it. The body was as rigid
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as though cast in bronze, save for the index finger
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of the right hand, which closed up so tightly that
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the nail penetrated the flesh on the first joint, and
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the blood trickled out on the arm of the chair. Dr.
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Daniels of Buffalo held a stopwatch. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds.
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Fifteen seconds. Sixteen and seventeen. It was just 6.43 o'clock. Dr. Spitzka,
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shaking his head, said, He is dead. Durston pressed the
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signal button, and the dynamo stopped. The witnesses let out
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their breath, and then they looked at the chair again.
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The men rose from their chairs impulsively and groaned at
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the agony they felt.' Great God, he's alive!' someone said.'
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Turn on the current!' said another.' See, he breathes!' said
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a third.' For God's sake, kill him and have it over!'
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said a representative of one of the press associations. and then,
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unable to bear the strain, he fell on the floor
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in a dead faint. Kemmler's chest was rising and falling.
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Durston had already started to loosen the head electrode, and
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he screwed it back on.' Have the current turned on again, quick!
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No delay!' Spitzka told him, and Durston ran to the
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door and rang the bells. This time, the dynamo didn't
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seem to run smoothly.' The current could be heard sharply snapping,'
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the times said.' Blood began to appear on the face
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of the wretch in the chair.' It stood on the
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face like sweat. An awful smell filled the room. And then,
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as those two capped the climax of this fearful sight,
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it was seen that the hair under and around the
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electrode on the head and the flesh under and around
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the electrode at the base of the spine was singeing.
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The stench was unbearable. That September, McDonald's official report to
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the governor put the smoke rising from the spinal electrode
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down to momentary scorching of the edge of the sponge.
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But the autopsy he supervised found the muscle along Kemmler's
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spine cooked through their entire thickness. Nobody could say afterward
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how long it went on. Those who held watches were
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too much horrified to follow them, the Times reported. Some
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said afterward that it lasted a minute. One said it
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lasted fully four minutes and a half. Spitzka put it
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at no more than a minute. McDonald's report gave it
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as about 70 seconds in one place and nearly one
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and a half minutes in another. At 6.51, the signal
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went out to shut it off, and when Durston unbuckled
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the straps, the body was limp. This time, he was
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surely dead. There was no doubt of that. The two
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papers didn't agree on who passed out. The Times had
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the Press Association man fainting on the floor, while the
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District Attorney of Erie County, George Quimby, groaned and rushed
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from the room. In the Herald, Quimby told the warden
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he had to get out before it was half over,
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and when he got into the upper hallway, he fainted,
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and he was the only member of the party who
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gave way completely. By that afternoon, people were already arguing
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over whether the experiment had worked. Dr. Alfred Southwick of Buffalo,
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whom the Times called the father of the electrical execution law,
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was delighted. This is the grandest success of the age,
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he said. After the execution today, I turned to Warden Durston,
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congratulated him, and said that I was one of the
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happiest men in the state of New York. Spitzka ranked
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the methods for the Times. First, the guillotine, second, the gallows,
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and last of all, electrical executions. He'd seen hangings, he said,
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immeasurably more brutal than this execution, but I've never seen
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anything so awful. His verdict was, the execution was a success,
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for the man is dead, but the method is a failure.
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He even wondered aloud whether the machinery had been allowed
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to fail. The interests of the company who manufactured the
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dynamos would certainly be advanced by the defects in the machinery,
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he said, though he added, there are no facts to
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warrant it. The Herald said the day proved either that
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the dynamos were faulty or that the interested company had
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bribed someone to make them seem so. Over in New Jersey,
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Edison told a reporter he'd only glanced at the account
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and it was not pleasant reading. The mistake, he said,
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was in leaving everything to the doctors. Kemmler's hair didn't
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conduct and the top of the head was a poor
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place to give a shock. The better way was to
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put the condemned man's hands in jars of water with
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a little potash in them. In Pittsburgh, George Westinghouse was
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asked whether he had anything to say. Both the Times
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and the Herald printed his reply word for word. I
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do not care to talk about it. It has been
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a brutal affair. They could have done better with an axe.
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My predictions have been verified. The public will lay the
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blame where it belongs, and it will not be on us.
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I regard the manner of the killing as a complete
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vindication of all our claims. The next morning's headlines split
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the same way. The Tribune headlined its story, The Electric
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Current Performs the Work Expected of It. The Times called
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its own, Far Worse Than Hanging, and opened by calling
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the execution a disgrace to civilization. The killing of Kemmler,
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the Herald's correspondent wrote, marks, I fear, the beginning and
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the end of electrocution. It was only the beginning. Other
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states copied the chair, and New York kept using it
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for 73 more years. Eddie Lee Mays, the last man
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the state electrocuted, died at Sing Sing on August 15, 1963.
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Thanks for listening. I've been reading from my new book,
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Botched Executions, Four Centuries of Failed Hangings, Electrocutions, Gassings, Injections,
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and Firing Squads. If you'd like a list of sources
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I used for this episode and for the book it's
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narrated from, you can find the full list at weirddarkness.com
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slash botched executions. Scroll to the bottom of the page
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for the sources used. If you'd rather not wait for
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the next section to be shared in the podcast, The
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whole book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback,
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as well as Kindle Unlimited.
