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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 2. Half-Hang at Maggie and the
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Stop at Peppermill. Edinburgh, Scotland. September 2nd, 1724. Scotland had
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its own version of the law that hanged Anne Greene,
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Under an act of 1690, if a woman hid her
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pregnancy for the whole term, called for no help at
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the birth, and the child was then found dead or a-missing,
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she was to be holden and repute the murderer of
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her own child, even though there be no appearance of
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wound or bruise upon the body of the child. Margaret
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Dixon came from the parish of Inveresque, on the coast
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of Edinburgh. She was married, but she had unluckily differed
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with and eloped from her husband for some years past,
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the Caledonian Mercury said, and none of the 1724 accounts
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names him. In December 1723, the body of a newborn
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boy was found, by the later accounts, on the bank
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of the River Tweed near Kelso, and it was laid
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to her. Robert Chambers, who collected the case in his
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Domestic Annals of Scotland in 1861, says that a defense
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was made for her that she was a married woman,
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though living separate from her husband, but it was of
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no avail. On Monday, August 3rd, 1724, she was sentenced
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to die in the grass market the first Wednesday of September.
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In its notice of the sentence, the Mercury got her
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first name wrong and called her Janet. On Wednesday, September 2nd,
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they hanged her, and the Mercury gave it two sentences
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the next day. Yesterday, Margaret Dixon suffered in the grass market,
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pursuant to the sentence emitted against her for the murder
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of her own child. She was cut down some time
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after throwing over and put into a beer in order
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to be transported to Muselberg to be buried with her people.
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The paper spent more ink on a soldier, A soldier
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in Kirk's regiment, observing that the executioner had left a
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part of the halter upon the gallows after cutting the
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woman down, jumped upon the ladder, seized the rope, and
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fell a-unnoosing it with his teeth, which his sergeant, perceiving,
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fell upon him with his cane, and severely drubbed him
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for his pains. A broadside, printed in Edinburgh that month,
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which Chambers quotes at length, gives the rest. In his
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summary of it, the hangman did his usual office of
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pulling down her legs, and and when she'd hung the
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usual time, she was taken down and put in a
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coffin whose lid was nailed fast at the gibbet foot.
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The magistrates had allowed her friends to take her home
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to the churchyard at Inveresk, and they loaded the coffin
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onto a cart. They didn't get far before there was
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a fight. Surgeon's apprentices wanted the body, and there happened
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a scuffle betwixt her friends and some surgeon apprentices and
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others their accomplices on this side of the society port.
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Somebody swung a hammer and broke in one side of
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the coffin. The broadside credits that blow together with the
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jolting of the cart with letting in air and setting
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the blood and vitals a-going. The cart went on. About
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two miles out of the city, the men with it
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halted to drink at a place the broadside calls Peppermill.
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The mercury in a longer account it printed on September
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8th spells it Peppermill. The bearers had stopped there to
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refresh themselves, and the Mercury said were alarmed by one
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in the company who affirmed that he felt some motion
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in the chest. In the paper's telling, her friends immediately
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broke up the coffin and caused open a vein and
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give her some spirits. The broadside fills in more. In
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its version, the cart was left standing in the highway
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while the men were inside, and two joiners who came
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out of a house from curiosity to look at the
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coffin heard a noise within. After some opposition, the rest
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of the lid was pried off, and they saw her
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draw up her limbs. A man named Peter Purdy, a
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practitioner of phlebotomy, happened to be there and opened a vein.
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When the blood came, she said twice, Oh dear! They
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stood her up and held her between two of them
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on the bank by the road until the color came
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back into her lips. Then they laid her on blankets
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in a corn cart, with a woman holding up her head,
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and drove her to Musilburg. The magistrates there ordered her
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kept for the night and fed, and a minister named
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Robert Bonnelly came and prayed over her. The Mercury said
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she was so far recovered before next day that she
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both stayed up and spoke to the company. The next
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morning she was moved to the house of her brother,
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James Dixon, a weaver. She wasn't right, yet. On that
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first day, the broadside says, she had little appearance of
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recovering her health or senses. and she cried out to
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let her be gone, for she was to be executed
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on Wednesday. Every day people came to the Weaver's house
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to look at her. By September 8th, the Mercury said,
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she had been visited by almost everybody here, high and low,
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and had a great deal of money given her. And
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the paper had its own theory of what saved her.'
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Tis thought the stir and motion of the cart whereon
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she lay provoked the circulation of the blood, and contributed
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greatly to her recovery. On Sunday, she went to the
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parish church at Inveresque. The Reverend Mr. Williamson preached what
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the paper called a very pretty sermon that was suitable
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to the occasion, and frequent mention was made of the
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resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. So many people came
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to see her, the broadside adds, that the minister had
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to walk her out of the churchyard to keep her
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from being trodden down by the multitude. On Tuesday, October 13th,
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she came into Edinburgh from Musilburgh. People were so eager
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to see a hanged woman appear in the streets again,
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the Mercury reported two days later, that she'd infallibly been
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trod down or stifled in the crowd if a keeper
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of the tollbooth named John Hood, a relation of hers,
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hadn't got her into his house and out again by
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a back door. The paper called her the famous Margaret Dixon,
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who so cannily outwitted John DeGleesh in the grass market.
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DeGleesh was the hangman. Edinburgh's printers couldn't agree on what
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she was. One broadside put a penitent's confession in her mouth,
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in verse, thanking God who did me persevere as an
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example high of divine omnipotence. Another, as she called a
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warning to the wicked, which has been credited to the
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poet Alexander Penicook, said she'd gone straight back to her
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old ways, and that now she gets drunk and steals
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and plays the deal each day. Chambers found an unnamed
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chronicler who said she kept every Wednesday afterward as a
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day of fasting and prayer. Scotland never hanged her again,
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and none of the 1724 accounts says why. The explanation,
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repeated ever since, comes from the Newgate Calendar, a London
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collection of crime stories that got the year wrong by four.
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Under Scott's law, it says, a sentence once carried out
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couldn't be carried out again. It adds that her hanging
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had legally ended her marriage, and that her husband married
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her a second time a few days later. The legal
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historian Cassie Watson writes that Scott's law did treat a
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sentence as served once it had been executed, and that
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the jurist David Hume later recommended a quiet pardon for
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cases like hers. But no pardon for Margaret has been found.
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And the second wedding first shows up in the Newgate calendar.
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Chambers says only that her husband took her back, that
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she had more children, and that for years she cried
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salt through the streets of Edinburgh, pointed out to strangers
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as half-hang it Maggie Dixon. The Newgate calendar has her
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alive in 1753. In 2026, a pub on the grass market,
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still carried her name. On September 30, 2026, at 7.26 p.m.,
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the curtain opens in Tennessee, and Krista Pike says, I'm
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at peace, and I'm ready to go. At 7.46, the
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curtain closes, and a reporter writes that she is clearly
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still alive. At 8.53 p.m., After a second dose, the
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witnesses are sent out, and she's still breathing. For four centuries,
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each new method was sold as the fix for the last.
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The long drop, the electric chair, gas. and finally the needle,
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sold as a medical procedure. A scholar went through 8,776
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American executions from 1890 to 2010. 276 went wrong, and
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the needle had the highest failure rate of them all.
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In our quest for humane ways to kill someone, we've
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sometimes created more gruesome and torturous ones. Botched Executions. Four
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centuries of failed hangings, electrocutions, gassings, injections, and firing squads.
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On Amazon, in Kindle, Paperback, and Kindle Unlimited. WeirdDarkness.com slash
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Botched Executions. Chapter 3. Three Ropes for Joseph Samuel. Sydney,
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New South Wales, September 26th, 1803. Joseph Samuel was fourteen
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when a London court sentenced him to seven years' transportation
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in 1795 for stealing from a house. He reached New
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South Wales in December 1801. The colony was 15 years old,
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and its night watch was made up partly of men
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who had come out as convicts themselves and served their time.
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On the night of Thursday, August 25th, 1803, between 7
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and 8 o'clock, thieves broke into the house of a
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woman named Mary Breeze at the corner of Back Row
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and carried off a desk with about 24 pounds in it.
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For most of the night, the chief constable kept watchmen
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posted in the brush behind Back Row. Joseph Luker came
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on duty at midnight. He was a constable, a former
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convict who had served out his time and joined the watch,
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and about an hour before daylight, he left his post
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to search the brush. A little later, he was found
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on the edge of the road to Farm Cove, a
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breathless corpse, shockingly mangled. The Sydney Gazette counted 16 stabs
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and contusions on his head. His left ear was nearly divided,
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and the guard of his own cutlass had been driven
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into his skull by someone who had seized the weapon
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by the blade with such force as to rivet the
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plate in the skull to a depth of more than
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an inch and a half. The Dictionary of Sydney lists
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him as the first police officer killed on duty in Australia.
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A coroner's jury of 12 sat for five hours and
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returned a verdict of willful murder against a man named
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William Bladders, and some other persons or persons unknown. Luker
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was buried on Sunday, August 28th, with all his brother
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constables walking behind the coffin. His initials, at his age, 38,
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were on the lid. Four men of the watch lowered
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him into the grave, and one of them, the Gazette noted,
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was at present in confinement on suspicion. The deceased was
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a man of very fair character throughout the colony, the
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paper said, and was a free man a length of
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time previous to his assassination. Several men were charged. One
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was a fellow constable of Luker's, Isaac Simmons, known around
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the colony as Hikey Bull, who had blood on his
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shirt and put it down to nosebleeds and to a
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fish or a duck. Bladders said the blood on his
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own clothes came from a pig he'd killed that morning.
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Both were acquitted of the murder. Samuel admitted taking part
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in the robbery of the desk and denied any part
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in the killing. Another thief testifying for the crown named
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him and he was found not guilty of the murder
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and guilty of the robbery, and sentenced to death. The
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sentence was passed on Friday, September 23rd, and carried out
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the following Monday. At half-past nine that Monday morning, the
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New South Wales Corps turned out under arms and marched
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to the gallows at Brickfield Hill. Samuel was brought there
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with a second condemned man, James Hardwick, whom the Reverend
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Samuel Marsden attended. Samuel, the Gazette noted, it spelled his
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name Samuels, being a Jew, was prepared by a person
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of his own profession. Simmons was there too. He had
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been purposely brought from Georgia's head to witness the awful
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end of the unhappy culprit. When the chaplain had finished,
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Samuel spoke to the crowd. While he and Simmons shared
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a cell, he said the two of them had sworn
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an oath, in the Hebrew tongue, to keep whatever they
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told each other secret, and Simmons had then confessed the
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killing to him. Luker had surprised him in the robbery,
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Simmons said, and he had knocked him down and given
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him a topper for luck. He had said, too, by
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Samuel's account, that he would hang 500 Christians to save himself.
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Simmons tried again and again to stop him, but Samuel
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spoke calmly, and his words gained credit among the spectators.
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Against Simmons, the Gazette wrote, the feelings of the multitude
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burst forth into invective. At about 10, the two men
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climbed back into the cart. Just as they were about
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to be turned off, a reprieve for Hardwick arrived, and
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the provost marshal announced it. Samuel was left to hang alone.
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A hanging from a cart at almost no drop. The
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noose was tied to the beam, the cart was driven
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out from under the condemned, and the rope strangled. The
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Gazette printed what happened next on October 2nd in an
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account that has been reprinted many times since. At length,
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the signal was given and the cart drove from under him,
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but by the conclusion, the suspending cord was separated about
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the center and the culprit fell to the ground, on
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which he remained motionless with his face downwards. The rope
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had broken in the middle, so they brought the cart back,
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held him up on it, and put a second rope
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on him. He was launched off again, but the line
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ran loose and continued to slip until the legs of
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the sufferer trailed along the ground, the body being only
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half suspended. All that beheld were also moved at his
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protracted sufferings, the paper wrote, nor did some hesitate to
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declare that the invisible hand of providence was at work
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in the behalf of him who had revealed the circumstances
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above related. The executioner tried again. By now, Samuel was
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to every appearance lifeless, and men lifted him and held
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him up on their shoulders while a third rope was rigged.
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The body was gently lowered, but when left alone, again
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fell prostrate to the earth, this rope having also snapped short,
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close to the neck. After the third rope, nobody tried
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a fourth. Compassion could no longer bear restraint, the Gazette wrote.
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Winged with humanity, the Provost Marshal sped to His Excellency's presence.
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The Provost Marshal was Thomas Smith, and His Excellency was
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Philip Gidley King, the Governor of the Colony. Smith came
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back from him with a reprieve. The paper closed the
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scene with a line of its own. If mercy be
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a fault, it is the dearest attribute of God, and
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surely in heaven it may find extenuation. The story that
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King spared him because he took the broken ropes as
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a sign from God is a later edition. No words
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of King's about the case have been found, and his
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dispatches to London for those months don't mention it. In
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the Gazette, the talk of providence comes from some of
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the bystanders. The ropes were tested, though. Later that day,
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the same issue of the Gazette reported, one of the
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ropes that had broken was fastened to a beam and
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loaded with seven weights of 56 pounds each. One strand
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was cut through, then a second, and the single strand
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left still held all of it. The paper concluded that
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the rope had critically been defective in that particular part
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alone in which it failed. The thousand pounds that later
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retellings put on the ropes isn't in it. Samuel didn't
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take in any of it. He was incapable of participating
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in the general satisfaction, the Gazette reported. By what he
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had endured, his reasonable faculties were totally impaired. And when
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he came round a little, he uttered many incoherencies and
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was alone ignorant of what had passed. Surgical assistance, the
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00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:25.750
paper said, has since restored him. Simmons didn't come out
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00:18:25.789 --> 00:18:28.809
of it well either. The same issue reported that he'd
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been sent back to George's head to be kept at
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hard labor in the battery gang, and that the examinations
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before the trials had shown that a constable he had
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harbored at his dwelling persons of infamous character. On Saturday,
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October 8th, he was brought in from the battery and
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punished with 50 lashes in front of the jail for
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disorderly conduct, neglect of work, and being refractory, and that
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evening he was returned to it. In time, he was
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moved to the penal settlement in Newcastle. He was released
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in 1818 and died in Sydney in 1833. Samuel was
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00:19:03.900 --> 00:19:07.319
sent away, too, first to Risdon Cove in Van Diemen's
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Land by the Dictionary of Sydney's Account and then to Newcastle.
300
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On April 1st, 1806, He and seven other men took
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an open boat and went to sea, with provision for
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00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:22.019
a few weeks, and neither mast, sail, or any single
303
00:19:22.119 --> 00:19:26.589
implemented navigation, the Gazette reported that May. Two days later,
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00:19:26.630 --> 00:19:29.710
a vessel called the Resource came in and went straight
305
00:19:29.789 --> 00:19:32.970
after them. It ran up the coast past Port Stephens,
306
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looking into every creek and bay, and its crew came
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back well satisfied that the unhappy men had never outlived
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the tempest on the second night. The paper listed the
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ones it could name. Joseph Samuels was one of them.
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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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00:20:02.460 --> 00:20:05.680
and Firing Squads. If you'd like a list of sources
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00:20:05.779 --> 00:20:07.980
I used for this episode, and for the book it's
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00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.990
narrated from, you can find the full list at weirddarkness.com
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00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:15.829
slash botched executions. Scroll to the bottom of the page
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00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:18.910
for the sources used. If you'd rather not wait for
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00:20:18.930 --> 00:20:21.430
the next section to be shared in the podcast, the
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00:20:21.470 --> 00:20:24.930
whole book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback,
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as well as Kindle Unlimited.
1
00:00:02.350 --> 00:00:06.269
This is Botched Executions from Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar.
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00:00:07.250 --> 00:00:10.509
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
4
00:00:15.519 --> 00:00:19.600
wouldn't open, flames rose from the electric chair, and needles
5
00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:23.579
couldn't find a vein. In this series, I'm taking you
6
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through my book, Botched Executions, one chapter at a time.
7
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Everything you'll hear comes from the witnesses, the court records,
8
00:00:31.969 --> 00:00:35.810
and the state's own written reports. Where the accounts disagree,
9
00:00:36.310 --> 00:00:41.140
you'll hear both. Whatever you believe about capital punishment, these
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00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:43.280
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 2. Half-Hang at Maggie and the
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Stop at Peppermill. Edinburgh, Scotland. September 2nd, 1724. Scotland had
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its own version of the law that hanged Anne Greene,
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Under an act of 1690, if a woman hid her
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pregnancy for the whole term, called for no help at
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the birth, and the child was then found dead or a-missing,
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she was to be holden and repute the murderer of
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her own child, even though there be no appearance of
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wound or bruise upon the body of the child. Margaret
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Dixon came from the parish of Inveresque, on the coast
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of Edinburgh. She was married, but she had unluckily differed
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with and eloped from her husband for some years past,
27
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the Caledonian Mercury said, and none of the 1724 accounts
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names him. In December 1723, the body of a newborn
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boy was found, by the later accounts, on the bank
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of the River Tweed near Kelso, and it was laid
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to her. Robert Chambers, who collected the case in his
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Domestic Annals of Scotland in 1861, says that a defense
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was made for her that she was a married woman,
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though living separate from her husband, but it was of
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no avail. On Monday, August 3rd, 1724, she was sentenced
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to die in the grass market the first Wednesday of September.
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In its notice of the sentence, the Mercury got her
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first name wrong and called her Janet. On Wednesday, September 2nd,
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they hanged her, and the Mercury gave it two sentences
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the next day. Yesterday, Margaret Dixon suffered in the grass market,
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pursuant to the sentence emitted against her for the murder
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of her own child. She was cut down some time
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after throwing over and put into a beer in order
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to be transported to Muselberg to be buried with her people.
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The paper spent more ink on a soldier, A soldier
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in Kirk's regiment, observing that the executioner had left a
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part of the halter upon the gallows after cutting the
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woman down, jumped upon the ladder, seized the rope, and
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fell a-unnoosing it with his teeth, which his sergeant, perceiving,
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fell upon him with his cane, and severely drubbed him
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for his pains. A broadside, printed in Edinburgh that month,
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which Chambers quotes at length, gives the rest. In his
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summary of it, the hangman did his usual office of
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pulling down her legs, and and when she'd hung the
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usual time, she was taken down and put in a
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coffin whose lid was nailed fast at the gibbet foot.
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The magistrates had allowed her friends to take her home
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to the churchyard at Inveresk, and they loaded the coffin
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onto a cart. They didn't get far before there was
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a fight. Surgeon's apprentices wanted the body, and there happened
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a scuffle betwixt her friends and some surgeon apprentices and
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others their accomplices on this side of the society port.
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Somebody swung a hammer and broke in one side of
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the coffin. The broadside credits that blow together with the
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jolting of the cart with letting in air and setting
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the blood and vitals a-going. The cart went on. About
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two miles out of the city, the men with it
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halted to drink at a place the broadside calls Peppermill.
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The mercury in a longer account it printed on September
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8th spells it Peppermill. The bearers had stopped there to
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refresh themselves, and the Mercury said were alarmed by one
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in the company who affirmed that he felt some motion
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in the chest. In the paper's telling, her friends immediately
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broke up the coffin and caused open a vein and
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give her some spirits. The broadside fills in more. In
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its version, the cart was left standing in the highway
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while the men were inside, and two joiners who came
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out of a house from curiosity to look at the
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coffin heard a noise within. After some opposition, the rest
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of the lid was pried off, and they saw her
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draw up her limbs. A man named Peter Purdy, a
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practitioner of phlebotomy, happened to be there and opened a vein.
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When the blood came, she said twice, Oh dear! They
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stood her up and held her between two of them
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on the bank by the road until the color came
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back into her lips. Then they laid her on blankets
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in a corn cart, with a woman holding up her head,
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and drove her to Musilburg. The magistrates there ordered her
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kept for the night and fed, and a minister named
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Robert Bonnelly came and prayed over her. The Mercury said
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she was so far recovered before next day that she
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both stayed up and spoke to the company. The next
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morning she was moved to the house of her brother,
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James Dixon, a weaver. She wasn't right, yet. On that
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first day, the broadside says, she had little appearance of
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recovering her health or senses. and she cried out to
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let her be gone, for she was to be executed
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on Wednesday. Every day people came to the Weaver's house
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to look at her. By September 8th, the Mercury said,
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she had been visited by almost everybody here, high and low,
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and had a great deal of money given her. And
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the paper had its own theory of what saved her.'
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Tis thought the stir and motion of the cart whereon
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she lay provoked the circulation of the blood, and contributed
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greatly to her recovery. On Sunday, she went to the
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parish church at Inveresque. The Reverend Mr. Williamson preached what
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the paper called a very pretty sermon that was suitable
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to the occasion, and frequent mention was made of the
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resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. So many people came
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to see her, the broadside adds, that the minister had
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to walk her out of the churchyard to keep her
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from being trodden down by the multitude. On Tuesday, October 13th,
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she came into Edinburgh from Musilburgh. People were so eager
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to see a hanged woman appear in the streets again,
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the Mercury reported two days later, that she'd infallibly been
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trod down or stifled in the crowd if a keeper
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of the tollbooth named John Hood, a relation of hers,
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hadn't got her into his house and out again by
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a back door. The paper called her the famous Margaret Dixon,
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who so cannily outwitted John DeGleesh in the grass market.
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DeGleesh was the hangman. Edinburgh's printers couldn't agree on what
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she was. One broadside put a penitent's confession in her mouth,
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in verse, thanking God who did me persevere as an
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example high of divine omnipotence. Another, as she called a
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warning to the wicked, which has been credited to the
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poet Alexander Penicook, said she'd gone straight back to her
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old ways, and that now she gets drunk and steals
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and plays the deal each day. Chambers found an unnamed
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chronicler who said she kept every Wednesday afterward as a
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day of fasting and prayer. Scotland never hanged her again,
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and none of the 1724 accounts says why. The explanation,
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repeated ever since, comes from the Newgate Calendar, a London
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collection of crime stories that got the year wrong by four.
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Under Scott's law, it says, a sentence once carried out
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couldn't be carried out again. It adds that her hanging
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had legally ended her marriage, and that her husband married
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her a second time a few days later. The legal
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historian Cassie Watson writes that Scott's law did treat a
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sentence as served once it had been executed, and that
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the jurist David Hume later recommended a quiet pardon for
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cases like hers. But no pardon for Margaret has been found.
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And the second wedding first shows up in the Newgate calendar.
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Chambers says only that her husband took her back, that
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she had more children, and that for years she cried
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salt through the streets of Edinburgh, pointed out to strangers
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as half-hang it Maggie Dixon. The Newgate calendar has her
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alive in 1753. In 2026, a pub on the grass market,
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still carried her name. On September 30, 2026, at 7.26 p.m.,
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the curtain opens in Tennessee, and Krista Pike says, I'm
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at peace, and I'm ready to go. At 7.46, the
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curtain closes, and a reporter writes that she is clearly
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still alive. At 8.53 p.m., After a second dose, the
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witnesses are sent out, and she's still breathing. For four centuries,
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each new method was sold as the fix for the last.
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The long drop, the electric chair, gas. and finally the needle,
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sold as a medical procedure. A scholar went through 8,776
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American executions from 1890 to 2010. 276 went wrong, and
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the needle had the highest failure rate of them all.
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In our quest for humane ways to kill someone, we've
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sometimes created more gruesome and torturous ones. Botched Executions. Four
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centuries of failed hangings, electrocutions, gassings, injections, and firing squads.
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On Amazon, in Kindle, Paperback, and Kindle Unlimited. WeirdDarkness.com slash
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Botched Executions. Chapter 3. Three Ropes for Joseph Samuel. Sydney,
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New South Wales, September 26th, 1803. Joseph Samuel was fourteen
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when a London court sentenced him to seven years' transportation
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in 1795 for stealing from a house. He reached New
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South Wales in December 1801. The colony was 15 years old,
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and its night watch was made up partly of men
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who had come out as convicts themselves and served their time.
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On the night of Thursday, August 25th, 1803, between 7
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and 8 o'clock, thieves broke into the house of a
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woman named Mary Breeze at the corner of Back Row
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and carried off a desk with about 24 pounds in it.
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For most of the night, the chief constable kept watchmen
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posted in the brush behind Back Row. Joseph Luker came
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on duty at midnight. He was a constable, a former
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convict who had served out his time and joined the watch,
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and about an hour before daylight, he left his post
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to search the brush. A little later, he was found
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on the edge of the road to Farm Cove, a
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breathless corpse, shockingly mangled. The Sydney Gazette counted 16 stabs
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and contusions on his head. His left ear was nearly divided,
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and the guard of his own cutlass had been driven
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into his skull by someone who had seized the weapon
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by the blade with such force as to rivet the
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plate in the skull to a depth of more than
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an inch and a half. The Dictionary of Sydney lists
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him as the first police officer killed on duty in Australia.
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A coroner's jury of 12 sat for five hours and
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returned a verdict of willful murder against a man named
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William Bladders, and some other persons or persons unknown. Luker
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was buried on Sunday, August 28th, with all his brother
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constables walking behind the coffin. His initials, at his age, 38,
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were on the lid. Four men of the watch lowered
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him into the grave, and one of them, the Gazette noted,
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was at present in confinement on suspicion. The deceased was
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a man of very fair character throughout the colony, the
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paper said, and was a free man a length of
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time previous to his assassination. Several men were charged. One
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was a fellow constable of Luker's, Isaac Simmons, known around
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the colony as Hikey Bull, who had blood on his
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shirt and put it down to nosebleeds and to a
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fish or a duck. Bladders said the blood on his
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own clothes came from a pig he'd killed that morning.
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Both were acquitted of the murder. Samuel admitted taking part
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in the robbery of the desk and denied any part
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in the killing. Another thief testifying for the crown named
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him and he was found not guilty of the murder
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and guilty of the robbery, and sentenced to death. The
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sentence was passed on Friday, September 23rd, and carried out
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the following Monday. At half-past nine that Monday morning, the
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New South Wales Corps turned out under arms and marched
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to the gallows at Brickfield Hill. Samuel was brought there
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with a second condemned man, James Hardwick, whom the Reverend
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Samuel Marsden attended. Samuel, the Gazette noted, it spelled his
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name Samuels, being a Jew, was prepared by a person
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of his own profession. Simmons was there too. He had
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been purposely brought from Georgia's head to witness the awful
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end of the unhappy culprit. When the chaplain had finished,
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Samuel spoke to the crowd. While he and Simmons shared
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a cell, he said the two of them had sworn
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an oath, in the Hebrew tongue, to keep whatever they
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told each other secret, and Simmons had then confessed the
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killing to him. Luker had surprised him in the robbery,
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Simmons said, and he had knocked him down and given
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him a topper for luck. He had said, too, by
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Samuel's account, that he would hang 500 Christians to save himself.
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Simmons tried again and again to stop him, but Samuel
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spoke calmly, and his words gained credit among the spectators.
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Against Simmons, the Gazette wrote, the feelings of the multitude
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burst forth into invective. At about 10, the two men
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climbed back into the cart. Just as they were about
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to be turned off, a reprieve for Hardwick arrived, and
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the provost marshal announced it. Samuel was left to hang alone.
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A hanging from a cart at almost no drop. The
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noose was tied to the beam, the cart was driven
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out from under the condemned, and the rope strangled. The
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Gazette printed what happened next on October 2nd in an
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account that has been reprinted many times since. At length,
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the signal was given and the cart drove from under him,
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but by the conclusion, the suspending cord was separated about
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the center and the culprit fell to the ground, on
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which he remained motionless with his face downwards. The rope
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had broken in the middle, so they brought the cart back,
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held him up on it, and put a second rope
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on him. He was launched off again, but the line
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ran loose and continued to slip until the legs of
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the sufferer trailed along the ground, the body being only
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half suspended. All that beheld were also moved at his
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protracted sufferings, the paper wrote, nor did some hesitate to
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declare that the invisible hand of providence was at work
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in the behalf of him who had revealed the circumstances
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above related. The executioner tried again. By now, Samuel was
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to every appearance lifeless, and men lifted him and held
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him up on their shoulders while a third rope was rigged.
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The body was gently lowered, but when left alone, again
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fell prostrate to the earth, this rope having also snapped short,
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close to the neck. After the third rope, nobody tried
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a fourth. Compassion could no longer bear restraint, the Gazette wrote.
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Winged with humanity, the Provost Marshal sped to His Excellency's presence.
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The Provost Marshal was Thomas Smith, and His Excellency was
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Philip Gidley King, the Governor of the Colony. Smith came
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back from him with a reprieve. The paper closed the
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scene with a line of its own. If mercy be
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a fault, it is the dearest attribute of God, and
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surely in heaven it may find extenuation. The story that
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King spared him because he took the broken ropes as
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a sign from God is a later edition. No words
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of King's about the case have been found, and his
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dispatches to London for those months don't mention it. In
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the Gazette, the talk of providence comes from some of
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the bystanders. The ropes were tested, though. Later that day,
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the same issue of the Gazette reported, one of the
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ropes that had broken was fastened to a beam and
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loaded with seven weights of 56 pounds each. One strand
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was cut through, then a second, and the single strand
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left still held all of it. The paper concluded that
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the rope had critically been defective in that particular part
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alone in which it failed. The thousand pounds that later
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retellings put on the ropes isn't in it. Samuel didn't
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take in any of it. He was incapable of participating
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in the general satisfaction, the Gazette reported. By what he
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had endured, his reasonable faculties were totally impaired. And when
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he came round a little, he uttered many incoherencies and
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was alone ignorant of what had passed. Surgical assistance, the
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paper said, has since restored him. Simmons didn't come out
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of it well either. The same issue reported that he'd
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been sent back to George's head to be kept at
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hard labor in the battery gang, and that the examinations
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before the trials had shown that a constable he had
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harbored at his dwelling persons of infamous character. On Saturday,
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October 8th, he was brought in from the battery and
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punished with 50 lashes in front of the jail for
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disorderly conduct, neglect of work, and being refractory, and that
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evening he was returned to it. In time, he was
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moved to the penal settlement in Newcastle. He was released
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in 1818 and died in Sydney in 1833. Samuel was
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sent away, too, first to Risdon Cove in Van Diemen's
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Land by the Dictionary of Sydney's Account and then to Newcastle.
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On April 1st, 1806, He and seven other men took
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an open boat and went to sea, with provision for
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a few weeks, and neither mast, sail, or any single
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implemented navigation, the Gazette reported that May. Two days later,
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a vessel called the Resource came in and went straight
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after them. It ran up the coast past Port Stephens,
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looking into every creek and bay, and its crew came
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back well satisfied that the unhappy men had never outlived
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the tempest on the second night. The paper listed the
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ones it could name. Joseph Samuels was one of them.
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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.
