Free Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders by Geoffrey Abbott Page B

which drained into the Hudson River, and he later used it to escape. He was eventually recaptured and completed his original sentence, but on his release in 1904 he committed further felonies, resulting in the death sentence. Back in Sing Sing he found himself in a cell which he instantly recognised. ‘To think,’ he exclaimed bitterly, ‘that I should’ve built this place myself! I built my own tomb, that’s what I did!’
     
    William G. Taylor
    A veritable series of errors combined to create total catastrophe when Taylor, sentenced to die for murdering a fellow inmate, was secured in the electric chair and the process began. As the first surge of current hit him his whole body straightened so violently that although the leg straps didn’t break, the front of the chair itself did, coming apart from the rest of the structure. The power was switched off immediately, a guard procured a box and propped up the chair, and the doctor, assuming that the shock had proved fatal, routinely checked the victim’s heartbeat – discovering, much to his surprise, that the man was still alive.At that, the warden gave the signal to the executioner to apply another surge of current. In his adjoining room, the official did so only to find that nothing happened, and on hastening to the powerhouse he discovered that the generator, overloaded by the amount of current it had to supply, had burnt out. Moreover there was no back-up or reserve equipment!
    Faced with a totally unexpected situation, the warden had no alternative but to order that Taylor, now unconscious as a result of the first shock, be released from the chair and placed on the hospital trolley which had been brought into the death chamber. Drugs were then administered to him to ensure that he didn’t regain consciousness.
    Meanwhile the prison electricians were frantically connecting long lengths of cable extending from their electricity sub-station to reach beyond the prison walls in order to obtain further electricity from the city’s supply. Although they were not to know it, their haste wasn’t necessary, for Taylor had already died on the trolley. When, an hour later, electricity supplies to the prison had been restored, Taylor’s corpse was carried back to the chair, strapped in and subjected to a further thirty seconds of high voltage. For the law, of course, had to run its course in full.
     

     
    Early Electric Chair
     
    The saying ‘the condemned man ate a hearty supper’ must have originated with one American prisoner in the 1930s, who ordered a Long Island duck, a can of peas and one pint of olives, all mixed into a brown stew with dumplings and boiled rice, together with tomato salad and four slices of bread. Then after finishing his sweet, which consisted of strawberry shortcake and a pint of vanilla ice-cream, he relaxed and smoked a few cigars. Following this feast he exclaimed, ‘Right – I’m ready now to ride that thunderbolt, boys!’
     
     
     
    Fred Van Warmer
    Sentenced to death for the murder of his uncle on Christmas Eve 1901, it was two years before all appeals failed and Fred Van Warmer finally occupied the electric chair. The executioner, Robert Elliott, had sent two shocks of 1,700 volts coursing through the man’s body for no less than two minutes, and was subsequently instructed to switch the power off. Having been pronounced dead by the doctor, Van Warmer’s body was then released from the chair and carried into an adjoining room to await the routine autopsy. However, a passing guard happened to walk through the room and to his horror saw the ‘corpse’ move one of its hands, and one eyelid flicker. Shocked, he ran out to locate the doctor, calling as he did so, ‘He moved! I saw him move! We’ve got to do something quickly!’
    The warden and the other guards hastily reassembled and replaced the victim in the chair, where a further shock was administered; one so intense that when switched off, no doubt at all remained that Van