10 OF THE MOST DESERVED EXECUTIONS

Article BY LORI BELL - Art by Jack Malebranche

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Throughout the course of human history, criminals have been made to pay for their crimes in one form or another. Countless souls have been lost at the hands of criminals, who in turn lost their lives after judgment was rendered upon them by their peers. The rallying cry behind many executions is to assuage a sense of wrongdoing and provide justice to those who were harmed.

While the argument will no doubt continue for decades, if not centuries, about the moral standing of executions, there are those who the vast majority would argue deserved execution. The following individuals undoubtedly earned their execution, as well as a place on this list of top 10 modern executions.

 

Allen Lee Davis 1999

In the minds of many there is no greater crime than one perpetrated against a child. Allen Lee Davis was a prisoner executed for the May 11, 1982 Jacksonville , Florida murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three months pregnant at the time. According to reports, Nancy was “beaten beyond recognition” by Davis with a .357 Magnum , and hit over 25 times in the face and head.

He was also convicted of killing Nancy Weiler’s two daughters, Kristina 9, shot twice in the face, and Katherine 5, shot as she was trying to run away and her skull beaten with the gun. Davis was on parole for armed robbery at the time of the murders. He was executed on July 8, 1999. His last meal consisted of : one lobster tail, fried potatoes, a half pound of fried shrimp, six ounces of fried clams, half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 ounces of A&W root beer.

Davis’s execution drew nationwide media attention after he bled profusely from the nose while being electrocuted. Also during his time in the chair, Davis suffered burns to his head, leg, and groin area. A Florida Supreme Court justice published photos of the aftermath of the incident in an attempt to argue that the practice of capital punishment via electrocution was outdated, and that any future executions should be carried out through lethal injection.

Davis was the last Florida inmate killed by the electric chair, beginning in 2000 all subsequent executions were by lethal injection.

 

Albert Fish 1936

Like Davis, Fish committed his crimes against children. Unlike Davis, Fish’s crimes were greater in number and more gruesome in detail. Fish was a serial child molester and murderer who even cannibalized five of his victims. He was only proven to have cannibalized five of his child victims, but he claimed as many as 100 of his victims had met a similar fate. There was little argument at the time regarding his execution, and there would likely be little argument today. Fish was executed in the electric chair.

The prospect of being electrocuted had it’s appeal to Fish. A Daily News reporter wrote, “his watery eyes gleamed at the thought of being burned by a heat more intense than the flames with which he often seared his flesh to gratify his lust.” Fish thanked the judge for his sentence of death by electrocution. On January 16, 1936, Albert Fish was executed.

 

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 1953

The end of World War I I launched the beginning of the Cold War. A time period dominated by the U.S. and it’s Western allies facing off against the Soviet Union and it’s allies, the Cold War was brought home by the Red Scare. Americans feared an influx of Soviet spies in the U.S. and there was public outcry to identify and punish those responsible for espionage against the U.S.. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the highest profile individuals to have been convicted and executed for selling nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. The couple both met their end in an electric chair.

The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and on April 5 were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917, 50 U.S. Code 32 ( now 18 U.S. Code 794), which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information “relating to the national defense”

The Rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage – related activity during the Cold War. In imposing the death penalty, Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War.

 

Carl Panzram 1930

Panzram is another example of the brutality of one human being and the scope of devastation they can cause. While awaiting his sentence during the last part of 1929, Carl confessed to 21 murders, countless felonies, and more than 1,000 acts of sodomy. No one was aware of these crimes, until he confessed to them. Panzram personally wrote President Herbert Hoover to ensure his sentence would not be delayed and on the fateful day he practically ran to the prison’s gallows.

From death row, the killer wrote, “In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arson and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I’m not in the least bit sorry.” When opponents of Capital punishment fought for his life, Panzram responded with venomous letters, “ I wish you all had one neck,” he wrote, “ and I had my hands on it.”

Mounting the scaffold on September 5, 1930, he seemed eager for death. “Hurry it up, you bastard,” he snapped at the executioner. “I could hang a dozen men while you’re fooling around.” Panzram also said,” I don’t believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole dawned human race, including myself…. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless, and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right.”

 

John Wayne Gacy, Jr. 1994

Gacy is a particularly chilling example of a sadistic individual. Gacy was convicted of the murder and rape of 33 boys and young men between 1972 and 1978, burying 28 of his victims in his home’s crawl space and disposing of the rest across his property and a nearby river. Known as the “Killer Clown,” Gacy would perform charitable acts in his community dressed as “Pogo the Clown.”

Gacy spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994. He told his executioners in his final words to “kiss my ass!”

 

Ted Bundy 1989

Bundy is yet another example of an American serial killer who created a media firestorm with his crimes. Throughout the 1970s Bundy stalked, kidnapped, raped, and murdered countless women. He was convicted and admitted to the killing of 30 women, but that figure is widely regarded as a low estimate. Bundy’s crimes are brutal enough to make anyone’s skin crawl. Not only did he murder and rape his victims, some were beheaded while he would also return to sexually assault the undiscovered bodies of recent victims even after their death.

Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Starke State Prison, Florida, on January 24th, 1989, at 7 a.m.. He was cremated and his ashes were cast over the Cascade Mountains in Washington.

 

Timothy Mcveigh 2001

One of the most disturbing acts of terrorism to strike the United States was conceived and carried out by McVeigh in 1995. McVeigh detonated a truck laden with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast blew an entire face off the building, took 168 lives, and injured as many as 800 people. Public outcry against McVeigh was cemented in the knowledge that his bomb took the lives of children in a daycare center housed within the building.

In June, 2001, a day before the execution, McVeigh wrote a letter to the Buffalo News identifying himself as agnostic. Before his execution, McVeigh took the Catholic sacrament of Annointing of the Sick. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in Indiana.

 

Saddam Hussein 2006

Saddam Hussein was wildly known by the nickname “The Butcher of Baghdad.” Hussein’s crimes are almost too great to list. In addition to covert killings of political opponents, Hussein used his military forces and chemical weapons against his fellow Iraqi’s to keep the from rising up against him. Hussein toppled from power in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq to depose the dictator. After being captured by American forces in late 2003, Hussein was tried by a court established by the Iraq interim government and hanged specifically for the death of 148 Shi’ite Iraqis in 1982.

The execution took place at the joint Iraqi – American military base Camp Justice, located in Kazimain, a north – eastern suburb of Baghdad. Saddam was executed alone, not at the same time as his co-defendants, who were executed on January 15, 2007. Saddam was executed on December 30, 2006.

 

Alfred Rosenberg 1946

The Nazi party that ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 was responsible for spawning more heinous criminals and disturbing crimes than some civilizations produced over centuries. In addition to countless politically motivated killings, aggressive military actions that led to World War II, and experimental procedures on the unwilling, the Nazi’s systematically murdered six million Jewish citizens across Europe. Alfred Rosenberg is widely regarded as the architect behind many Nazi policies and idoligies, including the anti – semantic semantic beliefs that led to the extermination of six million Jews.

Rosenberg was convicted at Nuremberg after the war. He was sentenced to death and by hanging on October 16, 1946, as a war criminal and for crimes against humanity. According to Joseph Kingsbury –Smith, who covered the executions for the Internal News Service, Rosenberg was the only man who , when asked at the gallows if he had any last statement to make replied with only one word: “No.”

 

Ernest Kaltenbrunner 1946

Kaltenbrunner was the highest ranking Nazi official captured, tried, and sentenced to death following World War II. Kaltenbrunner held many positions within the Nazi party, most famously serving as a general with the SS. Due to his position of power, Kaltenbrunner was believed to have the direct knowledge of the murder of civilians in occupied zones, assassinations of captured U. S. and British airmen, and the workings of the concentration camps that exterminated Jewish captives. Few people can be linked to the deaths of six million people in the manner Kaltenbrunner can.

On October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal sentenced him to death by hanging. Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging at around 1:40 a.m. on October 16, 1946.

Crimes fall into many categories and few of them are widely considered to warrant execution for the perpetrator. While the role of capital punishment in society will continue to spark debate, these cases remain as an example of individuals who deserved the end they met through a life of heinous actions against innocent fellow human beings.