Just after midnight this date in 1993, Washington state carried out the first legal hanging in the U.S. since 1965.
Pornstached child molester Westley Allan Dodd is the textbook “incorrigible sex offender” case study. That’s certainly how Dodd himself asked us to interpret him.
“I have said all along the system does not work,” he wrote of his long career in pedophilia, notoriously unrehabilitated by the criminal justice system. “I knew what I was doing, I knew it was wrong. I knew I could get the death penalty if caught.”
From the usual humble beginnings in teenage child-groping, and despite several arrests over the years, Dodd devolved into abducting young boys to actualize horrific fantasies he did not scruple to jot in his journal.
Incident 3 will die maybe this way: He’ll be tied down as Lee was in Incident 2. Instead of placing a bag over his head as had previously planned, I’ll tape his mouth shut with duct tape. Then, when ready, I’ll use a clothespin or something to plug his nose. That way I can sit back, take pictures and watch him die instead of concentrating on my hands or the rope tight around his neck — that would also eliminate the rope burns on the neck . . . I can clearly see his face and eyes now…
He suspects nothing now. Will probably wait until morning to kill him. That way his body will be fairly fresh for experiments after work. I’ll suffocate him in his sleep when I wake up for work (if I sleep).
In short: not the nicest guy, though also a monster as much pathetic as diabolic.
Dodd pleaded guilty to his three sex murders, and fought for his own execution. The state of Washington obliged him in a speedy three years.
Although the Evergreen State had lethal injection on the books, Dodd also availed his right to select its holdover alternative method, hanging.
Those kids didn’t get a nice, neat painless easy death. Why should I?
Which justification’s nobility (such as it is) is considerably more socially gratifying than, say, a hankering for the gallows’ post-mortem priapism.
(He didn’t get everything, though: they turned down his request to televise the hanging.)
Not content with his headline-grabbing mode of departing the world, Dodd had a hand in a statutory milestone, too. His stranger-danger nightmare case surfacing in the fall of 1989 was part of the background that drove Washington to pass the nation’s first sexually violent predator law, the Community Protection Act of 1990.*
Trutv.com’s Crime Library has a good deal more about the mind of this particular maniac.
* It was really Earl Shriner’s crimes more than Dodd’s that led most directly to the new law, which licensed indefinite “civil commitment” of sexually violent predators after the completion of their criminal sentences.
On this day..
- 2011: Yaqub Ali, stabber - 2020
- 546: Croesus - 2019
- 1866: Charles Carrington - 2018
- 1963: Stanislaw Jaros, twice-failed assassin - 2017
- 1945: Robert E. Folkes, the first condemned man to see the Oregon gas chamber - 2016
- 1900: Geronimo Parra and Antonio Flores, the last hanged in El Paso - 2015
- 1771: Captain David Ferguson, for the murder of his cabin-boy - 2014
- 1655: Jane Hopkins, Bermuda's last known witch execution - 2013
- 1638: Four Frenchmen in effigy - 2012
- 1917: Sub-Lt. Edwin Dyett, shot at dawn - 2011
- 1527: Felix Manz, the first Anabaptist martyr - 2009
- 1463: Not François Villon - 2008
I was 11 years old when this sick excuse for a human being walked by my house near 39th ave. in Portland and saw me and my sister and friend through a window. He waited for us to walk out of the house (we were unaware) and do followed us three blocks where he exposed himself to us. We ran to the nearest school where we told the Principal, whom did not believe us. I believe this was right before the innocent 4-yr old little boy was abducted by him at Richmond School. It haunts me to this day.
For my money, both a sadist and a masochist. In one sentence he refers to his victim(s) as an “incident” and in the next he uses the child’s name; Lee. He seems disassociated in some respects.
Make no mistake, I’m glad he swung and that the prosecutor got his wish; he can’t fantasize or relive his crimes behind prison bars. On the other hand, creepy people like me have a morbid fascination with evil, and this is one brain I’d love to pick. Perhaps to understand where the self inflicted punishment in his mind ends and the punishment in others begins.
Like I said, morbidly fascinating….
What the heck, stretch his neck….
Dodd was a sick piece of shit. I remember this from the news. Now that I am the mother of a 10 yr old boy this makes my heart break the loss and helpless feeling these victim’s families felt. The pain and anger must of been unbearable !!So glad he was caught so soon before more little boys wearnt hurt/tortured/killed. Hearing what he did to them still makes me cry and feel sick! I still think of these poor families and wonder how they move on. Hope Dodd is roasting in HELL !!!!
Haha, someone didn’t get enough hugs as a kid. I know Sam and he is telling the truth. Typical New Yorker.
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dodd’s execution was televised live, in a way. It was done in silhouette, behind what appeared to be a sheet. I happened to be in a bar here in Tacoma the night he was executed and I watched it. afterward everyone in the bar started clapping and cheering, including me. The consensus seemed to be good riddance to really bad rubbish. Does that qualify as a public hanging?
Bullshit Sam!
U may have lived in the house he once lived in. I might even consider the photo comment. But U took it to unbelievable lengths when you said he basically had tunnells under his house.
lmao!
What a cafone!!
Seriously, if there was ever tunnels or “old passage ways” as U call it under the house, HE would have talked about it in a braggadocious way because thats what sociopaths do! Im sure he would have bragged about it all to the police and the police Im sure would have found those and probably even the photos that U speak of.
If U havent noticed, Wesley Dodd is fairly honest about shit when asked. And no I dont mean his comment about being executed in a way that isnt comfortable since his victims didnt get comfort when they died. Wesley Dodd was a true blue sexual sadist and also masochist and experiencing pain right before death would have been the ultimate “get off” for him Im sure. He merely manipulated his way to the hanging gallows on that one.
Anyhoo, U sir are a liar. Have a seat.
Yes, the ACLU fought like heck to save him, and Dodd actually told them that he would file suit against them if they continued to lobby to try and stop his execution. That was the ONLY good thing about this guy: he knew he had to be put to death and was going to fight anyone who attempted to stop that act.
i lived in his house after he died and we found pictures of little kids behind the dry wall and old passage ways under the house
Pathetic
Thank God the judge had the good sense to execute this miserable excuse for a human being. There is no one more evil than one who so enjoys killing and torturing innocent children. Admittedly Mr. Dodd asked to be executed, as he admitted he would never stop and executing him was the only way to protect kids. He admitted what I have always believed…a sexual deviate can NEVER be cured or rehabilitated. At least there is one less in the world.
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Thanks for those links! I’m checking them out right now.
this is how every sexual predetor should be handled.Not after the 2nd or 3rd offense but the 1st.Thats just it ,they are PREDETORS.They are sick and incureable.This is beyond any drug,alchol or other mental illness.Someone who can violate another human being in such away especially our inocent children is a threat to all mankind and will always be.Every state should be hanging all these sick assholes or maybe they should be thrown to the wolves.Like that Jeffery Dhamer,he got his just desserts and because of that these scums of the earth are protected.Fuck em kill them all.Usually a 1st offensive is 7 years 4 w/good behavior,in Texas.I’ve seen some cases jsut probation for molesting a 3 and 5 year old.I wonder:if the mother of these victims put a bullet in these sorry bastards heads if her children would still at least have the comforrt of their mother or would she be locked up…for just 4 years?Of coarse she would,while the pervert walked free,thats if he lived.Of coarse I am not one to judge but we need some better judges out there…I mean how can these sicko’s walk free and a 16 year old caught w/weed goes down 2 years.
This man was no loss to mankind. He deserved to be hanged and a whole lot more!
No, there was another one in Washington in 1994, and then Billy Bailey in Delaware in 1996. Bailey is currently the last hanging in the U.S.
The Death Penalty Information Center’s executions database is a good place to get up-to-date information on stuff like that.
It says on Wikipedia that this was the last execution by hanging in the U.S. Is this true?
Please tell me there were no bleeding-hearts trying to save this turd’s life? Dodd’s the kind of guy, that, if you could wake him up after he’s been executed the first time, just so you can do it again to him, then maybe, just maybe, justice has been served. In truth, nothing can undo what this vermin did. Duct tape to the mouth and a clothespin to the nose of a child? Unbelievable!