1915: Louis Bundy, “I would like to have shown the world what I could do”
Add comment November 5th, 2015 Headsman
One century ago today, California hanged two men at San Quentin: Earl Loomis, who murdered a Sacramento candy store proprietress in the course of a robbery, and Louis Bundy, who slew a Los Angeles messenger boy to steal a few dollars he could use to splurge on his girl.
Loomis, a hardened criminal, attracted the lesser notice; it was Bundy, who was an 18-year-old high schooler when he became a murderer, who drew a torrent of futile clemency appeals because of his youth and naivete. His crime dated to December of 1914, when he rang up the pharmacist and place a bogus order, along with a request to bring change for a $20 coin. The idea was to steal the change and buy his sweetheart a Christmas gift.
When the lackey turned up, it turned out to be a chum of Bundy’s, 15-year-old Harold Ziesche: Bundy bludgeoned him with a rock and an ax handle (sans ax) “because he knew me and would have squealed on me.”
As the San Jose Evening News reported in its hanging-day submission,* those appellants included former lieutenant governor A.J. Wallace among other political figures, numerous name-brand ministers (and even the strange Mormon boy-prophet Archie Inger), plus hundreds of Los Angeles schoolchildren.
All were bound for disappointment.
The Golden State was not averse per se to grants of mercy; a week prior to this date’s hanging, California’s pardons board spared three other condemned men, all murderers — and surely even in spurning Bundy in the same batch, the board’s action gave the young man’s supporters a thrill of hope for the intervention of Progressive Party governor (and death penalty skeptic) Hiram Johnson. Johnson had already reprieved Bundy in June, and then a second time in August.
He did not do it in November.
“I have done a great wrong and am sorry,” Bundy said on the scaffold. “I had hoped the law would see a way to let me have a chance, because I would like to have shown the world what I could do.” (Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, Nov. 7, 1915.)
* Also the source of the headline image that surmounts this post.
On this day..
- 1959: Guenther Podola - 2020
- 1849: Pierre Dudragne, avarice - 2019
- 2009: Xu Wei, Jilin gangster - 2018
- 1974: Beqir Balluku, Albanian Minister of Defence - 2017
- 1607: Jan Le Loup, Maastricht werewolf - 2016
- 1864: Four Confederate soldiers, under Burbridge's Order 59 - 2014
- 1556: Hemu - 2013
- Executioner-in-Chief: a tour of U.S. Presidents and the death penalty - 2012
- 1927: Alfredo Jauregui, Bolivian lottery winner - 2012
- 1978: 12 coup plotters in Yemen - 2011
- 555: Rusticus and John - 2010
- 2009: Khristian Oliver, Bible basher - 2009
- 1941: Arndt Pekurinen, conscientious objector - 2008
- 1925: Sidney Reilly - 2007
- Themed Set: Spies - 2007
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,California,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Murder,Pelf,Theft,USA
Tags: 1910s, 1915, earl loomis, hiram johnson, louis bundy, november 5, san quentin prison
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