Category Archives: Where

1953: Carl Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady

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On this date in 1953 — six months after the execution of a more notorious couple, the Rosenbergs — two Missouri kidnappers were gassed together for the abduction-murder of a millionaire car dealer’s son.

Robert Greenlease owed his millions to a string of midwestern GM dealerships planted at the very flowering of America’s interstate system and suburbanization.

Carl Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady reckoned he’d owe some of those millions to them, too.

On September 28 of 1953, those two snatched little Bobby Greenlease Jr from the grounds of a Catholic school in Kansas City via the all-too-easy expedient of Heady presenting herself as Bobby’s aunt.

Then they extorted Sr. to the tune of $600,000, and after several days’ negotiations, Greenlease paid it through an intermediary — a record US ransom sum that would not be surpassed until 1971.

But the motor magnate never saw his son again. Even by the time they’d sent their first ransom note, the kidnappers had shot little Bobby dead at a deserted farm just over the state line in Kansas.

Although this audacious attack on a minor oligarch made national headlines — it couldn’t help but remind of the Lindbergh baby case — the crooks basically had an opportunity to get away scot-free with all their ill-gotten gains. Bobby Greenlease’s body wasn’t discovered until a couple of days after the ransom was paid, and nobody knew who the abductors were at that point.

Hall and Heady absconded to St. Louis but the wealth, like the crime itself, was just too much for these small-time shoulders to bear. Instead of lying low, Hall — after ditching Heady and taking most of the ransom with him, a reckless provocation of his co-conspirator that might itself have blown up his cover in short order — took up residence in an expensive hotel and started throwing money around. A cabbie reported the shabby character’s suspicious spending, and in no time at all the two were in custody.

A further mystery, never solved, entered the case on the night of Hall’s arrest: half the ransom money disappeared. The mob-connected lieutenant who collared Hall and brought him to the station less $300,000 of the score eventually resigned from the force in disgrace and faced federal prosecution for misappropriation and perjury; the cop indicted with him earned a presidential pardon by turning on his comrade. Other ideas were that the criminals had buried half the money (they claimed this, for a while) and that better-connected figures higher up the food chain had taken in. All the bills’ serial numbers had been recorded but only a few were ever known to have surfaced again in later years, in Michigan and Mexico; where these trace remains of a family tragedy might rest today is anybody’s guess.

As for Hall and Heady, they emerged into the glare of national infamy and — because they had crossed the Kansas-Missouri state line — a federal prosecution. Heady remains to this day the last woman executed under U.S. federal auspices.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a detailed photographic retrospective here.

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1668: Walter P(e)ake

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On this date in 1668, Walter Peake or Pake was hanged in front of his own inn, for the drunken murder of his friend (and his occasional lawyer).

Our narrative below comes from an 1855 volume determined to establish the ancient presence (if not perhaps the consistently laudable behavior) of Catholics in Maryland. The distractingly jagged interposition of microquotes is original to the piece; these all allude to the record of the trial preserved in the Archives of Maryland, Volume 57. The indictment appears on p. 352 and after a couple of additional interceding indictments touching unrelated cases, the record of Peake/Pake’s trial unfolds from p. 354-356.

A genealogist’s take on this dangling ancestor is also available here.

It still remains for us, to notice the life of another Assembly-man of 1649; but one upon whose memory, is cast the shade of sin and shame; whose fate it was, under the stern laws of that period, to look forward, as the consequence of his own deed, to the forfeiture of all his lands, and to the beggary of his children; and, about the sixtieth year of his age, to suffer a felon’s death. The time of his arrival is not exactly known; but it is probable, he came in 1646; and that, in 1648 and 1649 (when he sat in the Assembly, apparently one of the most respectable members), he resided in Newtown hundred; as he certainly did soon afterwards, and for a period of many years later. From his association with Governor Calvert, we cannot doubt the sincerity of his attachment to the proprietary’s government. There is also further evidence of his faith in the Roman church, derived from the fact, that he did not sign the Protestant Declaration; from the composition of the jury, which tried his painful case; from his intimacy with many of the noted members of the Roman church, from more than one of whom did his children, at different times, receive those gifts, which it was so much the practice of the early colonial god-fathers to present; from the well-known Roman Catholic family of Peake, living in St. Mary’s, as late as the American Revolution, whose ascent indeed cannot be clearly traced (such has been the destruction of our records), but who, we have but little ground to doubt, were either his lineal or his collateral descendants; from the names given to his children; and from the marks borne by the tracts, he had taken up. His eldest daughter was named after the Virgin Mother; his son, in remembrance of him who is regarded as the chief of the Apostles, and the founder of the universal primacy of the Roman see. The names of his wife, of a second daughter, of a third member of his family, and of a friend, were, each of them, given to corresponding tracts, all of which had the prefix of St. More estates were surveyed for him, with the Roman Catholic mark, than for Governor Calvert, for Capt. Cornwallis, for Mr. Lewger, for Doctor Gerrard, or for any other Roman Catholic colonist in the whole province of Maryland. The evidence is conclusive.

At St. Mary’s city, in the month of December, during the year 1668, sat the high Provincial Court of the Right Honorable Cecilius, the lord proprietary. Charles Calvert, the governor, subsequently the third baron of Baltimore, was the chief justice. Before the bar of this tribunal, appeared this Assembly-man, indicted for the murder of William Price, by piercing him, with a “sword,” “on the left,” “through, to his right side, under the shoulder;” and then cutting his “throat,” to “the depth of three inches.” His plea (the usual one in such cases) was Not Guilty. Thomas Sprigg was the chief member of the grand jury; and Christopher Rowsby (destined, himself, many years afterwards, to die by the hand of violence*), the foreman of the panel summoned to try the case. No technical objection is made to the indictment; no attorney appears on the prisoner’s behalf; no testimony is offered in his defence; no witness for the proprietary, in any way, crossexamined.” The jury retire; but soon return with their verdict. Asking the court to say, whether the deed was manslaughter, or murder; they find he “is guilty of the death,” but “was drunk” at the time, and knew not “what he did.” He addresses no appeal to the sympathy of the judges; he submits no objection to the form of the verdict; but still remains in silence. “The whole bench, then,” decide, he is guilty of “murder.” But neither against the decision of the court, nor the impending sentence of death, does he utter a word. Once, and once only, did he open his mouth. It was the moment after the sentence. Then, he “desired,” as a favor (and the request was not denied), that “he” might “suffer death before his own house, where he” had “committed the fact.” Thus perished and passed away, upon the gallows, in the spirit of a Catholic penitent, after a life of toilsome, heroic sacrifice in the wilderness, one of the men so honorably connected with the most sublime and magnificent conception of the seventeenth century! Pope Alney was the name of his executioner — the only fact, which gives him a claim to any place upon the page of our country’s history.

* Rowsby (alternatively, Rousby) was fatally stabbed by George Talbot, a nephew of Lord Baltimore. (There’s a Talbot County, Maryland, which isn’t named for him personally but whose existence testifies to his family’s pull.) Talbot hid out in a cave that still bears his name on Garrett Island (aka Watson’s Island) — diligently fed by falcons, per local legend — before surrendering himself to judgment and the pardon of his kinsman, the governor. -ed.

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1709: Thomas Smith, Aaron Jones, Joseph Wells, and John Long

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(Thanks for the guest post to Paul Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate and a pioneer through these ordinary’s accounts of true crime printed ephemera. -ed.)

The ORDINARY of NEWGATE his Account of the Behaviour, Confessions, and Last Speeches of the Malefactors that were Executed at Tyburn, on Friday the 16th day of December, 1709.

AT the Sessions held at Justice-Hall in the Old-Baily, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, being the 7th, 8th, and 9th instant, Eight Men, who were found guilty of Death, received their Sentence accordingly. Four of them are now order’d for Execution: The other Four are respited from it by HER SACRED MAJESTY’s most gracious Reprieve, which I hope, and here heartily intreat them, that they will take care to improve to the Glory of God, the Benefit of their Neighbour, and their own Temporal and Eternal Good.

While they were under this Condemnation, I constantly visited them, and had them brought up every day, both in the Morning and Afternoon, to the Chapel in Newgate; where I pray’d with them and instructed them in the Word of God, and in the Duties of Christianity; which they had so much neglected. They seem’d to be very serious and attentive to what I then deliver’d to them, for their Instruction and the Comfort of their Souls.

On the Lord’s Day the 11th instant, I preach’d to them and others there present, both in the Morning and Afternoon, upon part of the Epistle for the Day, viz. 1 Cor. 4. the former part of the 5th Verse; the Words being these, Therefore judge nothing before the time, untill the Lord come; who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the Counsels of the hearts.

Which Words, with their Context, I first explain’d in general; shewing, That by them the Apostle do’s not mean, that no Judgment should be pass’d upon the open Actions of Men; for it is plain, from Reason and the revealed Will of God, that Evil-doers are to be judged and punished by the Magistrate, according to their wicked Deeds, when they come to be known and prov’d by sufficient Evidence. But for those things that are hidden and secret, and of which it is utterly impossible for such as do not know the Hearts of Men, to make a Judgment, they ought not to be meddled with, nor Sentence pass’d upon them by Men, who are absolutely ignorant of them. And therefore they must wait for the time which God has appointed for the bringing forth those hidden Things of Darkness both to Light and to Judgment, when He shall think fit to judge the World; which He will certainly do one day; and that too, in Righteousness, by that Man (i.e. Christ Jesus) whom He has ordain’d; whereof He has given assurance unto all Men, in that He has rais’d Him from the dead; as the Apostle speaks, Acts 17. 31.

Having enlarg’d on this, I then proceeded to discourse upon these two Particulars.

I. The Necessity and Certainty of a Judgment to come.

II. The Strictness and Severity of that Judgment, which shall be most terrible to impenitent Sinners.

And to these I added some Directions how Men (by Faith and Repentance) might provide against the severity of that Judgment, and avoid their final and eternal Condemnation.

In the Conclusion of both these Discourses, I apply’d my self with particular Exhortations to the Condemned; and then dismiss’d them for that time, with a Prayer, That God would be pleas’d to seal those Truths upon their Souls, which in his Name, and by his Spirit, I had deliver’d to them; and that He would render them effectual to their everlasting Salvation. This I mention to satisfie those inquisitive Persons who are often asking, What method or means I use, or can be us’d, to bring those sorts of Men to Christ, and dispose them for Eternal Life.

As I publickly taught these poor unhappy Creatures, how they might be made happy, so I had some private Discourses with ’em, wherein such of ’em as are now appointed for Death, made the following Confessions to me, viz.

1. Thomas Smith, condemn’d for a Burglary by him (and others with him) committed in the House of the Right Honourable the Earl of Westmorland,* and taking Goods from thence to a very great Value, in October last. He confess’d that he was concern’d in the Robbery, but not in the Burglary: That indeed he was in the House, but did not break it open; for it was so before he broke out of the Goal at Chelmsford in Essex, where he was a Prisoner. This is all he would confess as to this particular Matter. But as to the general Course of his Life, he acknowledg’d it to have been very bad indeed, though perhaps not so bad as some have represented it, and the generality of the World believ’d it to be. For he had never robbed any House in his Life (saving that Honourable Lord’s above-mentioned) and, That he never did wrong any Person (as it was so-much reported) at Highgate, or Hampstead, or any other Place thereabouts; but all the Facts that he ever was guilty of, were committed in London, Southwark, and Westminster: And, That those Facts were only the taking off Boxes, Trunks, & suchlike things, from behind Coaches or Wagons, and Handkerchiefs, &c. out of Peoples Pockets in the Streets: Of which sorts of Facts he had committed many; so many that he could not remember them all; neither was it (said he) necessary for him to name them, as being of no use to the Persons he had thus wrong’d, to whom he could not make any Amends or Satisfaction, but by asking their Pardon, which he did. He further said, That he was a Cooper by his Trade; That he was born at Highgate, and was now about 33 years of age; the most part of which time he had spent very ill, though his Mother and other his Friends and Relations (who are very honest) were not wanting in their giving him good Advice, which he did not follow; and for that he is now to suffer; the Providence of God having justly brought him under this Condemnation for the punishment of his wicked Deeds in this World; which Puuishment he pray’d might not be extended to the next. He added, that he had served the Crown at times for some years past, both by Sea and Land ; and that by that Service, and his Trade, (which was not a Bricklayer, as some would have it, but a Dry-Cooper) he might have maintain’d himself, and lived comfortably, had he been honest. He wish’d, that other ill Livers might take Warning by him, and be wiser and honester than he had been. He said, he was sorry he ever injur’d any Man, and now was unable to make any Reparation for those Injuries he had done to his Neighbour. He also declar’d, That he forgave all those that had been the Cause of his Ruin, and, That he dy’d in Charity with all the World. I asking him (as I was desir’d) how he made his escape out of the Goal at Chelmsford, he told me, That he broke the Ridge of the House, and so open’d himself a Passage, and went away by one of the Clock in the Morning on the 12th day of October last, unknown to any-body, and was in London on the 14th.

2. Aaron Jones, condemn’d for two Burglaries and a Murther; viz. First, for breaking open and taking by Night several Goods out of the House of Mr. John Moss at Hampstead, on the 30th of June last: Secondly, for another like Robbery committed in the House of Mr. William Heydon, on the 11th of October last: And Lastly, For the Murther of one Lamas, about Marybone, as he was walking that way with Mr. Moss the day after the first Robbery, i. e. the 1st of July, when the said Mr. Moss and Lamas there met with this Jones, and another Person concern’d with him, of whom mention shall be made hereafter, who were then (both of them) carrying away some of the Goods stoln out of Mr. Moss’s House the Day before. He deny’d both the Buglaries and the Murther, and seem’d to be very stubbon and obstinate in that his Denial; tho’ at the same time he confess’d, That he had formerly been guilty of small Thefts, as the stealing of Poultry, and such things; and, That he had been a very lewd and wicked Person; for which he asked God’s Pardon and theirs whom he had offended. He said, he was a poor Labouring-man , who came up some few years since to London for Work; That he was about 33 years of age, born at the Devizes in Wiltshire; and, That he once little thought he should ever come to such an End: But having forsaken God, God had forsook him, and left him to himself; and for his Neglect of Christian Duties, and following ill Courses, God had suffer’d him to fall by this shameful Condemnation.

3. Joseph Wells, condemn’d for the last-mention’d Facts of two Burglaries and Murther by him committed in conjunction with the aforesaid Aaron Jones. He (like his Accomplice) positively deny’d his being guilty of either of those Facts. But confess’d, he had not lived that honest Life which his good Parents had taught him; and, That he had sometimes (tho’ not in great Matters) defrauded and wrong’d his Neighbour; and (to his grief) could not make any manner of Reparation, but he was now severely punish’d, and he look’d upon that Punishment as inflicted on him by Almighty God for all his past Failures. He said, he was about 30 years of age, born at Cobley near Old-Stratford in Warwickshire; and, That he was a Black-Smith by his Trade, which he had follow’d pretty constantly both in the Country, and here. He outwardly appear’d to be very sensible of the Wrath of God upon Sinners, and cry’d for Mercy; but what his inward Thoughts were, God Almighty only knows.

4. John Long, condemn’d for assaulting and robbing upon the Queen’s High-way near Tyburn, Mr. John Nichols, and Mr. William Cure, taking from them, viz. from Mr. Nichols 36 Guineas, and from Mr. Cure 12 Guineas, a Silver-Watch, and several other Things, on the 19th day of November last. He deny’d these Facts at the first, and persisted long in that denial, and protestation of his Innocence in that Matter; but at the same time he confess’d, That though he was but a Young-man (not 20 years old) yet he had done many ill things, and been very loose in his Life and Conversation for which he craved God’s Pardon; being grieved at his heart, that he had been so wicked. He said further, That he was born of good Parents, at Leeks in Nottinghamshire; That he was a Stonecutter and Bricklayer , by his Trade, and, That he listed himself about a Twelvemonth ago. This is the substance of what he said to me before he went to Tyburn. Of which Place when I come to speak (at the end of this Paper) I will say more of him,

This Day being appointed for the Execution of these Malefactors, they were all carry’d from Newgate (in two Carts) to Tyburn, where I attended them for the last time. There I exhorted them again to stir up their Hearts to God in Faith and Repentance, and clearing their Consciences of all things they were to declare to the World, before they dy’d. I asked Jones and Wells, What they now said to the Robberies and Murther for which they were come to suffer in this Place; and, Whether they knew any thing (as I had asked before in Newgate) of the Murther of Mr. Dudley Carlton, or of any other Murther. To which they answer’d me, That they never were concen’d in the Murther of Mr. Carlton, neither knew who had committed it, nor any thing of it. As for the Crimes for which they were to suffer, Wells said, He was guilty of the Burglary, but not of the Murther of John Lamas. Jones (tho’ I press’d him much and long, to speak the Truth concerning those Burglaries, and that Murther of Lamas) he would not say any thing, but this only, That he would tell me no more Lies, and, That all he had to confess to Man, was, that he had been a great Sinner, and done too many ill things in his Lifetime. By which Answer he seem’d tacitely to own, that he had committed both the Burglaries, and the Murther, for which he was to die.

Then I asked Thomas Smith, Whether he still persisted in his Denial of the Burglary for which he was condemned, or would acknowledge it now (as it greatly concerned him to do). To which he reply’d, That he had nothing more to say in the matter than he had said already; which was, That the House was broke open long before he went into it.

Lastly, as for John Long, who had all the while deny’d the two Robberies for which he was condemned, he own’d them here; saying, That he was guilty of them, and pray’d God and the World to forgive him. He cry’d very bitterly, wished he had lived a better Life: And both he and the other three desired all Offenders to take Warning by them, and see that they do not by their wicked ways follow them to this Place.

After this, I pray’d for them all, and sung some Penitential Psalms with them, I made them rehearse the Apostle’s Creed; and when they had spoken to the Standers-by, That they would pray to GOD for their departing Souls; I returned to Prayer again; and having recommended them to their Creator and Redeemer, and to the Spirit of Grace; I left them to their private Devotions, for which they had some time allotted them.

Then the Cart drew away, and they were turn’d off; they all the while calling mightily upon GOD, to forgive their Sins, and have Mercy upon their Souls.

This is all the Account here to be given of these Dying Persons, by me, PAUL LORRAIN, Ordinary of Newgate .

Friday, Dec. 16. 1709.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Books set forth by Paul Lorrain, Ordinary of Newgate .

A Guide to Salvation, or the Way to Eternal Bliss: Being a Collection of Meditations and Prayers, suited to the Exercise of a Devout Christian. Printed for W. Meadows at the Fann in St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1709.

The Last Words of the Lady Margaret de la Musse: And, The Dying man’s Assistant. Both Printed for, and Sold by John Lawrence at the Angel in the Poultry.

A Preparation for the Sacrament: with Moral and Divine Maxims. Printed for B. Aylmer at the 3 Pidgeons in Cornhil.

ROBERT WHITLEDGE, who formerly lived at the Bible in Creed-Lane, is removed to the Bible and Ball in Ave-Mary-Lane, near Ludgate, where all Booksellers and others may be furnisht with Bibles and Common-Prayers of all Sorts, with Cuts or without, Ruled or Unruled, Bound in Turky Leather or Plain. Mr. Sturt’s Cuts Curiously Engrav’d; also other fine Cutts fitted for all Sizes and Common-Prayers. The Welsh Bible, Welsh Common-Prayer, and Welsh Almanack. The Duty of Man’s Works of all Sizes. The Duty of Man in Latin. Latin and French Common-Prayers. Tate and Brady’s New Version of Psalms, with the New Supplement. Dr. Gibson on the Sacrament. The Statutes at large, in Three Volumes. Washington and Wingate’s Abridgment of them. The Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion in Folio and Octavo. The New Translation of AEsops Fables. Also Bp. Beveridge’s Works, in 5 vol. And Dean Stanhope on the Epistles and Gospels, in 4 vol. All which Books and Cuts are likewise Sold by J. Baker in Mercers-Chapel, in Cheapside.

Lately publish’d for the Use of Schools,

Vocabularium Latiale; or, a Latin Vocabulary in two parts. The First being a Collection of the most usual and easie Latin words, whether primitive or derivative; with their signification in English, after the order of the Eight parts of Speech, giving a Specimen of each, and most naturally shewing the gender, increase, declension and motion of Nouns and Pronouns, with the Conjugation-Preterperfect Tense and Supine of Verbs both Simple and Compound. The Second, shewing the variation and declining of all the declinable parts, both regular an irregular. By Tho. Dyche, School-Master in London, Author of a new Spelling-book, entitul’d, A Guide to the English Tongue. Printed for S. Butler, at Bernard’s-Inn-Gate, in Holbourn, J Holland, near St. Paul’s Church-yard, and A. Collins, at the Black-Boy in Fleet-street. Price 1 s.

Memoirs of the right Villianous John Hall, the late famous and Notorious Robber. Pen’d from his Mouth some time before his Death. Containing the exact Life and Character of a Thief in General. As also a lively Representation of Newgate, and its Inhabitants, with the Manners and Customs observed there. The Nature and Means by which they commit their several Thefts and Robberies, and the Distinctions observed in their respective Functions. To which is added, the Cant generally us’d by those Sort of People to conceal their Villanies; and Rules to avoid being Robb’d or Cheated by them. Usefully set forth for the Good of the Publick, at the Instance of many honest People. The third Edition, with large Additions, and a Description of Ludgate, the two Compers, and other Prisons for Debt.

The wooden World dissected in the Character, of, 1. a Ship of War; 2. a Sea-Captain; 3. a Sea-Lieutenant; 4. a Sea Chaplain; 5. The Master of a Ship of War; 6. The Purser; 7. The Surgeon; 8. The Gunner; 9. The Carpenter; 10. The Boatswain; 11. a Sea-Cook; 12. a Midship-man; 13. The Captain’s Steward; 14. a Sailor. By a lover of the Mathematicks. The Second Edition, corrected and amended by the Author. Price bound, 1 s.

The Satyrical Works of Petronius Arbiter, in Prose, and Verse. In three Parts. Together with his Life and Character, written by Mons. St. Evremont; and a Key to the Satyr, by a Person of Quality. Made English by Mr. Wilson, Mr. Burna by, Mr. Blount, Mr. Brown, Captain Ayloff, and several others. And adorn’d with Cuts. To which is added, the Charms of Liberty; a Poem, by the late Duke of Devonshire.

All 3 Sold by B. Bragge, at the Raven in Pater-noster-row.

London Printed, and are to be Sold by Benj. Bragge, at the Raven in Pater-noster-Row.

* The Earldom of Westmorland still exists to this day and the same family as our crime victim here still holds it: it belongs now to Anthony David Francis Henry Fane, the 16th Earl of Westmorland.

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1975: Lex Aronson, aid worker

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Dutch Jewish aid worker (A)Lex Aronson was hanged on this date in 1975 in Iraq.

Aronson (English Wikipedia entry | Dutch) had survived Bergen-Belsen as a child* — his grandfather was not so fortunate — and gone on to a peripatetic career in global relief work that took him to Israel, Syria, Gabon, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, and points beyond.

The last point beyond was Kurdish northern Iraq, during the terrible Iraqi-Kurdish war there of 1974-1975.

By the accounts of his friends, Aronson was a free spirit, a man of idealism and wanderlust. By the account of the Iraqi government that arrested him, Aronson was an Israeli spy.

There’s a published collection of his correspondence; in a letter to his mother dated March 13, 1975 — the last he would post before his arrest 11 days on — achingly shows him eschewing a judicious evacuation in order to press onward into the teeth of a devastating offensive Iraq had launched on March 7.

the political bosses here have decided that all foreigners should be evacuated. By foreigners, they are referring to a few press photographers, the team of five English from “Save the Children,” and yours truly. The hospitality is so extensive here that at the first sign of a threat, they are stepping out of their way to secure the safety of their guests. The local bosses mean well. However, what daddy has in his head, he doesn’t have in his arse… by which I mean that whatever I have set my mind to, I don’t give up easily.

I was determined to go to Badinan. I went from one political office to another, pestering all the leaders save for Barzani himself. Finally, I was rewarded with a letter of introduction to all the Kurdish military commanders requesting that they give me the help necessary for me to reach my goal.

A subsequent letter by a Save Our Children doctor to Aronson’s father in early 1976 explained something of the circumstances in the following days that led to his capture,

I saw your son on 20 March 1975. He was breakfasting with me at the home of the leader of the Barzan community, Sheikh Abdullah, in preparation for a journey to Badinan. He was taking medicine and other equipment with him so that he could set up a surgery to treat the inhabitants of a single community somewhere in that area. He had bought a donkey to convey these items, but unfortunately this had got lost between Senidan and Sideka, over the pass to the east of Hassanbeg Mountain with the snow so deep that no donkey could traverse it.

The donkey was under the control of two Pesh Merga (Kurdish Freedom Fighters). Apparently they became separated from your son and he had no idea of the [whereabouts of?] this medicine or his passport and money. He was travelling against the advice of the Kurds in the border area who were keen (at that time) that all foreigners should get out as quickly as possible. For this reason, he retraced his steps to try to find the donkey, yet wanted to press on towards Amadiyah. He had spent a day or so looking. He asked me to look for the animal. I made inquiries in both Sideka and Semilan, but I could not find it. However, as at that stage there was total chaos in these villages, it was not at all surprising that I was so unsuccessful. I must explain that he was in danger, as he had no identification papers with him when I saw him.

A confusing and, for his loved ones, anguishing period ensued his arrest. The Iraqi News Agency announced his execution on November 3, only to retract that announcement shortly afterward and clarify that he remained alive, still facing execution. His parents for months thereafter received notes scribbled on cigarette packages which meandered through smuggling channels at indifferent speeds, but with the irresistible implication that their son yet drew breath — and so they kept up their struggle to save him via appeals and publicity well into 1976, when the Iraqi embassy in March 1976 finally notified them that he was long since hanged.

“Nobody can imagine how we feel now,” his father told the press. “All hopes smashed at once. There is nothing left to fight for. Now we can only try not to get too depressed.”

* He was a passenger on the “Lost Transport”, a train of inmates evacuated from Bergen-Belsen that ended up with no destination as the Reich collapsed, and were eventually liberated by the Red Army.

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1981: Gheorghe Stefanescu, the Walter White of wine

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Romanian entrepreneur Gheorghe Stefanescu was shot at Jilava Prison on this date in 1981. He was at the center of one of the largest corruption scandals of the Communist period.

A Bucharest liquor-store administrator, Stefanescu built a vast network that sold unlicensed and adulterated wine throughout the 1970s. When arrested in 1978 — after a Securitate officer noticed that the wine he’d ordered for a wedding decayed into sludge when the festivity was delayed — Stefanescu had accumulated a villa, two cars, 18 kg in gold jewelry, and millions in lei. More than 200 other people, ranging from distributors to officials corrupted by bribes, were arrested when the operation was rolled up.

The way it worked was, a vineyards administrator would fraudulently declare part of his product a loss to natural disaster, and squirrel it away illicitly. This contraband was then multiplied in volume and profitability by diluting the highest-quality wine with cheap plonk. Stefanescu and friends moved some 400,000 liters of this stuff from 1971 to 1978, costing the Romanian government several million dollars in lost revenue — a laughably pinprick injury compared to Romania’s post-Ceausescu sea of corruption but as they say, a prophet is never welcome in his own country.

Bring your Romanian proficiency to enjoy the 1984 film about the affair, Secretul lui Bachus (Secrets of Bacchus).

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1669: Susanna One-Ear

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On this date in 1669, a slave of the Dutch East India Company named Susanna was sewn into a rock-weighted sack and tossed into Table Bay as punishment for infanticide in the Cape Colony (present-day South Africa).

The spare narration of the company’s journal describes Susanna’s speedy progress from the (not further explained) strangulation of her “half-caste” infant girl — reported on December 11, tried on December 12, and executed on December 13.

December 11th. — In the evening meeting the Fiscal [Cornelis de Cretzer] reported that a female slave of the Company, named Susanna of Bengal, lying stiff and stinking of the small-pox in the slave house, had not hesitated to strangle her infant, a half-caste girl; he likewise submitted the sworn declaration of the surgeon, which mentioned that the poor innocent child had died in consequence. The Council having considered this serious affair at once, ordered that the murderous pig should be placed in confinement in order to be punished according to her deserts.

December 12th. — This evening the Council decreed that the female slave, above mentioned, should be tied up in a bag and thrown into the sea. The minister [Adrianus de Voogd] and sick comforter [Joannes à Bolte(n)] were accordingly sent to her, to admonish her to repentence [sic] of what she had done, so that she might in a Christian manner prepare herself for death to-morrow afternoon.

December 13th. — About 11 o’clock the sentence was read here on the square in presence of the murderess and the public, and afterwards carried out on the roadstead in the presence of all the slaves. For the maintenance of justice it was executed with death [by drowning?].

Unsurprisingly we know little else about Susanna … but we do know something.

A documentation project on the first decades of the Cape Colony features a series called “Uprooted Lives”, by Mansell Upham focusing on the lives of slaves and aboriginals affected by the settlement has a fantastic article (pdf) on “Susanna van Bengale” or “Susanna Een Oor” (Susanna One-Ear). It’s a highly recommended read, not only illuminating the judicial perspectives on infanticide that would have informed her judges, but tracing other, fleeting glimpses of Susanna supplied by the documentary record and illuminating the context of her case in view of two other important trials of mothers that preceded it.

It’s worth the click to read it here.

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2011: Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser

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Per the BBC’s report of a Saudi Interior Ministry statement, a woman named Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded for sorcery in the northern province of Jawf on this date in 2011.

The London-based newspaper, al-Hayat, quoted a member of the religious police as saying that she was in her 60s and had tricked people into giving her money, claiming that she could cure their illnesses.

Our correspondent said she was arrested in April 2009.

But the human rights group Amnesty International, which has campaigned for Saudis previously sentenced to death on sorcery charges, said it had never heard of her case until now, he adds.

…

Amnesty says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.

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1994: Raymond Carl Kinnamon, filibusterer

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On this date in 1994 — the ten-year anniversary of the robbery-murder that earned him his death sentence — Raymond Carl Kinnamon died to lethal injection despite his loquacity.

A career criminal with 17 felony convictions and three prison stints previously to his name, Kinnamon robbed a Houston bar at gunpoint on December 11, 1984. The crime escalated to murder when one of the patrons, Raymond Charles Longmire, smacked the gunman’s hand away from his pocket.

On this unusual Sunday-morning execution, the death warrant specified the execution be completed before dawn. Kinnamon received a last-minute stay that was subsequently overturned by an appellate court, but the legal chicanery ate up most of the window. Seeing an angle, Kinnamon delivered a rambling, 30-minute last statement looking to run out the clock on his executioners. According to the Associated Press (here via the Paris News of Dec. 12, 1994), prison officials eventually forced the start of the lethal drugs while the prisoner was still mid-filibuster, to the complaints of Kinnamon’s family.

“I’ve got a few things to say,” Kinnamon said as witnesses filed into the death chamber about 5:15 a.m. CST.

Thirty minutes later, after thanking dozens of people, criticizing capital punishment, expressing love for his family and getting a drink of water from the prison warden, he was still talking.

“I can see no reason for my death,” he said, then began squirming, lifting his head and shoulders and tried sliding his right arm from a leather strap.

Warden Morris Jones and a prison chaplain, Alex Taylor, both stationed a few feet away at opposite corners of the gurney, stepped in to control the inmate and executioners behind a one-way mirror in an adjacent room began the lethal dose.

Kinnamon’s niece, standing with her mother and a friend behind a clear plastic shielded window, began sobbing loudly.

“They didn’t let him finish,” Natasha Fremin cried out. “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

The dispatch notes that “it was not clear what would have happened if Kinnamon had continued to speak past sunrise.”

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1940: Carl Heinrich Meier and Jose Waldberg, the first hanged under the Treachery Act

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I went into this with both my eyes open, telling myself that a man who has an ideal must be willing to sacrifice everything for it or else the ideal isn’t an ideal at all, or the man isn’t a man at all, but a humble creature who deserves only pity.

-Carl Heinrich Meier, last letter to his fiancee (Source)

On this date in 1940, Great Britain carried out the first two executions under its brand-new-for-wartime Treachery Act of 1940.

Raced into the books in May of 1940 amid Nazi Germany’s onslaught on France, the Treachery Act made it a capital crime if, “with intent to help the enemy, any person does, or attempts or conspires with any other person to do any act which is designed or likely to give assistance to the naval, military or air operations of the enemy, to impede such operations of His Majesty’s forces, or to endanger life.” Naturally the realm had centuries of treason statutes to fall back on; the intent in creating this new capital crime of treachery was to target spies and saboteurs who might not themselves be British citizens — and therefore evade “treason” charges on grounds of not owing loyalty to the British Crown. Instead, the Treachery Act explicitly governed “any person in the United Kingdom, or in any British ship or aircraft.”

Carl/Karl Heinrich Meier and Jose Waldberg were textbook cases. They had rowed ashore at Dungeness on September 3 intending to pose as Dutch refugees while reconnoitering ahead of a potential German cross-channel invasion. With them were two other Abwehr agents with the same intent, Charles Albert van der Kieboom and Sjoerd Pons.

While his comrades were noticed by routine coastal patrols and picked up near the beach, Meier picturesquely showed up that morning at a public house in Lydd where his clumsy command of contextual slang and etiquette led the proprietress to turn him in.

They were tried in camera weeks later, by which time the Luftwaffe was systematically bombing the jurors; despite this radically prejudicial context, Sjoerd Pons was actually acquitted — successfully persuading the court that he’d been forced into the mission on pain of a concentration camp sentence for smuggling. (Pons was detained as an enemy alien despite the acquittal.)

The other three men were not so fortunate. Perhaps most to be pitied was “Waldberg” who was really a Belgian named Henri Lassudry: although he had not presented Pons’s same defense to the court it appeared that he also had been coerced into the operation, in his case by Gestapo threats against his family. But none of the three death sentences was to be abated. A week after Meier and Waldberg/Lassudry hanged at Pentonville Prison, van der Kieboom followed them to the gallows.


“Jose Waldberg” aka Henri Lassudry.

The Treachery Act would be used against German agents repeatedly through the war years and in time had the distinction of noosing the last person hanged in Britain for a crime other than murder.

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1920: Joseph Usefof

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(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. This post originally appeared on the Last Words blog. Fans of this here site are highly likely to enjoy following Elder’s own pithy, almanac-style collection of last words on the scaffold. -ed.)

“You see an innocent man dying tonight. Thank you, warden. You have been a kind man.”

— Joseph Usefof, convicted of murder, electric chair, New York. Executed December 9, 1920.

Usefof was executed along with three other men for the 1918 murder of subway ticket agent Otto Fialo in the Bronx. Joseph Milano, one of Usefof’s co-defendants, exonerated Usefof in a written confession, which he later retracted. Usefof maintained his innocence; he was the first of his group to be executed because he was considered the most likely to suffer a breakdown.

[Executed with Usefof and Milano were James Cassidy and Charles McLaughlin, along with a fifth man electrocuted for an unrelated murder, Howard Baker. -ed.]

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