1938: A pig, experimentally
3 comments March 19th, 2009 Headsman
EXECUTION TEST MADE WITH PIG
San Quentin’s Lethal Chamber Tried Out
SAN QUENTIN, March 19 [1938]. (AP) A runt pig* died today in a slow-motion test of San Quentin’s lethal gas chamber.
The test required thirty-five minutes before the pig was formally pronounced dead, but prison officials said “nowhere near that time” would be necessary for execution of a condemned convict in the gas chamber.
The trial execution was conducted in slow motion to enable prison officials and guards to learn details of the operation. The test was conducted by representatives of the manufacturers of the chamber.
* According to the Los Angeles Times (whose March 24, 1938 edition captions a photograph of Warden Court Smith peering inquisitively through the gas chamber’s window), it was “a little thirty-pound brown pig.” According to the backgrounder in When You Read This, They Will Have Killed Me — which concerns an altogether more famous gas chamber subject — the swine was “a 155-pound pig named Oscar, raised on the prison farm.”
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1974: Charles Dean and Neal Sharman
- 1945: John Birch, Society man
- 1909: Will James, “the Froggie”, lynched in Cairo
Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Animals, Borderline "Executions", California, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Gassed, No Formal Charge, USA
Tags: 1930s, 1938, animal cruelty, court smith, march 19, pigs, san quentin prison, science
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