(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.)
“It looks pretty dark, but if I have to, I guess I can take my medicine.”
-Morris Cohen, convicted of murder, Illinois. Executed October 13, 1933
A thirty-eight-year-old barber, Cohen got the electric chair for the murder of Officer Joseph Hastings during a robbery attempt at Chicago’s Navy Pier. A secondary headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune read “Record for Speedy Justice Is Set.” He had been executed less than two months after the crime.
On this day..
- 1998: Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui - 2020
- 1941: Bronislava Poskrebysheva - 2019
- 1762: James Collins, James Whem, and John Kello - 2018
- 1960: Tony Zarba, anti-Castro raider - 2017
- 1871: James Wilson, steely burglar - 2016
- 1909: Francisco Ferrer, martyred teacher - 2015
- 1990: The October 13 Massacre - 2014
- 1944: Six German POWs, for Stalingrad's Dulag-205 - 2013
- 1864: Ranger A.C. Willis, parabolically - 2011
- 1846: William Westwood, aka Jackey Jackey - 2010
- 1815: Joachim Murat, Napoleonic Marshal - 2009
- 1660: Major-General Thomas Harrison, the first of the regicides - 2008