1884: Two Pennsylvania murderers
Add comment September 23rd, 2013 Headsman
On this date in 1884, Joseph Sarver was hanged as a parricide at Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Sarver became enraged by his father’s affair with their housekeeper Mary Kelley, and shot the father dead in his doorway. (He also shot Mary Kelley; she survived.)
As if the parricide rap wasn’t enough to get the blood up, he “greatly intensified the popular feeling against him” by behaving after his arrest like an all-around jerk. Sarver reportedly fought with jailers over the timeliness of his breakfast, made merry in prison, and blithely boasted that “they could never hang him because he was a Democrat, and so was Governor Pattison.” (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 14, 1883; Galveston Daily News, same date. It made the national crime blotter.)
He eventually made a full confession, and was said to have died firmly.
Executed on the same date in Cambria County, Penn., Michael Murray “dictated a letter, to be made public after his death, in which he charged that certain persons, possessing the powers of witchcraft, had exercised a spell over him, and while under its influence, he committed the deed.” The deed created by this sorcery was shooting a man on the Pittsburgh turnpike who called Murray a name.
On this day..
- 1959: John Day Jr., Korean War casualty - 2020
- 1948: Shafiq Ades - 2019
- 1730: Cathrine M'Canna, mother's daughter - 2018
- 1831: Slaves of Sussex County, for Nat Turner's rebellion - 2017
- 1675: Katharina Paldauff, the Flower Witch - 2016
- 1923: Jesus Saleta and Pascal Aguirre, Terrassa anarchists - 2015
- 1603: Marco Tulio Catizone, the false Dom Sebastian - 2014
- 782: 4,500 Saxons by order of Charlemagne - 2012
- 1921: Jake Martin and Putnam Ponsell - 2011
- 1947: Nikola Petkov, "a dog's death" - 2010
- 1864: Six of Mosby's Rangers - 2009
- 1994: Johannes van Damme, heroin smuggler - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,Murder,Pennsylvania,USA
Tags: 1880s, 1884, joseph sarver, michael murray, parricide, september 23
Recent Comments