(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.)
(Said to a guard) “The chair will be a good enough [Christmas] present for me.”
— Harry Singer, convicted of murder, electric chair, Indiana.
Executed December 26, 1936
The twenty-five-year-old former farmhand kept mostly to himself Christmas Day, playing checkers and eating “heartily,” according to the Associated Press. Few details of the crime have survived, except the names of his victims: Mr. and Mrs. John Wesley Kaufman and their daughter, age twelve. In prison, Singer also confessed to the murder of Joseph Bryant, age twenty, of Detroit.
On this day..
- 2019: Wei Wei
- 1845: John Burnett, failson
- 2017: Fifteen Sinai Islamic militants
- 831: St. Euthymius of Sardis, iconophile
- 1864: James Utz, St. Louis spy
- 1502: Ramiro d'Orco, discarded by Cesare Borgia
- 1942: Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, Darlan's assassin
- 1872: Du Wenxiu, Panthay rebellion leader
- 1870: Kumoi Tatsuo
- Feast Day of St. Stephen
- 1862: Asa Lewis, Confederate deserter
- 1862: 38 Sioux
- Themed Set: The Spectacle of Public Hanging in America