Ryzhachkov Anatoly Alexandrovich
This question should be divided into two parts.
1. How does a person sentenced to death feel while waiting for a long time.
2. How does a person feel in the immediate vicinity of execution.
The reaction to a death sentence is absolutely diametrical. There are people who perceive it in a completely depressed state, and sometimes vice versa. When American Leonard Laws (Missouri) learned of the death sentence, he was seized with uncontrollable laughter. He refused to apply for clemency or any appeals in his case.
Long waits for execution sometimes lead to paradoxical cases. Thus, in November 1986 in Jamaica, two convicts who had been waiting for execution for more than 5 years committed suicide in their cells. American Perry Smith, awaiting execution in a Kansas state prison in 1950-65, tried to commit suicide by hunger strike. S.P. Melgunov writes about a Tatar in Butyrka prison who cut his throat with a piece of glass while waiting to be taken away to be shot. As the Special Rapporteur on torture noted in a 1988 report to the Commission on Human Rights, if “those sentenced to death have to wait a long time before they know whether the sentence will be carried out or not” and “if uncertainty... continues several years... the psychological consequences of this can only be compared with severe mental suffering, which often leads to serious physical disorders...
Let me give you a few examples from the lives of death row inmates.
“We were brought to a terrible cell under strong escort at about 7 pm. Before we had time to look around, the bolt clanged, the iron door creaked, and the prison authorities entered, accompanied by prison observers.
- How many of you are here? - Looking around the camera - the authorities turned to the headman.
— Sixty-seven people.
- How about sixty-seven? “They dug a grave for ninety people,” the authorities drawled in bewilderment, but completely calmly, epically, even as if reluctantly.
The camera froze, feeling the breath of death. Everyone seemed numb.
“Oh, yes,” the authorities realized, “I forgot, thirty people will be shot from the Special Department.”
Nightmarish, endless, long hours of waiting for death dragged on. The priest who was in the cell miraculously retained the pectoral cross, put it on, fell to his knees and began to pray. Many, including one communist, followed his example. The sounds of an out-of-tune piano could be heard in the cell, hackneyed waltzes could be heard, at times giving way to rollickingly cheerful Russian songs, tearing apart the already sick souls of the condemned prisoners - this was rehearsed by cultural educators in the premises of the former prison church, located next to our cell. Thus, by an evil irony of fate, life and death were intertwined.”
Here are fragments from letters from those sentenced to death, which were collected by V.G. Korolenko, an active fighter against the death penalty in pre-revolutionary Russia.
“I will write to you, but I warn you that I am an illiterate, undeveloped and poorly read person. I feel very good (italics in the letters of the convicts belong to V.G. Korolenko - A.L.). Death is nothing to me. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but it had to happen. When I was free, I was sure that I would be hanged or shot somewhere in reality. So, comrade, can death seem terrible to me? Yes, of course, not at all. I don’t know about others, but before the trial and after the trial I was in the same mood. It’s just a shame: one innocent person was sentenced with me. I couldn’t resist in court and shouted at the judges... For this I received punishment from the “conscious convoy”...
“You ask how I spend my time. It's difficult to determine. I cannot take myself into account in this case. One thing I can say is that I am mentally calm. Very calm. The appearance is, one might say, cheerful. From morning to night we laugh, tell various jokes, humorous of course. Of course, the question of life sometimes comes to mind. You think for a few minutes and try to forget it all because everything is already over for me on this earth. And once it’s over, you try to drive away such thoughts and not bring them up in your head. I see that there is very little time left for life, and in such short minutes I cannot resolve anything. Rather than rack your brains in vain, it’s better to forget all this and have a more fun time. I can’t define myself: it’s like I’m crazy. Sometimes you want to poison yourself. Poison yourself whenever I want. I really don’t want to go to the backyard to die, especially in damp weather, in the rain. By the time you get there, everything will be exhausted. And hanging wet is not particularly comfortable. And even this: they take you at night (this tradition of taking people away for execution at night was preserved in Soviet prisons even under Stalin. - A.L.). Just when you wake up, they wake you up and disturb you... It would be better to get poisoned..."
“I feel nothing. I’m even surprised that there hasn’t been any revolution in my soul. Nothing really happened..."
“We go to bed at three o’clock in the morning. It's constant. R. taught us to play preference, and we were so carried away by it that we played as if for fun. We got very carried away. There is both regret from losing and small joys from winning. No one seems to notice any loss of spirit. If you look from the outside and don’t know that we are sentenced to death, then you might consider us simply people serving a sentence. If you observe us, knowing that death awaits us, then you might probably think that we are abnormal. Indeed, you yourself have to be surprised that we are so cold-blooded... You literally forget about what awaits us. This, in my opinion, comes from the fact that you are not sitting alone... As soon as someone gets sad, someone else tries, perhaps unintentionally, to tear him away from heavy thoughts and involve him in a conversation or something else... They find the minutes somehow unreasonable anger, I want to do evil to someone, some kind of dirty trick. As far as I have observed, if such a person gets worried and vents his anger in swearing, he will gradually calm down. Some people are affected by singing at such moments. Tighten something and he will support it.”
“Life has to be counted in minutes, it is short. Now I’m writing this note and I’m afraid that the doors are about to open and I won’t finish. How bad I feel in this ominous silence! A barely audible rustle makes my heart beat anxiously... The door will creak... But it’s downstairs. And I start writing again. I heard footsteps in the corridor and I ran to the doors. No, again a vain alarm, these are the steps of the warden. A terrible dead silence oppresses me. I'm stuffy. My head feels like lead and falls helplessly onto the pillow. But the note still needs to be finished. What did I want to write to you about? Yes, about life! Isn’t it funny to talk about it when death is here next to you. Yes, she's not far from me. I feel her cold breath on me, her terrible ghost is persistently standing in my eyes... You get up in the morning and, like a child, rejoice that you are still alive, that you still have a whole day to enjoy life. But it’s night! It’s hard to convey how much torment it brings... Well, it's time to finish: about two o'clock in the morning. You can fall asleep and be calm: they won’t come for me today.”
“I haven’t written to you for a long time. I fantasized everything, but I couldn’t figure it out with my sick brain. I am currently in complete ignorance, and it torments me terribly. I have been sentenced for two months now, and still no one hangs me. Why are they protecting me? Maybe they are mocking me? Maybe they want me to suffer every night, waiting for death? Yes, comrade, I can’t find words, I can’t express on paper how I suffer at night! Something - quickly!
Yes, the longer a person waits for execution, the more difficult this test affects his psyche. Criminologist Robert Johnson conducted a study of people on death row in Alabama prisons in 1978. Most of the 35 respondents could not think about anything other than the upcoming execution. They were haunted by thoughts about how execution would take place in the electric chair and with the effect of current on the body; they vividly and in every detail imagined the execution in their imagination. They cared about how they would behave when they came for them and were taken to the execution chamber; will they experience hysteria or a nervous breakdown; whether the execution will be painful; how memories of the execution will affect their families. Such and similar thoughts have become obsessive for many convicts. Some convicts were constantly haunted by nightmares in which the entire execution procedure took place stage by stage... The prospect of losing their lives and the feeling of the futility of maintaining any connections often led to the fact that the convicts showed less and less desire to meet with relatives and friends. The loss of connections with the outside world and the isolation of prisoners on death row gave rise to a feeling of abandonment, which led to a state that R. Johnson called “the death of the individual”; in some cases, this condition arose long before the moment of execution. This condition is characterized by deep depression, apathy, loss of sense of reality, physical and mental degradation.
This is the experience of the United States, where those sentenced to death wait an average of 7-8 years for their sentences to be executed. In the USSR, this period is on average 1.5-2 years. So here the experience is different. Let us turn to the testimony of the Soviet journalist Georgy Rozhnov, who, before coming to journalism, worked for more than 25 years as a political officer in a pre-trial detention center of a prison in the city. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, prisons, where there were death rows. “I confess now,” he recalls, “while walking around the prison corridors, I tried to step as quietly as possible in the one where the death row prisoners were imprisoned. Especially at the end of the day, when I felt that the reserve of compassion was completely wasted, that it was unbearable to speak, listen, or smile. And they, the suicide bombers, only need this: just a word, just attention, just a smile. If you can’t, walk on your toes and walk past. But it was not there. “Citizen political officer! Come here! I can hear you!” - comes from behind the door.
Of course, this is Kostya Ivanov. We've known each other for a year and a half now. Kostya has been waiting for a year and a half to be killed. I got him into reading, and the fact that I succeeded amazed us both. Kostya already knows Chekhov, has read Terkin, and is now obsessed with Sholokhov and Quiet Don. In his solitary confinement, he loudly, with tears, pities Grigory, pities Aksinya, pities Podtelkov and the officers hacked to death near Glubokaya. At least half an hour, but you need to feel sorry for them together with him - it’s easier for Kostya. And not only him - from time to time one or the other suicide bomber experiences a period of talkativeness, but there is no interlocutor. They are not taken for walks, and they are not taken to the bathhouse alone. Round the clock - four walls and silence. And thoughts. It is clear that it is very difficult for Kostya to get rid of everyday calculations about when exactly he will be killed. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict; the first “pardon” to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Russia was a refusal. Now Ivanov’s last hope is in Gromyko himself (in 1986-88, A.A. Gromyko was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. - A.L.).
“It’s a dead end for me,” Kostya often says. - Will kill. And they will do the right thing,
— And after a short silence: “I wonder if they won’t kill me before the summer?”
I remember the day when he was brought to us immediately after his arrest. I read the arrest report - a disgusting, wild story. Ivanov - a person with no specific occupation, no specific place of residence, a drunkard and a poacher - killed the fish inspector with a doublet. There, the fine was nothing at all, and there were plenty of witnesses, and the fish inspector was a calm guy - why on earth would he grab a gun and kill?
In the cell, fear gradually crept into Ivanov. After the verdict of the regional court, he still swaggered, drove the controllers (prison position - A.L.) to white heat, and when I appeared, he yawned demonstratively. The Supreme Court's ruling didn't seem to bother him much either. But time—weeks, months, a year in solitary confinement—has done its job. I don’t know, maybe the reading had an influence here, and our conversations with him - the other person was now waiting for a decision whether to live or not to live.
One day he told me:
“Don’t laugh, I only became a man here, in prison.” My whole life is one continuous binge. I've only been here for a year and I've been sober! I read my first books in prison. If they don’t kill me, I’ll work hard in the zone, every month I’ll make a transfer to the family of the murdered man. Lord, how I will work hard, how I will plow!
They came for Ivanov in the fall, when he was reading “The Fate of Man.” How do they come for convicts?
According to Jacques Rossi, in the USSR in the 1920-50s, people were always taken away to be executed at night (perhaps this practice has now changed, but there is no official information about this). Those whose death sentences were commuted to imprisonment are summoned during the day.
In several Caribbean countries, a convicted person is told on Thursday that his execution will take place this coming Tuesday. The decision is announced without any warning, between one and four o'clock in the afternoon. Convicts on death row are in a state of horror every Thursday, waiting with fear to hear the creak of the door, which opens only when they come to announce the order to carry out the death sentence. The prison officer assigned to this mission paces in front of the cells of the fear-stricken people, then suddenly stops in front of the victim's cell, clears his throat and reads out the order.
In the state of Florida (USA), the convicted person is given the exact date of execution of the sentence 4 weeks before the execution. From this moment on, the convict is transferred to a special cell next to the execution chamber. 4 days before his execution, he is placed under daily surveillance.
“Try for a minute to put yourself in the position of a convicted person,” writes the Russian lawyer of the early 20th century N.S. Tagantsev, “when the sentence is confirmed, when the request for pardon is not accepted, when there is no more way out, when a person counts the days, hours and, finally, minutes , which he, a healthy person, has left to live, and after which his life will end by the will of the inflexible law... At this moment a person really endures such suffering that makes him forget about his crime. I will illustrate this with specific testimony from a man who was imprisoned in Kharkov prison in 1919 under the Bolsheviks:
“...In the silence of the night, cut through by the sounds of cannonade under the city and individual revolver shots in the prison yard, in a vile nook where one dead person falls after another - in the silence of the night the two thousand population of the prison rushes about in terrible anticipation.
The doors of the corridor will open, there will be heavy footsteps, the impact of rifle butts on the floor, and the sound of a lock. Someone shines a flashlight and with a clumsy finger looks for a name on the list. And people lying on their beds are in a convulsive attack that seizes the brain and heart. “Isn’t it me?” Then the surname is named. For the rest, the heart slowly drains, it beats more evenly: “Not me, not now!”
Of course, this doesn't always happen. For example, Lowell Lee Andrews (see the chapter “Famous Murderers” about him), while in prison awaiting death, loved to eat well. He ordered himself a variety of delicious food - from strawberry cake to roast pig. In addition, he constantly read books - 15-20 books a day, from straight pulp to the poetry of Whitman, Frost, Emily Dickinson and Ogden Nash. And he walked to the execution quite calmly, without outward signs of excitement. There are similar cases in distant history. For example, Thomas More, the former Lord Chancellor of England, made various jokes on the way to his execution.
But such cases are the exception rather than the rule. Most of those going to execution are in shock, trance, hysteria - that is, in a state very far from normal. “It has been noticed that those sentenced to execution,” writes I. S. Turgenev in the essay “The Execution of Troppmann,” “once the verdict is announced, they either fall into complete insensibility and, as it were, die and decompose in advance, or show off and flaunt, or, finally, betray despair, crying, trembling, begging for mercy... “It felt terrible, it grabbed your heart,” says T.G. Kurakina about the dungeons of the Kyiv Cheka in 1919, “when they came in the evening for the unfortunate victims sentenced to execution. Deep silence and silence reigned in the room, these unfortunate doomed people knew how to die: they went to their deaths silently, with amazing calmness - only in their pale faces and in their spiritualized gaze was something not of this world felt. But an even more painful impression was made by those unfortunates who did not want to die. It was terrible. They resisted until the last minute, clinging with their hands to the bunks, to the walls, to the doors; the guards roughly pushed them in the back, and they cried and screamed in a voice distraught with despair, but the executioners mercilessly dragged them, and even mocked them, saying: what, don’t you want to stand against the wall? If you don’t want to, you have to.
Abbot of a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, which in 1967-85. I had the opportunity to admonish more than 200 people before execution, and describes their condition immediately before death: “When the time came for the execution, their legs refused to serve them, and they had to be carried to the platform. This also happened to Chinese people convicted of drug crimes. They usually lost control and screamed wildly.
Nathan Forster (Jamaica) waited seven and a half years to execute his death sentence. In February 1988, when the decision to carry out the execution was read to him, he fell into a state of panic and began to go on a rampage. Trying to pacify him, the guards broke Forster's hand, and 10 days later he was led to execution with his hand tied behind his back.
Jean Baptiste Troppmann (whom I have already mentioned several times), who surprised those around him with his incredible self-control, a few seconds before the moment of execution, completely lost it and, already lying on the guillotine board, “suddenly convulsively threw his head to the side - so that it did not fall into the semicircular hole - and the executioners were forced to drag her there by the hair, and he bit one of them, the most important one, on the finger...
106 years later, Troppmann’s fate was repeated by Christian Ranussi, who was sentenced to death for allegedly committing the murder of an 8-year-old girl. He spent 783 nights in prison. On seven hundred and eighty-four they came for him to carry out his sentence. (There were 5 years left before the death penalty was abolished in France). French journalist Gilles Perrault describes the scene as follows: “In front of the department for those sentenced to death, the senior guard with an imperious gesture demanded complete silence. Then, in a whisper, he asked those present to stand in two lines on either side of the cell bars. Deputy Prosecutor Talle barely audibly ordered the lawyers:
- Follow me in.
Christian slept on a straw mattress, curled up in a ball, facing the wall - he always lay down like this, turning away from the blinding light of the electric light bulb...
Two guards carefully opened the bars and rushed at him.
“He screamed twice, like a wild animal,” said Maitre Fratiselli. — The screams were piercing. I will never forget them. Someone squeezed my hand tightly. It was Anton’s chairman.”
A short fight followed. Christian hit the wall hard. The guards managed to handcuff him. He shouted:
- I will complain to the lawyers! Someone replied:
- Here they are, your lawyers...
Paul Lambard stepped forward:
- Yes, we are here, dear...
The deputy prosecutor uttered a ritual phrase:
— Your request for pardon was rejected. Take heart...
“What did they tell Giscard about me (that is, Giscard d'Estaing, the then President of France, who could have pardoned Ranoussi. - A.L.)?” Christian shouted.
He stood disheveled, with a bloody nose, in striped prison clothes, looking blankly at the crowd of people who had torn him from his sleep.
Jean-François Leforson (one of the lawyers - A.L.) was overcome with burning shame: “We assured that the court would not impose a death sentence, but he did. We told him that the Court of Cassation would overturn the verdict, but it approved it. We told him that a pardon would come, but it was rejected. What was left now - to say that the execution would not take place? He understood everything. This is the end. We kissed him. He carried himself with great dignity."
The procession again descended into the dungeon.
Christian walked ahead barefoot, holding his handcuffed hands behind his back. Two guards supported him by the elbows. Paul Lambard (another lawyer - A.L.) walked nearby.
“Lombard behaved amazingly,” Fraticelli later said. - He intoxicated him with words. He surrounded him with a wall of words. When Lombard was exhausted, Leforsone and I replaced him.”
There were vats of water along the walls of the underground corridor. Two or three times the guards stopped the convict and rinsed his face. The nose was still bleeding. Paul Lambard wiped his lips with his handkerchief.
“At that moment we called him “you” for the first time,” recalled Maître Leforson.
“Christian constantly repeated that he was not guilty. This turned everything inside me. “You know that I’m not guilty.” I told him: “Even if you are gone, nothing will change - we will continue to fight. You will be rehabilitated. I promise you. You will be rehabilitated."
Christian complained that the guards were twisting his arms.
- Let him go! Enough! - cried Paul Lombard.
- What are you talking about, meter! - answered one guard. - Look for yourself: we hardly touch him...
Paul Lombard spoke about the courage with which his mother held on, promised that he would not feel pain. Christian insisted that he was not guilty.
In the hall they asked him to change his clothes. He refused.
The procession stopped in front of a table covered with a dirty sheet. It was an altar. There is a stool in front of him. A small closed door was visible on the side.
A man stood in the middle of the corridor, watching Christian. Fraticelli recognized the old man who was bustling around in the hall. It was the executioner.
“He looked at Christian appraisingly, like a horseman, squinting and as if calculating. I found it disgusting. Next to him stood two hefty guys in blue overalls. I was amazed that everyone’s faces and necks were purple.”
Christian was seated on a stool with his back to the door and the handcuffs were removed.
“The spectacle was heartbreaking and at the same time absurd,” said Leforson. “He was sitting in prison clothes with his fly open... I was ashamed of us.”
The prison priest approached.
“Ranoussi,” he began, “I often came to see you...” But Christian interrupted him with a decisive gesture:
- Leave it alone!
The priest left.
Jean-Francois Leforson read him a postcard sent by his mother. It began with the following words: “My dear son Christian! I am writing you a postcard that the lawyers will give you if your request for clemency is rejected.” Heloise went on to say that he was a good son, that he brought her the happiness she had hoped for on the day she gave birth to him. The lawyer asked if he wanted to answer. Christian shook his head negatively. He still maintained his innocence.
The warden handed him a glass of vodka. Christian resolutely refused. Jean-François Leforson offered a cigarette. He took two greedy drags and threw the cigarette butt on the floor.
The executioner stepped forward:
- Can I pick it up?
...The assistants moved towards Christian with the confidence of people who know their job. With two clicks of scissors, one cut off the collar, and the second pulled the jacket over the shoulders. Then they cut the hair at the back of his head. The legs and arms were tied with packing twine. Knots were tied with short, sharp movements. The twine pulled my shoulders back.
Jean-François Leforson and Paul Lambard held hands. Andre Fratiselli, as if spellbound, could not take his eyes off Christian’s neck.
When his assistants lifted him from the stool, he turned to Paul Lombard and said:
- Rehabilitate me!
Leforson mechanically moved after him.
“I read somewhere that the guillotine is hidden behind a curtain. Nothing like this. When the small door was opened, the scaffold immediately opened. At the sight of the guillotine I recoiled. I didn't have the courage to watch the execution. I turned and walked deeper into the corridor.”
Pale, haggard Paul Lambard leaned against the wall.
Andre Fraticelli stepped forward and almost collided with the warden blocking the doorway. He saw Christian leaned against a vertical board that slowly lowered to a horizontal position. The executioner fastened his seat belts. The assistant hit Christian on the back of the head with the edge of his hand. The executioner pressed the button and the oblique knife fell down. It was four hours and thirteen minutes.
The severed head rolled away. Many writers have tried to reproduce the inner world of a person sentenced to execution. The story of Victor Hugo “The Last Day of the Condemned Man” (“Le dernier jour d"un condamne”), the story of N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba”, the story of Albert Camus “The Stranger”, “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” by Leonid Andreev, “ “Werther” by Valentin Kataev has already been written...
Fyodor Dostoevsky, sentenced to death for participation in the Petrashevsky circle and pardoned at gunpoint by the firing squad, twice described in detail the condition of the executed man. The first time in a letter to his brother dated December 22, 1849 (the day of the failed execution!) he reported:
“Today, December 22, we were taken to the Semenovsky parade ground. There they read out the death sentence to all of us, gave us to venerate the cross, broke our swords over our heads and arranged our death toilet (white shirts). The three were then put at the stake to carry out the execution. I stood sixth, they called me three at a time, so I was in the second line and had no more than a minute to live. I remembered you, brother, all of yours; at the last minute you, only you, were in my mind, I just learned how much I love you, my dear brother! I also managed to hug Pleshcheev and Durov, who were nearby, and say goodbye to them. Finally the all-clear sounded, those tied to the post were brought back, and they read to us that His Imperial Majesty would grant us life. Then came the real verdicts.”
Many years later, returning to his existential experience in the novel “The Idiot,” Dostoevsky put his thoughts and feelings into the mouth of the main character: “It’s good that there’s little pain when the head flies off,” says the Epanchins’ valet about using the guillotine, to which the prince Myshkin answers:
“...You noticed this, and everyone notices it just as much as you do, and that’s what the machine was invented for, the guillotine. And then one thought occurred to me: what if this is even worse?.. Think: if, for example, torture; At the same time, suffering and wounds, bodily torment, and, therefore, all this distracts from mental suffering, so that you suffer only with wounds until you die. But the main, most severe pain may not be in the wounds, but this is what you know for sure; the main thing is that probably. This is how you put your head right under the knife and hear it slick above your head, these quarter seconds are the most terrible thing (Dostoevsky did not know that 70 years later the Nazis, guillotining people in Pankratz prison (Prague), would lay them face up - so that they can see the falling blade - A.L.). Do you know that this is not my fantasy, but that many have said so? I believe this so much that I will tell you my opinion directly. Killing for murder is a disproportionately greater punishment than the crime itself. Murder by conviction is disproportionately more terrible than murder by robbery. Anyone who is killed by robbers, stabbed to death at night, in the forest, or in some other way, certainly still hopes that he will be saved until the very last moment. There have been examples where the throat has already been cut, but he still hopes, or runs, or asks. And then all this last hope, with which it is ten times easier to die, is probably taken away; here is the verdict, and in the fact that you probably cannot escape, all the terrible torment sits, and there is no stronger than this torment in the world. Bring and place a soldier in front of the cannon itself in a battle and shoot at him, he will still hope, but read the sentence to this same soldier, probably, and he will go crazy or cry. Who said that human nature can bear this without going crazy? Why such swearing, ugly, unnecessary, vain? May be. and there is such a person to whom the sentence was read, they allowed him to suffer, and then they said: “Go, they forgive you.” This kind of person, maybe, could tell.”
This person, in fact, was the writer himself, who had the experience of looking inevitable death in the eyes. Another Petrashevite, D.D. Akhsharumov, who stood next to Dostoevsky at the execution, recalled it this way:
“The priest left, and immediately several soldiers came up to Petrashevsky, Speshnev and Mombelli, took them by the hands and led them from the scaffold, they led them to the gray pillars and began to tie each of them to a separate pillar with ropes.
Conversations were not heard. The convicts offered no resistance. They tied their arms behind the posts and then tied the ropes with a belt. Then the order was given to “pull the caps over our eyes,” after which the caps were lowered onto the faces of our tied comrades.
The command was heard: “Clack” - and after that a group of soldiers - there were about sixteen of them - standing at the very scaffold, on command, pointed their guns at Petrashevsky, Speshnev and Mombelli... This moment was truly terrible. To see preparations for execution, and, moreover, of people close in comradely relations, to see gun barrels already pointed at them almost point-blank and expect that blood would spill and they would fall dead - it was terrible, disgusting, scary...
My heart froze in anticipation, and this terrible moment lasted for half a minute. At the same time, there was no thought that the same thing would happen to me, but all my attention was absorbed in the upcoming bloody picture.
My indignant state increased even more when I heard drumming, the meaning of which I did not understand at the time, since I had not served in military service. “This is the end of everything”... But after that I saw that the guns, aimed, were suddenly all raised with their barrels up. The heart was immediately relieved, as if a stone that had been tightly squeezing it had fallen away.”
Lavrin A.P. A thousand and one deaths. - M.: Aquarius, 1991. - pp. 89-103
May 20th, 2012
Today, the death penalty on our planet has been abolished in an area equal to South America... So
that if you think that the electric chair is a relic of the past, you are sadly mistaken. Is it true,
the guillotine is no longer used - since 1939...
It's terrible, but everything you read about in the most terrible books is in democratic North America
still exists happily... And this country still has something to boast about in terms of weapons
executions, and in different states they have very different modifications!.. And it all started with the courts
Lynching - that is, mass hangings...
Sometimes the perpetrators were also burned to be sure...
Blacks were hanged, at least in the South, everywhere (lynching had a huge number of victims in the 20th century, in 1901
130 people were lynched last year...
Indians were often executed by punitive forces who took revenge for the slaughter of the white population. In the Wild West at the same time
sheriffs acted and executed at their own discretion (sometimes with their own hands). The death penalty was used in the USA
also for political reasons against socialists, communists, anarchists.
By the end of the 19th century, they were no longer hanged somehow, but professionally. A “professional” gallows, so to speak, was approved,
on which people of any height could be hanged... She is in front of you...
The prisoner's hands were necessarily tied...
And a special bag was put on the head so that those watching the execution would not be shocked by the facial expression
hanged man...
At the end of the 19th century, the electric chair was invented in the USA, first used in 1890... It was a breakthrough...
It very soon came into general use and replaced hanging in many states. And also with the advent of the chair
came up with so-called “open executions”, where the city administration was invited (in special cases
state) and relatives of the victim of the criminal...
Gradually the chair was improved and improved...
They began to put a special mask on the condemned person’s head...
Attach separate contacts to the hands...
But these improvements made little difference to the prisoner’s suffering...
Although death comes quickly for the average person, there are cases in the history of executions where the condemned
I had to “kill” 20-30 minutes...
The Americans introduced the gas chamber even earlier than in Germany, namely in 1924...
Potassium cyanide vapor is used for execution, and if the convict breathes deeply, death occurs almost
immediately...
Then a truly hellish invention appeared - the Chair of Death. The method is still performed in Utah and Idaho.
as an alternative to lethal injection. To carry out the execution, the prisoner is tied to a chair with leather straps.
across the waist and head. The stool is surrounded by sandbags that absorb blood. The black hood is worn on
the head of the condemned man. The doctor locates the heart and attaches a round target. At a distance of 20
five shooters stand. Each of them aims a rifle through a slit in the canvas and fires. A prisoner
dies as a result of blood loss caused by rupture of the heart or large blood vessel, or rupture
lungs. If the arrows miss the heart, either by accident or on purpose, the condemned man dies a slow death...
Soon the last type of American execution appeared, now the most common, and in many states the only one:
lethal injection... In front of you is a special couch (gurney) for those sentenced...
The composition of the lethal injection was developed by physician Stanley Deutsch. It consists of three chemical components. First
the substance - sodium pentothal - plunges the condemned into deep sleep. Pavulon - paralyzes the muscles. Finally,
Potassium chloride stops the heart muscle. After examination at the University of Texas, this
the method was approved. It soon became widespread. Opponents of the death penalty gave him
the name of the "Texas cocktail". Today, of the 38 states that, after 1976, reintroduced
the death penalty, only Nebraska does not resort to injections, preferring the electric chair.
Poisons are stored this way...
A prisoner is killed by poison injected into a vein in his right leg...
But the most terrible state of affairs with executions is still in Asia and the Middle East... Means still exist here
executions used since ancient times: stoning, beheading with a sword and hanging. The frame is in front of you
city execution - a man is simply lynched by a crowd...
But these quite decent people throw these stones at him...
And they are simply trying to dissuade the guilty person...
A corpse being dragged to be shown to the “boss”...
Hanging...
And just lynching...
And in China, execution is still widely used. Brothel keepers are shot in this country,
dishonest officials, dissidents, etc., etc....
Moreover, especially mass executions occur before the New Year...
Among other things, such sentences are pronounced publicly, in front of a large crowd of people...
The execution is carried out by conscript soldiers...
And the bodies are buried in specially designated places - they are not given to relatives...
Russia... On May 16, 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree “On the gradual reduction
application of the death penalty in connection with Russia’s entry into the Council of Europe.” Since August 1996, in accordance with this
By decree, death sentences are not carried out. Death row inmates are serving life sentences...
Here is a very rare photograph of prisoners of the Orenburg prison "Black Dolphin"...
There are three more similar prisons in Russia. They don't come out. Nobody ever. So human rights activists joke bitterly, “If only they
the inhabitants were able to vote on the use of the death penalty, the majority of them would vote in favor.
Look how discreet it looks, this most famous prison in Russia... Those who are inside this
red brick building dating back to Catherine's time, when there was already lifelong hard labor here, never
we haven’t seen the sculptures of those very dolphins from the fountains that gave this terrible establishment such
poetic title...
Today in Russia there are over three and a half thousand people sentenced to life
conclusion. And “Black Dolphin” is today the largest specialized prison for death row...
Texas executes more people than any other American state. Sentences are carried out in the Huntsville prison by giving the condemned a lethal injection.
In 2009, the last words of the criminals before the death penalty were made public. The Criminal Justice Department's website has posted a complete list of those executed since 1982. The list includes 441 people, including their names, dates of death and charges. Most of those sentenced to death admit their guilt, ask for forgiveness from their victims and say goodbye to their loved ones. Below are some of them...
And some more facts on this topic:
In the winter of 1976, all of America was buzzing and demanding the death penalty for Gary Gilmore, a murderer from Utah. Gary, a career criminal, killed two people over two days in the summer of 1976. One of the victims worked as a gas station attendant, the other was a hotel manager. The jury unanimously found Gilmore guilty and sentenced him to death. At that time, in the state of Utah there were two options for execution of a criminal's choice: hanging or shooting. Garry Gilmore chose to be shot.
When the time came to die, the criminal was tied to a chair and it was then that he uttered the phrase that later became famous: "Let's do This!" .
Immediately after the execution, the corneas from the criminal's eyes were donated in his will, and Gary Gilmore himself became a real cult symbol. Jack Nicholson was inspired by the story of the killer in the film “The Postman Always Rings Twice”; songs and books were written about him. There is even an opinion that the advertising slogan of the Nike company is "Just do it" it's too reminiscent of Gilmore's farewell words.
James D. French, executed on August 10, 1966, was an American criminal whose death sentence was the last in the history of Oklahoma after the passage of the law abolishing the death penalty. And he was the only prisoner executed this year in the United States. In prison, driven mad by the anticipation of his impending death and afraid of committing suicide, James French killed his cellmate, apparently to force the authorities to carry out the death sentence more quickly.
Already sitting in the electric chair, French said the phrase that became famous: "Well, now they're going to make French fries out of me." After the execution of James D. French, America did not use the electric chair to kill people on death row for more than 13 years, until 1979, when murderer John Spenkelink was fried in the electric chair in Florida.
When Queen Marie Antoinette died from the fatal blow of the guillotine on October 16, 1793, it was a real triumph and celebration for the French revolutionaries present at the execution. The defeated queen, in a white dress and with cropped hair, was transported standing in an open cart through the streets of Paris, to the scaffold installed in the square. When the guillotine blade separated the head from the body, the executioner raised it above his head in a triumphant gesture, but most of the spectators in the square were disappointed by this bloody spectacle.
After all, they wanted to see a 38-year-old broken woman, trembling with fear and begging for mercy, but they watched the courageous and strong queen, who even in the last minutes of her life did not lose her composure. The famous revolutionary and journalist of the 18th century Jacques Hebert wrote in the newspaper: “She remained brave and impudent to the very end. And her last words were the phrase "Forgive me sir, I didn't mean to do" , so Marie Antoinette said to the executioner when she accidentally stepped on his foot while climbing the scaffold.
One of the most famous marshals of Napoleon's time was undoubtedly Michel Ney, whom his soldiers affectionately called "Le Rougeaud" ("ginger") because of the color of his hair, and Napoleon himself considered Ney "the bravest of the brave." After defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Ney was tracked down and arrested. He was taken into custody and found guilty of treason.
The marshal was shot near the Luxenburg Gardens on December 7, 1815. The most amazing thing in this story is that the soldiers did not want to shoot at the famous hero and Ney had to direct his own execution! He refused to put on the bandage and his last words were the following order: "Warriors, when I give you the command to open fire, you must shoot me right in the heart. This will be my last order to you. I protest against my conviction and I participated in hundreds of battles only for France, and not against it. Soldiers, fire! "
Gutierrez, 28, was executed by lethal injection on March 28, 2007, in Huntsville, Texas, after being convicted of stealing a car and killing its 40-year-old owner. Gutierrez became famous after making a real talk show out of his execution.
His last words: "I want to tell everyone that I deeply regret what happened and I want to thank everyone who has been there for me over the years. Shout out to my sister Doris, my mother, brothers, father and sister. Damn, where is my stunt double , when do I need him so much now?!"
Another death row inmate had a sense of humor and decided to use a play on words in his parting line. Convicted murderer George Appel, before his execution by electric chair in New York in 1928, said this: “Well, gentlemen, are you ready to smell the fragrant smell of a baked apple?”
Prisoner's last name in English. - "Appel", apple in English. - "Apple".
IN THE USA, sentencedto mortal executions Before the execution of the sentence, they are traditionally allowed to eat any last dish they wish. And one suicide bomber took this right very seriously. Thomas J. Grasso was executed in 1995 for strangling an 85-year-old woman with Christmas lights.
For his farewell dinner, he ordered: two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen clams drizzled with lemon juice, a double cheeseburger, 6 barbecue pork ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, diced strawberries and a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, warmed to room temperature.
Such a long menu confused the kitchen staff and they made a fatal mistake - they forgot to serve the condemned man his spaghetti. The last words of the criminal were: "They didn't give me my spaghetti, I want the press to know about it!"
David Matthews, the Oklahoma shooter, was convicted of first-degree murder. He shot the owner of the house he entered for the purpose of robbery. Shortly before injecting the deadly poison into the blood, he looked at the people present in the room and said with a smile: "I think the governor's phone number is just broken".
His execution was postponed three times at the very last moment. Former Gov. Brad Henry twice granted reprieves to give lawyers time to prove Matthews' innocence. For the third time, the verdict was also postponed at the request of lawyers, who demanded that the drugs used for lethal injection be replaced with others.
Jimmy L. Glassis was executed on June 12, 1987, for the double murder of a couple on Christmas night 1982.
His last words in the electric chair were: "I would prefer to be fishing somewhere instead of here right now" . And who would doubt...
Carl Panzram was an American serial killer, rapist, and arsonist who was hanged on September 5, 1930. Before his death, he confessed to 22 murders and rapes of more than 100... men!
He was an extremely aggressive criminal, even when they put a noose around his neck, he threatened to kill everyone present at the execution and was allegedly even able to spit in the executioner’s face and say: “I wish that the whole human race had one neck so that I could squeeze it with my hands." Answering the executioner's question whether he wants to say his last word. Panzram barked: "Yes, hurry up already, you bastard! While you are doing nonsense, I could already hang a dozen men!"
The state of Texas is the leader in the United States in the number of executions - in thirty-two years, 518 convicts were injected there. In this issue you will find their last words. Miguel Angel Paredes
Date of crime: September 17, 2000
Date of execution: October 28, 2014
Age: 32 years
Charge: together with two accomplices, he shot three people and burned their corpses.
“I want to say to the family of the victim: know that I hope you no longer feel hatred because of what I did. I came into the world as a lion, and I am leaving peacefully, like a lamb. There is peace in my soul. I hope our society understands who else it is hurting. I want to say to those I love: I hope my victims were able to forgive me in their hearts. I myself have forgiven everyone and love everyone. Pray for my soul, I forgive myself. I love you and will wait for you there. Brother, take care of my family. Take care of my beloved girl, mother, sons and everyone I love. Brother Wayne and Brother Joe, thank you! Jorge, don’t think that Luis is completely lost, I will keep an eye on you. Thank you for everything! Lord, heavenly father, I entrust my soul to you, do not leave with care and concern those whom I leave. Warden, I'm ready. Lord, accept my soul. Forgive me, I love you all, I will always be with you. I love you, love you! Lord, my savior, I love you, I love you, I love you!”
Jerry Lee Hogue
Date of crime: January 12, 1979
Date of execution: March 11, 1998
Age: 47 years old
Charge: raped a 27-year-old woman, then tied up her eight-year-old son and neighbors and set the house on fire.
“Mindy, I'm with you, honey. Mindy, I don't know why you're doing this, but I forgive you anyway. You know he's a killer. Why aren't you on my side? He'll do it again, Mindy, you're lucky you're still alive. Say hello to my family. I love them. Mindy, you can stop this. Okay, I'm ready."
Lee Andrew Taylor
Date of crime: April 1, 1999
Date of execution: June 16, 2011
Age: 32 years
Charge: Taylor, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, killed a black man by stabbing him multiple times with a homemade dagger.
"Yes, sir. Jennifer, I love you. Rick, take care of yourself. You all hear, when I killed your relative, it was self-defense. Prison is a nasty place. There were eight of them, I was alone. I'm sorry I killed him, but if he had been a saint, he wouldn't have gone to jail. I hope you understand. Baby I love you. I hope people will understand how terribly unfair our justice system is. There are 300 people on death row, but there are no monsters among them. Texas is committing injustice and cruelty. You cannot kill a person just because he himself killed someone. After all, everything in the world changes, right? Life gives us experiences and people change. Mom, I love you and all my friends, we have known each other for a thousand years, and they have always stood up for me. I'm ready to teleport. I hope that when you watch a man die, you will not enjoy it.”
Jeffrey Demond Williams
Date of crime: May 19, 1999
Date of execution: May 15, 2013
Age: 37 years old
Charge: Shot a police officer after stealing a car.
“Cops, you are clowns. Do you want innocent children not to be killed? So that no one shoots your children? And if I kill someone, damn it, slap someone, you immediately want to kill me. But God knows who gets what. Do you understand? I love everyone who loves me. And I don’t love everyone who doesn’t love me.”
David Martinez
Date of crime: July 27, 1997
Date of execution: July 28, 2005
Age: 29 years old
Charge: raped a 24-year-old girl, then strangled her and cut her throat.
“Only the sky and green grass will remain forever. Today is a good day to die."
Benka Adams
Date of crime: September 2, 2002
Date of execution: April 26, 2012
Age: 29 years old
Charge: While robbing a store, he shot and killed a man, attempted to rape two women, and fled the scene of the crime.
“First of all, mom, don't cry. There's no point in crying, we're all going to die. Everyone has their own time, don’t suffer for me. I am strong. I want to tell the family: the old man, the children, dad is very sorry. I love you all and will miss you very much. I want to tell my wife that I love her. The last two years have been the best of my life. Children, mother, nephews - I am very proud of you. I love you all, I love you all very much, really, very much. I also want to say to the victims. I'm very sorry that everything turned out this way. I'm not the villain you think I am. I was just an idiot. I made a lot of mistakes. Everything that happened was a mistake. I was a child in an adult world. I messed it up and now I can't fix anything. I was too young to understand it. Please don't keep pain in your heart. You must find a way to get rid of hatred. Believe me, when they kill me, it will not bring you any relief. I hope you find healing. Don't let hatred consume you, figure out how to survive it all. Linda, I thank you. I'm devastated that things turned out this way. Miss Sherry, thank you. And I also want to say to the victims. I'm sorry for everything that happened to you. There is nothing good about this. We will meet again. I love you all, keep your heads up! I came into the world strong and I leave it strong. Warden, proceed. My condolences to the family of the deceased. Any murder is bad, killing is wrong. It should have been different."
Jamie Bruce McCoskey
Date of crime: November 13, 1991
Date of execution: November 12, 2013
Age: 49 years old
Charge: kidnapped a 20-year-old young man and his 19-year-old fiancee and took them to an abandoned house, where he stabbed the man to death and raped the woman.
“This time now is the best of my life. If I had to do it again, I would do everything exactly the same. The angel touched me with his wing. If I had to do it again, I would make sure Dwyer's parents didn't suffer - because I know they do. I know this won't make the pain go away because I have a child myself. Lord, I’m going to say terrible words now. I thank everyone who helped me escape. Thank you, and remember that I love you. Angel, and your family, and everyone who helped me escape. If it kills your pain, so be it. I love you. I'm ready".
Jeffrey Carlton Doty
Date of crime: August 2, 1993
Date of execution: August 16, 2001
Age: 39 years old
Charge: Beating to death with a metal rod an 80-year-old man and his wife, owners of a jewelry store, after they refused to lend him $30 for drugs.
“For almost nine years I have been thinking about the death penalty, about whether it is right or wrong, and I have not found an answer. But I don’t think the world will be a better or safer place without me. If you wanted to punish me, it should have been done the day after that incident, and not now. You won't hurt me now. I had time to prepare, say goodbye to my family and end my life the way I needed to. It all started with a needle - and it ends with a needle. Carl, old man, you were a great friend. I'll keep an eye on you. When you return, tell your daughter that I love her. Tell her that I came here as a man and I am leaving as a man. Everything was cool, old man. Thank you, Shoti. I will be with you every time you take a shower. If you just leave in tears, it won't be worthy of me. If you don't see peace in my eyes, then you don't see me at all. I'll be the first to meet you when you get ready to go to the other side. This is all. I'm ready, boss."
James Lee Clark
Date of crime: June 7, 1993
Date of execution: April 11, 2007
Age: 38 years old
Charge: raped and killed a 17-year-old girl.
“Uh-uh, I don’t know, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know... I didn’t know there was anyone there. Hello".
Brian Roberson
Date of crime: August 30, 1986
Date of execution: August 9, 2000
Age: 36 years old
Charge: During a house robbery, he beat to death its owner, a 79-year-old man, who later confessed to another murder.
“I have already said everything I wanted to my loved ones. You know that I love you all, and you know where we are now. See you when you get there. And here is my last word to you. To all the white supremacists in America who hate blacks, and to all the blacks in America who hate themselves, here are words from my legendary brother Matt Turner: “Kiss my black ass.” Go".
Charles Neely
Date of crime: August 20, 1997
Date of execution: March 20, 2007
Age: 42 years
Charge: During a store robbery, he shot and killed a 25-year-old employee and fled the scene with $4,000.
“In general, I love you all. And you, warden. You are a good friend and a good detective. Doug, thanks for coming from Michigan. Chris, David, I love you. Debra, James, I’m not crying, so you don’t cry either. Don't worry about me. I will be with the Lord, Allah and mommy. And I’ll ask the folder why he didn’t rat you out at the wedding. Randy Greer, bro, I'll be watching you, so stay out of trouble. Do you know why it took so long? They couldn't find a vein. You know, I always hated needles and was always hanging out in the doctor's office. Tell the guys on death row that I didn't need a diaper. I can't think of anything else. Everyone be strong. Now you can finally forget about all this. Don't bury me in the prison cemetery. Bury him next to your mother. Not to the left of the father, but to the right of the mother. Kim Skafer, you are an evil woman! You broke the law. And the judges and judges helped you. You didn't have the facts. You know that you couldn’t see anyone on the film at all! You jumped out of your pants to dig up something against me. And now the state will kill me to cover up this matter. But I'm not crazy, and I'm not suffering. I'm sorry you're stuck here and have to go through all this. And I'm going to where it's better. My time is up. Now let me get ready for the flight. Doug, don't forget Marcie." 
Patrick Brian Knight
Date of crime: August 27, 1991
Date of execution: June 26, 2007
Age: 39 years old
Charge: with an accomplice, he entered the house of his neighbors, held them hostage for several hours, and then took them to a remote location and shot them.
“Yes, so. Thank you, Lord, for giving me friends and those I love. Lord, look down and help the innocent on death row. Help Lee Taylor, Bobby Hines, Steve Woods. We're not all innocent, but they are. And also help Cleve Foster. Melissa, my girl, I love you. I actually didn't want to say anything, but I have to. Jack, Irene, Danny, Doreen, I love you guys. I promised to tell everyone a joke. Death freed me - that's the funniest thing, and I deserved it. Here's another joke: I'm not Patrick Brian Knight, but you still can't stop the execution. Go ahead, I'm done. Come on, Lord, tell me. Melissa, I love you, take care of this little monster for me.”
Carl Eugene Chamberlain
Date of crime: August 2, 1991
Date of execution: June 11, 2008
Age: 37 years old
Charge: raped and then shot his housemate.
“I want you to know, all of you. I want it with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Thank you for coming here to honor the memory of Falisse Prestle, whom I didn't even know. To celebrate my death. My undoing began on August 2, 1991 and continued as I began to see the beautiful and innocent life I had taken. I'm very, very sorry. I would gladly die not just once, but many times, so you would know how terribly I regret it. I already said in the interview, hurt me, choke me if you want, I felt just as terrible before this crime. Excuse me! I've always loved life. Thank you for being a part of it. I love you. May the Lord be with us all. May the Lord be merciful to us. I'm ready. Please, don’t hate anyone, because..."
Freddie Lee Webb
Date of crime: December 8, 1985
Date of execution: March 31, 1994
Age: 33 years
Charge: Together with an accomplice, he kidnapped a 26-year-old man and his wife who worked in a restaurant, robbed the cash register and later killed the victim with five shots to the head.
"Peace to you".
Douglas Alan Roberts
Date of crime: May 18, 1996
Date of execution: April 20, 2005
Age: 42 years
Charge: kidnapped and robbed a 40-year-old man, later stabbed him to death and ran over his body with a car.
"Yes, sir. Yes, boss. Okay, I've been hanging around this sweet shop for too long already. Before I go, I want to tell you this. When I die, bury me deep, put a couple of speakers at my feet, put headphones on my head and turn on rock and roll. See you in heaven someday. That's all, boss."
American photographer Michael Graczyk visited more than 300 executions of convicts in the state of Texas. For more than 30 years, he photographed the faces of dangerous criminals sentenced to capital punishment. Michael's most extraordinary photographs are those in which he captured the last smiles on the faces of prisoners. The photos were taken shortly before the execution of the sentence, but it is not at all clear from the faces of these people that they have so little time left to live.
Raphael Halliday, 36 years old
Found guilty of arson that led to the deaths of his 18-month-old daughter Justice and her two half-sisters, Jasmine DuPaul, 5, and Tierra Lynch, 7, at their home in Madison County, Texas, in September 2000. Photo taken October 28, 2015. On November 18, 2015, the death sentence was carried out.
Cleve Foster, 48
Found guilty of raping and murdering a 30-year-old woman in Fort Worth in 2000. The execution of the sentence was delayed three times by the US Supreme Court, twice - several hours before the execution. Photo taken on August 29, 2012. On September 25, 2012, the sentence was carried out.
Robert Gene Garza, 30
Found to be an accomplice in the murder of four women - employees of Garcia's bar, Donna, Texas, shot in a car in the Rio Grande Valley, Donna, Texas, on September 4, 2002. Police found 61 gun casings at the crime scene. The shooting was an attempt to eliminate witnesses to another murder committed in 2001 year, in which the leader of the Tri-City Bombers gang, of which Garza was a member, was suspected. The photo was taken on July 24, 2013. On September 19, 2013, the death sentence was carried out.
Adam Kelly Ward, 33
In 2005, he quarreled and shot and killed Michael Walker, a municipal service employee who arrived to document a dump in Ward's house and backyard. Nine bullet holes were counted in the dead man's body. Photo taken on February 10, 2016. On March 22, 2016, the death sentence was carried out.
George Raivas, 41
In December 2000, members of his gang attacked workers at the John Connolly Maximum Security Prison in Texas, stole their clothes, stole guns from the prison warehouse, and fled on a prison bus. After committing several robberies, they shot and killed 27-year-old Aubrey Hawkins after 11 days on the run. The photo in which Raivas talks about his participation in the incident was taken on February 15, 2012. The death sentence was put into effect on February 29.
Willie Trotti, 45
Sentenced to death for the murder of his estranged common-law wife, Barbara Canada, and her brother, Titus Canada. The prosecution claims that Trotti threatened to kill Barbara if she did not return, which is why she obtained a protective order prohibiting him from approaching her. Photo taken July 30, 2014. On September 10, the death sentence was carried out.
Lester Bower, 67
He spent 31 years awaiting execution and became the oldest prisoner executed in Texas since the return of capital punishment: he was 67 years old at the time of execution. According to the court's decision, in 1983, Bower shot and killed four men in an airplane hangar north of Dallas, Texas, in order to steal a microlight aircraft that he had previously agreed to buy for $4,500. Bower had several witnesses on his side, and the murder weapon was never discovered. Bower's photograph was taken on May 20, 2015, and his execution took place on June 3, 2015.
Bobby Woods, 42 years old
He was sentenced to death for the 1997 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sarah Patterson, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend. He was also sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping the girl's younger brother, 9-year-old Cody Patterson, whom he then took to a cemetery, where he beat him unconscious and abandoned him. Woods was sentenced on May 28, 1998, but a Texas appeals court delayed his execution after the defendant's lawyers reported his low IQ (70 in the years leading up to the murder). This, according to the decision of the US Supreme Court, excludes the use of capital punishment. On December 3, 2009, hours before his death sentence was to be executed, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected 42-year-old Woods' appeal for clemency. The photo was taken on October 28, 2008.
Joseph Rice, 29
Convicted of the home invasion and murder in 1999 of 64-year-old Robert Ratliff, with whom he maintained friendly relations and lived with him shortly before the incident. After a disagreement over missing items, Ratliff kicked Rice out of the house. Soon, Rice stole an older friend's pickup truck, and later returned to the house with an accomplice, took his wallet, the keys to a Lincoln Continental, and shot the sleeping Ratliff three times. Photo taken on August 20, 2008. The execution took place on October 21.
Hank Skinner, 54 years old
Convicted of murdering his girlfriend Twyla Busby and her two sons in 1993. Busby was bludgeoned to death; her children died from multiple stab wounds. The photo was taken on December 16, 2009, three months before the first scheduled execution date, which was later postponed several times. In particular, in 2010, the court ordered a delay 20 minutes before the execution of the sentence, because Skinner's defense demanded a DNA test, which the prosecutor considered unnecessary at the trial in 1994. In 2012, a DNA test confirmed that the blood at the crime scene belonged to Skinner, but other traces of DNA belonged to another person, whose identity has not been established. Skinner was again found guilty; The defense plans to appeal the decision to the Texas Court of Appeals.
Carla Faye Tucker, 38
Carla Faye Tucker is found guilty of murdering her acquaintance Jerry Lynn Dean with a pickaxe. The murder was committed during the attempted theft of a motorcycle from the victim's home in 1983 in Houston, Texas. Once in prison in 1984, she converted to Christianity and soon married the prison priest. Her transformation led to the emergence of a noticeable protest movement - Pope John Paul II and UN Commissioner Bakr Ndiaye petitioned for her pardon. Carla Tucker, 38, was executed on February 3, 1998. She became the first woman to be executed in Texas since 1863.
