Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders by Geoffrey Abbott Page A
Authors: Geoffrey Abbott
Tags: History
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steps of a villa in La Voulze. He subsequently went on a killing spree, killing four men and a woman, until eventually being captured during
a shoot-out with the police. Charged with the multiple murders, he had little defence against the evidence produced in court, especially the long length of cloth he had forced down the dancer’s throat, and that, together with other witnesses’ testimonies, convinced the jury of his guilt, and he was sentenced to death, his execution to take place on 17 June 1939.
The guillotine was sited in the Place de Grève in Versailles, and in order to attract as little attention as possible the execution was scheduled for four o’clock in the morning. But the authorities failed to take into consideration the keen interest, indeed enthusiasm, of the public for such a spectacle. Hundreds of guillotine aficionados, determined to witness the felon’s decapitation, started their vigil on the previous evening, filling the bars and cafés around the square and drinking throughout the night. Having had the hair at the back of his neck trimmed and his shirt collar cut away, and after smoking his last cigarette and sipping his last tot of rum, Wiedman arrived with his escort and, of course, Henri Desfourneaux, the executioner. The cheers of excitement reverberated around the square, followed by a hectic scramble as the crowd jostled to get a good viewpoint around the Widow Maker.
It was then that things started to go wrong. In order to minimise the publicity which the preparations would otherwise have attracted, no scaffold on which the guillotine would normally have been positioned had been erected, the killing machine itself therefore stood in the square at ground level. Consequently, the close proximity of the mob, many of them drunk, fighting to get as near as possible despite the police cordon, together with the sheer cacophony of noise, badly affected the usually well-drilled performance of Desfourneaux and his assistants. Strapping Wiedman to the bascule and quickly pivoting it into its horizontal position, it was then discovered that it was out of alignment with the lunette, the iron collar which should have gripped the victim’s neck and held his head immovable. Not daring to waste time attempting to re-adjust the mechanism, and knowing that at all costs the man’s neck had to be held beneath the blade, Desfourneaux did the only thing possible: he ordered his assistant to seize the felon’s hair and ears, and pull his head forward.
Even as the man obeyed, the executioner released the blade; it descended rapidly, severing the head and sending the assistant reeling backwards, his clothes soaked with the blood which pumped from the torso to flood across the ground and into the gutters surrounding the guillotine.
So appalled were the authorities at such a shocking debacle and the barbaric behaviour of the spectators that a decree was hastily passed that all future executions were to take place in private behind prison walls.
When the French ex-Revolutionary leader Georges-Jacques Danton mounted the scaffold in 1794 to be guillotined, he surveyed the crowds contemptuously and said, ‘Do not forget to show my head to the mob – they have not often seen one like it!’
Hanging
John Barns, William Mossman and Bernard Means
In 1785 these three men were convicted of serious crimes; Means and Barns for housebreaking and thieving, Mossman for theft. For some reason their leg-irons had been struck off the night before their execution, and none of them were prepared to go quietly to the scaffold. Under heavy escort they were led to the place of execution and in front of a large crowd – triple hangings were extremely popular among the townsfolk – they stood in line on the drop, the nooses were placed around their necks and the ropes tightened. And every rope broke! Amid pandemonium the trio were led down the steps again and made to sit there under heavy guard, to wait until prison
a shoot-out with the police. Charged with the multiple murders, he had little defence against the evidence produced in court, especially the long length of cloth he had forced down the dancer’s throat, and that, together with other witnesses’ testimonies, convinced the jury of his guilt, and he was sentenced to death, his execution to take place on 17 June 1939.
The guillotine was sited in the Place de Grève in Versailles, and in order to attract as little attention as possible the execution was scheduled for four o’clock in the morning. But the authorities failed to take into consideration the keen interest, indeed enthusiasm, of the public for such a spectacle. Hundreds of guillotine aficionados, determined to witness the felon’s decapitation, started their vigil on the previous evening, filling the bars and cafés around the square and drinking throughout the night. Having had the hair at the back of his neck trimmed and his shirt collar cut away, and after smoking his last cigarette and sipping his last tot of rum, Wiedman arrived with his escort and, of course, Henri Desfourneaux, the executioner. The cheers of excitement reverberated around the square, followed by a hectic scramble as the crowd jostled to get a good viewpoint around the Widow Maker.
It was then that things started to go wrong. In order to minimise the publicity which the preparations would otherwise have attracted, no scaffold on which the guillotine would normally have been positioned had been erected, the killing machine itself therefore stood in the square at ground level. Consequently, the close proximity of the mob, many of them drunk, fighting to get as near as possible despite the police cordon, together with the sheer cacophony of noise, badly affected the usually well-drilled performance of Desfourneaux and his assistants. Strapping Wiedman to the bascule and quickly pivoting it into its horizontal position, it was then discovered that it was out of alignment with the lunette, the iron collar which should have gripped the victim’s neck and held his head immovable. Not daring to waste time attempting to re-adjust the mechanism, and knowing that at all costs the man’s neck had to be held beneath the blade, Desfourneaux did the only thing possible: he ordered his assistant to seize the felon’s hair and ears, and pull his head forward.
Even as the man obeyed, the executioner released the blade; it descended rapidly, severing the head and sending the assistant reeling backwards, his clothes soaked with the blood which pumped from the torso to flood across the ground and into the gutters surrounding the guillotine.
So appalled were the authorities at such a shocking debacle and the barbaric behaviour of the spectators that a decree was hastily passed that all future executions were to take place in private behind prison walls.
When the French ex-Revolutionary leader Georges-Jacques Danton mounted the scaffold in 1794 to be guillotined, he surveyed the crowds contemptuously and said, ‘Do not forget to show my head to the mob – they have not often seen one like it!’
Hanging
John Barns, William Mossman and Bernard Means
In 1785 these three men were convicted of serious crimes; Means and Barns for housebreaking and thieving, Mossman for theft. For some reason their leg-irons had been struck off the night before their execution, and none of them were prepared to go quietly to the scaffold. Under heavy escort they were led to the place of execution and in front of a large crowd – triple hangings were extremely popular among the townsfolk – they stood in line on the drop, the nooses were placed around their necks and the ropes tightened. And every rope broke! Amid pandemonium the trio were led down the steps again and made to sit there under heavy guard, to wait until prison
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