This week in 1941

“OK” 

— Juanita Spinelli (aka Ethel Spinelli, Elizabeth Juanita Spinelli), 52, convicted of murder, gas chamber, California
Executed November 21, 1941

A teenage runaway from abusive stepparents, Spinelli habitually held up and robbed at gunpoint while raising her three children in Chicago.  She left for San Francisco, where she formed and trained a group of thugs into a crack team of professional criminals, with herself masterminding their schemes.  During a botched restaurant robbery, which left a manager dead, Spinelli, fearing a possible snitch might lose his nerve, drugged one of her accomplices and dumped him in the Sacramento River to drown so that it would appear he had died in a swimming  accident.  Another member of her group confessed, implicating Spinelli, which led to her conviction.  She spat curses at officials as she made her way to the chamber.  Spinelli became both the first woman to be executed in California and the first to die by the gas chamber.