This week in 1949

To the warden, having spat at a priest:
“I hate your guts.”

He then said he looked forward to joining his friends in hell.

— Robert Battalino, convicted of murder, gas chamber, Colorado.
Executed January 7, 1949

Restaurant cook Battalino received the death sentence for shooting his boss, Michael Randolph, a Denver restaurant owner, after he fired Battalino and accused him of taking money from the register. As guards strapped Battalino into the gas chamber chair, he “spurned religious overtures from two prison chaplains.” The Rocky Mountain News headline read “Battalino Dies Smiling.”