This week in 1937

“This is where injustice triumphs.”

— Theodore Di Donne (also recorded as “Di Dionne”), electric chair, convicted of robbery and murder, New York.
Executed January 7, 1937

Di Donne, age thirty-one, faced execution along with his entire gang of six for slaying Brooklyn Transit Authority employee Edwin Esposito in a heist gone sour. At the eleventh hour, however, the governor of New York commuted the sentences of all save the two directly responsible for the killing, Di Donne and accomplice Joseph Bolognia. Di Donne denied firing the fatal shot and hoped his family would believe him.