This week in 1938

“I wish to see you all in heaven some day. I’m going to glory. Good-bye.”

Orville Adkins, convicted of kidnapping, hanging, West Virginia.
Executed March 21, 1938

Adkins plummeted to the concrete through the trapdoor before a
noose could be put around his neck. According to an Associated
Press account, “He was put on a stretcher and handed back through
the trap.” Adkins was hanged with two accomplices in “West Virginia’s
first execution for kidnapping.” Their victim was Dr. James I.
Seder, described as an “anti-saloon crusader.” Seder died four days
after his eleven-day-long captivity with the men.