“The time will come when my innocence will be proven, and then Bob Dodge will haunt you for his murder.”

— Robert S. Dodge, convicted of murder, hanging, California.
Executed November 8, 1866

Borrowing a double-barrel shotgun, ostensibly to hunt quail, Dodge could not account for his whereabouts when a man who was quarreling with his brother was shot. Dodge went through two trials and during the second was found guilty of first-degree murder. In prison, he attempted suicide by taking opium.T

“I hope with all my heart I will be the last sacrificial lamb of a system that is not just, and all these people know it is not just. Let’s hope there are not many more that have to be sacrificed. The executions serve no purpose. . . . Some of you look at this as an execution. I look at this as freedom. I’ve been in prison for 15 years. Now I’m free.”

— Jeffrey Daugherty, convicted of murder, electric chair, Florida.
Executed November 7, 1988

Though Daugherty delivered a six-minute statement prior to his execution, little survives. Prosecutors claimed he killed four women in a three-week period while traveling with his girlfriend, Bonnie Jean Heath, and an uncle. Daugherty received life terms for three of the murders but was sentenced to death for the shooting of hitchhiker Lavonne Sailer. Heath testified against him in exchange for a twenty-five-year sentence for second- degree murder.

“Make the time as short as you can, for I am fainting.”

— William H. Lipsey, convicted of murder, hanging, California.
Executed November 3, 1854

Lipsey, a miner by trade, was convicted of stabbing a man in the chest in an argument turned brawl in a “public house serving liquor.” As he left the store, Lipsey expressed pride in his actions, saying while wiping his bloody blade on a post: “I stuck it into him that far and made him quake.” Despite his early bravado, Lipsey was “almost carried” to the gallows.