“How are we condemned by the Covenant of Works, and relieved by the Covenant of Grace.”

— Patience Boston, convicted of murder, colonial Maine.
Executed July 24, 1735

Boston did not intentionally kill her baby. She was released for lack of proof and because her confession had been alcohol fueled. However, Boston decided to murder another child to validate her claims; she did so by holding a boy under water until he drowned. Her written confession was printed and sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green near the prison in Falmouth, Maine. Other sources list her day of execution as July 31.

“Tell my family and friends I love them, tell the governor he just lost my vote. Y’all hurry this along, I’m dying to get out of here.”

— Christopher Scott Emmett, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Virginia.
Executed July 24, 2008

The Washington Post reported: “Emmett fatally beat his roofing company co-worker, John F. Langley, with a brass lamp in a Danville, Va., motel room in 2001. He then stole Langley’s money to buy crack.” He later lost an appeal in Virginia claiming that the state’s lethal injection protocol constituted “cruel and unusual” punishment.

“I cannot change what I have done in the past, no matter how much I wish that I could. Nothing I can say or do will stop the pain that I have caused. I do not expect people to forgive me for what I have done in my life. For I am and have paid for my ways.”

— Albert Clozza, convicted of rape and murder, electric chair, Virginia.
Executed July 24, 1991

Clozza confessed to having raped and murdered of Patricia Beth Bolton, age thirteen, after abducting her as she walked home. Clozza did not ask for clemency. He was the 150th inmate executed since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.