“I had no malice against anyone.”

— Patrick Eugene Prendergast, convicted of murder, hanging, Illinois.
Executed July 13, 1894

Prendergast murdered Chicago mayor Carter Henry Harrison, a leader of the Columbian Exposition, or World’s Fair, of 1893. The delusional Prendergast believed Harrison owed him a political appointment after he supported the mayor’s re-election.

Famed legal mind Clarence Darrow took Prendergast on as his first murder case, but his insanity defense failed.

“Don’t strap me to the chair too tightly. It might keep the gas from my lungs.”

— Joseph Behiter, convicted of murder, gas chamber, Nevada.
Executed July 13, 1934

Behiter whistled a tune as he walked to the gas chamber, but few other details of his execution survive. Behiter received the death penalty for murdering Maxine Armstrong, a Las Vegas dancehall girl; he was the seventh man executed by lethal gas in the state of Nevada. The entire account of his execution measured five paragraphs in the Los Angeles Times.

“I’d like to say to the families of all my victims, I’m sorry for all the grief and heartache I brought to them. If my death brings them any satisfaction, so be it.”

— David Washington, convicted of murder, electric chair, Florida.
Executed July 13, 1984

Even by his own account, former choirboy Washington “had the best breaks in life, all the best opportunities.” But, he told  reporters,“I think my life was just one big mistake. . . . Seemed like everything I touched, I destroyed. Family, wife, friends, everything. I just destroyed.” Washington was sentenced to the electric chair for the stabbing deaths of three people. On the day of his execution, he held his daughter on his knee and said, “I want you to do better.”