This week in 1882
“…My dying prayer on the gallows; I tremble for the fate of my murderers. This nation will go down in the blood. My murderers, from the Executive to the hangman, will go to Hell…”
— Charles Julius Guiteau, convicted of murder, hanging, Washington, DC.
Executed June 30, 1882
Guiteau spent his early years roaming the United States, working in as varied of fields as journalism, religious work, and law. He was arrested several times on charges of embezzlement and thievery, though no charges stuck. In 1881, he moved to Washington, DC, and demanded a foreign diplomatic office from President James A. Garfield, haunting federal buildings for a chance to speak to him. Guiteau purchased a revolver and shot the president in a train depot on July 2, 1881. Garfield hovered between life and death for eighty days, and when he succumbed, Guiteau was indicted for murder.
His defense was insanity; throughout the court proceedings he repeatedly erupted in outrageous displays, which garnered him the nickname “the Hyena.”
This week in 1900
As the rope was placed around his throat:
“Oh, I’ll smother with that on. I’ve got electricity in my head now.”
— Benjamin Snell, convicted of murder, hanging, Washington, DC.
Executed June 29, 1900
“A man of education and good family,” Snell was convicted of murder after breaking in to the house of child Lizzie Weisenberger and cutting her throat with a razor. Other prisoners shunned Snell, and when Frank Funk heard that he was to be executed on the same day and scaffold as Snell, he petitioned the courts to change the day. President McKinley reprieved Funk for several days, and Snell and Funk maintained “bitter hatred” until Snell’s death.
This week in 1935
“If I have to die, I will die innocent. I never killed Harry Wright or anyone else.”
— Eva Coo, convicted of murder, electric chair, New York.
Executed June 27, 1935
Coo, proprietor of a “speakeasy brothel,” was sent to the electric chair for the murder of Harry Wright, a handicapped man she had employed as a handyman. News reports from the era painted Coo as a ghoulish figure who mistreated Wright, burned down his dead mother’s house for insurance money, and then tried to collect an insurance policy on Wright. She became the fifth woman to die in New York’s electric chair.
