When asked if he needed anything:
“You might get me a gas mask.”

— Jack Sullivan, convicted of murder, gas chamber, Arizona.
Executed May 15, 1936

In his final moments Sullivan, age twenty-three, smoked a cigar, drank a glass of whiskey, and mugged for the camera. He grinned and waved at witnesses during his execution for the slaying of a railroad officer.

As the execution began:
“I can’t smell anything yet.”

A moment later:
“It smells like rotten eggs.”

— Warren Cramer, convicted of murder, gas chamber, California.
Executed May 14, 1943

A career pyromaniac and car thief, Cramer had turned to violent assault during the robbery of a drugstore. He pleaded guilty and openly stated that he preferred capital punishment. San Quentin Warden Clinton Duffy described Cramer as a “brilliant” man who thought he had a “rotten streak in his system which he couldn’t control.”

“I am innocent of this crime. Let us hope and pray they will never do this thing to another man, innocent or guilty.”

— Richard “Rickey” Harrison, convicted of murder, electric chair, New York.
Executed May 13, 1920

As Harrison and four other gunmen robbed a private Manhattan social club, police arrived, and the ensuing gun battle left one patron dead. Prosecutors contended, in a reconstruction of the incident, that Harrison fired the fatal shot. His fellow accomplices received jail sentences, but Harrison, age twenty-six, faced capital punishment.

As he left death row, fellow condemned inmates shouted, “Good-bye Rickey, we know you are innocent!” He replied: “It is the best thing that ever happened to me.”