1738: Katherine Garret, Pequot infanticide
On this date in 1738, before “a Vast Circle of people, more Numerous, perhaps, than Ever was gathered together before, On any Occasion” in Connecticut, Pequot servant Katherine “Indian Kate” Garret was...
View Article1662: Potter, bugger
“Of Buggery” by Cotton Mather (as printed in America Begins: Early American Writings) On June 6, 1662, at New Haven, there was a most unparalleled wretch (one Potter, by name, about sixty years of age)...
View Article1912: George Redding, making Emile Gauvreau’s career
On this date in 1912, investigative reporter Emile Gauvreau saw George Redding hanged at the Connecticut State Prison in Wethersfield. “When I left the prison to write my story,” Gauvreau later wrote...
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2005: Brian Steckel, the Driftwood Killer
On this date in 2005, Brian Steckel was executed by lethal injection for a Delaware rape-murder. Steckel got 29-year-old Sandra Lee Long to let him into her apartment on the pretext of making a phone...
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1894: John Cronin, by an automated gallows
From the Dec. 18, 1894 Atchison (Ks.) Daily: HARTFORD, Conn., Dec. 18. — John Cronin was hanged here at 1:00 o’clock this morning. The execution of Cronin was especially interesting, being the first...
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1642: George Spencer, pork loin
On this date in 1642, George Spencer paid the penalty at the New Haven (Connecticut) colony for a pig-fucking that he probably never perpetrated. Seven and a half weeks previous, a farmer named John...
View Article1816: Peter Lung, uxoricide
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1816, middle-aged uxoricide Peter Lung was hanged in Middletown, Connecticut for the murder of his wife the...
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1850: Henry Leander Foote, sex crazed
On this date in 1850, Henry Leander Foote was hanged in Connecticut. Foote was an educated man who used his time languishing in jail — there was nearly a full year between his conviction and his...
View Article1871: James Wilson, steely burglar
From the San Francisco Daily Call (Oct. 28, 1871) via a curious trans-Pacific audience in Australia’s Queanbeyan Age (Dec. 21, 1871). As usual, paragraphs added for readability. EXECUTION OF JAMES...
View Article1797: Thomas Starr, penknife murderer
“Sermon preached at Haddam [Connecticut], June 14, 1797. On the day of the Execution of Thomas Starr, condemned for the murder of his kinsman Samuel Cornwell by seven wounds given him, by a penknife,...
View Article1790: Joseph Mountain, Atlantic picaro
The remarkable-if-true criminal autobiography of Joseph Mountain, executed on this date in 1790 in New Haven, Connecticut, is transcribed here from the Dec. 14 and 21, 1790 issues of Spooners Vermont...
View Article1807: Henry Niles
From the Greenfield (Massachusetts) Gazette, November 30, 1807: NEW LONDON, (Con.) Nov. 11. On Wednesday last, Henry Niles, an Indian, was executed in this city, for the murder of his wife, pursuant to...
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1959: Frank Wojculewicz, paraplegic electrocution
October 27, 1959 headline of the Palm Springs, Calif., Desert Sun. Connecticut reluctantly electrocuted paraplegic murderer Frank Wojculewicz on this date in 1959. A lifetime crook, Wojculewicz was...
View Article1677: Benjamin Tuttle
On this date in 1677, Benjamin Tuttle expiated the murder of his sister Sarah in New Haven, Connecticut. His parents, William and Elizabeth, were yeomen who left their Northamptonshire village for the...
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1915: A day in the death penalty (and lynch law) around the U.S.
U.S. hangmen clocked overtime on this date in 1915. The Washington D.C. Herald of August 8 covered the bloodbath thus: Robert Watkins and John Salter were executed for the murder of Mrs. Mary Lassiter...
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