HANGING MORE MERCIFUL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3439, 5 March 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

HANGING MORE MERCIFUL

AGONIES OF ELECTRIC CHAIR

SLOW EXECUTIONS,

FOUR DEATHS IN 24 MINUTES

Hanging is more merciful than the electric chair.

In a long overdue attempt to prove that murder meets with retribution, even in Chicago, four murderers have paid the extreme penalty in Cook County Gaol. A fifth obtained a lastminute reprieve.

A new electric chair was brought into operation, but death was in no case instantaneous. It took twentyfour minutes to carry out the death sentences.

Frank Jordan, who murdered two po*icemen, was the first to die. When the first charge of electricity was applied his feet flew up in the air. A nervous executioner had forgotten to strap them. The error was remedied, and the current turned on again. He took four minutes to die.

Two powerful charges of current were necessary to execute Charles Rocco, who was concerned in the murder of a banker during.a hold-up. The first charge failed to. kill, and the electricity was switched on for a second time. It was eight minutes before his heart stopped beating. Rocco's accomplice, John Popescu, was the next to be put in the chair. He trembled in the arms of his guards as he was placed in it. His execution took six minutes.

Six minutes were also inquired to kill Richard Sullivan, who took part in the murder of a restaurant owner. He went to the chair almost with a swagger, firmly believing that his arch-enemy, Frank Bell, had died in the chair before him. But Bell was the man who had obtained a last minute reprieve. There were 150 witnesses of the executions, gazing through a plate-glass partition into the brilliantly-lighted death chamber. Among them was Ernest Schaeublin, who had tackled the murderer Jordon after he had killed the two policemen. He laughed when told that Jordan remembered and hated him to the last.

"I hope you realise that this exhibition is a warning to murderers," said a deputy-sheriff, addressing the crowd of spectators after the executions.