Execution of the Day – 2009 (Part 16)

16 April 1920 – Miles McHugh
You’d think dumping a girl would be far easier than bumping her off. Not for 32-year-old Miles McHugh.

17 April 1917 – William Robinson
A 26-year-old was gallows bound on this day in 1917. William Robinson was hanged at Pentonville for murdering his victim, Alfred Williams.

18 April 1567 – Wilhelm von Grumbach
Grumbach, what a great name… So it’s a shame he was dismembered on this day in 1567. As personalities go, Wilhelm von Grumbach was pretty special. A knight and an adventurer by trade, he was to become a hapless pawn in the power struggle between the Church and the ruling classes in Germany.

19 April 1996 – John Martin Scripps
John Martin Scripps redefined obnoxious Brit abroad after he was hanged for murder in Singapore. A butcher by trade, he used his profession to grisly ends after he targeted three people in the Far East. Amazingly they were all foreigners like him. But that was all part of the grand plan.

20 April 2004 – Abdullah Shah
Such was Abdullah Shah’s belief in his cause that his animosity spilled over into his private life. He was even prepared to kill his wife. And for that he was executed on this day in 2004. A true Taliban hardliner, Shah was found guilty of killing more than 20 people. He was part of a team headed up by a commander by the name of Zardad.

21 April 1992 – Robert Alton Harris
The gas chamber marked California’s return to the death penalty in 1992 – the first execution for over 25 years and certainly since the sentence was reinstated in 1976. It was the dubious honour of callous killer Robert Alton Harris to christen the noxious enclosure, after he was found guilty of the senseless murder of two young lads.

22 April 1983 – John Louis Evans
‘Yellow Mama’ got an outing on this day in 1983 with electrifying effects. We are, of course, talking about Alabama’s home-made electric chair, which was used for the first time in nearly 20 years on John Louis Evans. The chair had been made in 1927 by a former inmate at Holman Prison and it was probably past its best as Evans shockingly found out.

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