Incredible death penalty
Since time immemorial, it has been noticed that the death penalty is often accompanied by incredible mystical phenomena.
The statistics of death sentences are simply full of fatal coincidences, both tragic and happy "accidents".
Sometimes, by an incredible coincidence, some of those sentenced to death remained alive, while those who were pardoned, on the contrary, died anyway. It is unclear why this is happening, but the facts speak for themselves.
One Hundred Years of Parricide
Here are just a few of the most famous incredible coincidences.
1911 murderers convicted and hanged in Greenberry Hill near London. Their last names were Green, Berry and Hill.
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Something similar happened in 1952 in Louisiana (America). The criminals who were sentenced to death were named Steele, Road and Place, and they committed the murder in Stillroad Place.
1846, February 13 - in France, in Tarbes, a man named Jean-Marie Dubarry was executed for parricide. It was later discovered by local officials that his direct ancestor of the same name, Jean-Marie Dubarry, had been executed for the exact same crime - and also on February 13th! Only 100 years before that - in 1746.
An interesting love story of an American woman Evelyn Mittelman. Gangsters have always been her lovers. At the same time, each former lover was killed by the next one. This happened four times. The fifth lover, Harry Strous, was sentenced to death for numerous crimes. On the day of the execution of the sentence, he was allowed to meet with Evelyn. After him, Strous returned to his cell and there he unexpectedly fell from a chair, hit his head on the concrete floor and died.
Fatal number
The unlucky number 13 is inextricably linked with the death penalty - perhaps because, according to the biblical story, Cain killed his brother Abel on the 13th day of the lunar month.
It was already mentioned above that the execution of two Frenchmen named Jean-Marie Dubarry took place on February 13 in 1746 and 1846.
The role of the number 13 in the execution of the American serial killer Crawford Goldsby, which took place in Arkansas in 1893, was incredible. He was convicted of the murder of 13 people. The killer was arrested on 13 February.
At the trial, the case was heard for 13 hours, and 13 witnesses testified. The verdict was carried out 13 days after the announcement. The stairs to the gallows had 13 steps, and the murderer's death occurred at 13 hours 13 minutes.
1826, July 13 - the execution of five Decembrists took place. The unlucky number clearly played a role in the execution. For three of them, the rope broke, but the execution was still carried to the end.
2005, December 13 - Stanley Williams, a murderer and robber, who had been awaiting execution for almost 25 years, was executed in the US state of California.
Stanley Williams repented of his crimes in prison, began writing children's books and went down in history as the only Nobel Prize nominee to be sentenced to death.
You can't escape fate
It happens that punishment overtakes the sentenced to death at the moment when, it would seem, the most terrible is already behind. It is as if fate itself is doing everything to ensure that a just retribution overtakes the criminal.
1996 Lawrence Baker was sentenced to death in the electric chair for double murder in Florida. The verdict was supposed to be carried out on the eve of Christmas - but in honor of the holiday, the governor of the state pardoned the criminal.
The prison authorities allowed him to watch TV, using headphones, so as not to disturb other inmates. On January 1, the voltage at the substation suddenly surged. Baker was killed by a shock that passed through the headphones.
Early 2000s - In the state of Texas, murderer Roni Blackweil was sentenced to death. The wife of the state governor begged her husband to show mercy. The day of the execution fell on her birthday - and at six in the morning she announced to her husband that the best gift would be a signature on the pardon document. The governor agreed and signed the necessary documents.
But it was not possible to call or send an e-mail to the prison where Blackwill was detained: the hurricane that passed at night cut off the electrical and telephone wires, and mobile communications also did not work. One of the governor's assistants volunteered to go to the place of execution, but because of the fog at the beginning of the journey he crashed a car. I had to send another employee - but that one had an upset stomach on the way, which caused him to lose time. In addition, just before the prison, his car ran out of gas.
The assistant to the governor came running there. The execution, scheduled for eight hours, was three minutes away. But it turned out that the letter remained with the official who crashed the car. The head of the prison did not dare to take responsibility without an official document, and the sentence was carried out.
Survivors of death
In the same way, the forces of nature intervened in the execution of the execution - but in order to prevent it from taking place.
1724 - Maggie Dixon was hanged in Edinburgh, England for the murder of her child. The family was able to persuade the executioner and take the lifeless body. They put him in a coffin and carried him to the local cemetery to be buried. Suddenly, a loud knock came from the coffin. Relatives, overcoming fear, removed the cover - the woman was alive. Since the execution was carried out according to all the rules, it was not repeated. Maggie lived for another 40 years, and in Edinburgh to this day there is a tavern named after her.
1872 - In Australia, a killer nicknamed the Man Francis escaped punishment through a series of amazing accidents. Initially, the execution was postponed for several hours so that the busy sheriff could attend.
During this time, it rained and the rope got wet. It was dried over a fire - as a result, it stopped sliding. When the executioner knocked the support out from under Francis, he hung in a noose - but it did not shrink. Three minutes later, the offender pulled himself up on his hands, took his head out of the loop and jumped down. As a result, the execution was changed to life imprisonment.
2009 - American Romel Broome was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murder by the Lucasville (Ohio) court. For two hours, doctors tried to find a suitable vein for injection in Broome - and finally announced that they could not guarantee the humane effect of the drug. The death sentence was initially postponed, and later, under public pressure, was commuted to life imprisonment.
He wanted to be born a tree
There are other numerical coincidences associated with the death penalty - for example, the date March 15. For some reason, it was on this day that a large number of executions fell.
1536, March 15 - a secret execution of Ibrahim Pasha took place by order of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (he was strangled after dinner with the Sultan).
1718, March 15 - mass executions took place in Moscow on Red Square, which lasted more than three hours, Peter I ordered his son Alexei to be present.
1938, March 15 - the sentence was carried out in the case of Rykov and Bukharin, accused of espionage and called enemies of the people.
On the same day, March 15, 1938, Genrikh Yagoda, the former head of the NKVD, was shot - also on charges of cooperation with foreign intelligence services.
1988, March 15 - Willie Darden was executed as a result of miscarriage of justice in the US state of Florida, who, despite his alibi, was convicted of the death of three people. The real killer was arrested two weeks later.
1990, March 15 - Farzad Bazoft, an English journalist of Iranian origin, a reporter for the Observer magazine, was hanged in Iraq for espionage.
And yet such a tragic event that fell on this date: 1963, March 15 - for the abduction and murder of the American Victor Feguer, a lethal injection was administered. His last supper was the only olive - he swallowed it with a bone in order to be born a tree in his next life.
Headless Runner
In the history of capital punishment, there are cases when, after the sentencing, the bodies of the condemned made any movements or spoke.
The archive of the gendarme administration of the Tomsk province contains documents about an event that took place at the end of the 19th century, when a jury sentenced the murderer of his wife and three small children to be hanged.
After the hanged man was taken out of the noose, the doctor bent over the body to pronounce death. But the "corpse" suddenly grabbed the doctor by the throat - and only after that he finally lost his life. The police were unable to unclench the frozen hands, as a result of which the doctor died from suffocation.
A similar case was documented in medieval Germany. The nobleman Dietz von Schaunburg and four of his associates, who rebelled against the Bavarian king, were sentenced to beheading. The execution took place in the presence of the king. Von Schaunburg turned to him with the last request: if he, already headless, can run past other convicts, they will be pardoned. The monarch agreed.
The distance between the inmates was eight steps. The decapitated body of Diez von Schaunburg took 32 steps - and only then fell to the ground. The shaken king fulfilled his promise.
What caused such incredible coincidences? Probably no one can answer this question directly. Perhaps some Higher Forces are interfering with the executions? For now, all we have to do is to fix the facts and make sure of their incredible nature.