Some final words

This is the day of your visitation, wherein the Lord hath visited you. This is the day the Lord is risen in his mighty power, to be avenged on all his adversaries. I suffer not as an evil doer. Mind the light that is within you; to wit the Light of Christ, of which He testified and I am now going to seal with my blood. Now ye are made manifest; I suffer for Christ in whom I live and in whom I die.
William Robinson, convicted of disobeying banishment, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed October 27, 1659

Robinson was a Quaker living in Rhode Island. Upon hearing of the nearby Massachusetts colony’s law exiling members of his religion, he went with several others to protest the law and was arrested and exiled. After he violated the terms of his exile, he was executed.

Upon being asked to resume her exile:
Nay, I cannot; for in obedience to the will of the Lord God I came, and in his will I abide faithful to the death.
When told she was responsible for her own execution:
Nay, I came to keep blood-guiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law of banishment upon pain of death, made against the innocent servants of the Lord, therefore my blood will be required at your hands who willfully do it; but for those that do it in the simplicity of their hearts, I do desire the Lord to forgive them. I came to do the will of my Father, and in obedience to his will I stand even to the death.
Being asked by a pastor to repent:
Nay, man, I am not now to repent.
Upon being asked if she wished for an elder to pray for her:
I know never an Elder here… I desire the prayers of all the people of God… I know but few here… Nay, first a child, then a young man, then a strong man, before an Elder of Christ Jesus.
Finally, when someone from the crowd asked if she’d been in Paradise:
Yea, I have been in Paradise several days and now I am about to enter eternal happiness.
Mary Dyer (aka Mary Dier or Marie Dier) , convicted of disobeying banishment, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed June 1, 1660

Dyer was already an unpopular figure in the colony for her support of Anne Hutchinson, who was banished for heresy—notably her belief that God spoke not through clergy but to individuals directly. A Puritan, Dyer later converted to Quakerism, feeling God had called her to return to Boston. She was given a last-minute reprieve twice, the second with a sentence of banishment. Instead, she chose to be executed for violating the terms of her exile. Today, her statue sits outside the Massachusetts State House over the inscription “Witness for religious freedom.”

For bearing my testimony for the Lord against deceivers and the deceived, I am brought here to suffer. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
William Leddra, convicted of disobeying banishment, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed March 14 (sometimes recorded as March 24), 1661

Despite the executions of three fellow Quakers in the colony, Leddra had refused to stop preaching. He was the last Quaker to hang in Boston and is sometimes recognized as a fourth “Boston martyr.”

I have been among drawn Swords, flying bullets, roaring cannons, amidst all which, I knew not what Fear meant: but now I have appreciations of the dreadful wrath of God, in the other World, which I am going into, my Soul within me, is amazed at it… I pray God that I may be a warning to you all, and that I may be the last that ever shall suffer after this manner: In the fear of God I warn you to have a care of taking the Lord’s name in vain. And have a care of that sin of Drunkenness, for that sin lead[s] to all manner of sins and wickedness…as I am a dying man, and to appear before that Lord within a few minutes that you may take notice of what I say to you…
unnamed ringleader, convicted of treason and mutiny, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed 1673

Neither his name nor the details of his crime survive this “ringleader,” only his last words.

The mob lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930 (AP Photo/Twin Palms Publishers)

I had rather go to an Ale-house than to any Church. Pray Young People take warning by my shameful end: keep the Sabbath truly… I have had great Oppression upon my Spirit since I was in this prison and I thought I should never repent or confess, until Almighty God softened my hard heart and gave me grace to repent. I beg all good people to joyn in prayers with me, I have great need of your prayers.
Thomas Lutherland, convicted of murder, colonial New Jersey. Executed February 23, 1692

Lutherland, a carpenter, was hanged for strangling merchant John Clark, then stealing his goods. The undecided jury invoked the “law of the bier”: Lutherland was forced to touch Clark’s rotting corpse. It was believed that a corpse would bleed when touched by its murderer, and Clark’s did not, but Lutherland broke down on the spot and confessed to his crime anyway. “When I touched the murdered Corpse of John Clark, I was afraid the Blood would have flown in my face,” he said. It should be noted that another source claims that Lutherland was executed in Pennsylvania; yet another insists he was put to death in 1691.

I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.
Sarah Good, convicted of witchcraft, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed July 19, 1692

After Good’s first marriage failed, she moved to Salem and remarried. Some townspeople disliked her and accused her of casting evil spells and attacking a woman at knifepoint. Good and fellow accused witches Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes were executed together on Salem’s Gallows Hill. When urged by Rev. Nicholas Noyes to confess, Good called him a liar, then delivered her final, now famous last words.

Paraphrased account from Robert Calef, later a critic of the witch trials:
[Burroughs] made a clear Speech for the clearing of his Innocency, with such Solemn and Serious Expressions, as were to the Admiration of all Present. [Burroughs then perfectly recited the Lord’s Prayer, which drew Tears from many.]
George Burroughs, convicted of witchcraft, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Executed August 19, 1692

It was believed that witches could not say the Lord’s Prayer, thus the tearful crowd reaction. Burroughs’s recitation caused concerns that “the Spectators would hinder the Execution.” But as soon as Burroughs hanged, Rev. Cotton Mather told the crowd that the prisoner was “no ordained Minister” and “the Devil has often been transformed into an Angel of Light.”

You young saints and sinners, take warning and let whisky alone. It was whisky that brought me here. I did not kill the man, it was whisky; but I am come here now, and God has pardoned me. My way is clear before me. I have nearly come up, and am now pulling myself into the light of glory… I advise all you saints and sinners not to fool too much with whisky. Here I am, a hardworking man, brought here by whisky. Steele told me in the spirit that if could he come and speak for me he would say a good word for me. I trust to meet you all with my Jesus… God bless you all.
Henry Dickerson, convicted of murder, Louisiana. Executed September 7, 1883

Dickerson was drinking and gambling unsuccessfully with a group of plantation and steamboat workers when he left the dice game and met John Steele, “an uninterested passerby.” After Steele refused to give him a dime, Dickerson shot him through the heart. Dickerson escaped to spend eight days in a swamp but then, having nearly starved, gave himself up. He later found religion in prison.

I want to warn others of my race. I wish some of them were here to see how we go. It’s awful.
Johnny Jones, convicted of rape, Mississippi. Executed March 16, 1934

As part of a large spectacle, Jones, twenty-three, and two other young African American men were hung in front of a crowd that mocked and shouted at them while on the platform. Jones was buried in a plain coffin and dumped into a grave that would never be marked. At least one source spelled Jones’s first name “Johnnie.”

The ending of Bud Kimball’s six-stanza poem “Bud Kimball’s Philosophy”:
I’ve been enmeshed and now I must pay
An unjust penalty in my ensnared despair
My eyes are blind but not my mind
Still my heart is kind
Earl Bud Kimball, convicted of murder, California. Executed May 22, 1936

Kimball, age twenty-one, shot business partner James Kennett twice in the head with a rifle and caved in his skull with a pick after Kennett flashed a knife at him. He was convicted of murder and later admitted to killing twenty-five other men. Kimball later retracted his statement, saying: “I told them all of that stuff out of devilment to get more bananas and cigarettes.”

Gentlemen, I die with a clear conscience. I never did anything wrong in my life. I die fighting, not like a coward. Well, I’m going, good-bye.
Shouting as the prison officer started to give the command to shoot:
Fire!
Joe Hill (aka Joseph Hillstrom) , convicted of murder, Utah. Executed November 19, 1915

Born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund in Sweden, he changed his name upon arriving in California. A convert to socialism, Hillstrom was a singer and songwriter whose songs, composed under the name Joe Hill, were published in union newspapers and sung on picket lines and demonstrations.

While in Utah, where he organized a successful strike against the United Construction Company, Hill was arrested and charged with the murders of J. G. Morrison, a grocery store owner, and his son. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organization, or Wobblies, came to Hill’s defense, contending that he had been framed due to his political activity. President Woodrow Wilson and author Helen Keller were among those who campaigned for clemency. Eventually Utah’s governor refused.

On his last day, Hill fought off his jailers, wielding a broken broom handle as a weapon. Sheriff J. C. Corless had to be summoned to reason with Hill. “Joe, this is all nonsense…You promised to die like a man,” Corless said. Newspaper accounts said Hill “hesitated a moment, then yielded.” He calmed and said: “Well, I’m through. But you can’t blame a man for fighting for his life.”

Before his execution, Hill wrote Bill Haywood, an IWW leader. “I die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize…” Mourners in Chicago wore sashes that echoed this sentiment: “Don’t mourn—organize, Joe Hill.”

Hill’s case was included in the 1992 book In Spite of Innocence among almost two dozen cases in which the editors believed “an innocent person was executed.” Several folk songs were written about Hill, and his last will, written as a poem, was set to music. It read:

My Last Will

My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don’t need to fuss and moan
“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”
My body — Oh. — If I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again

This is my Last and Final Will
Good luck to all of you.
Joe Hill

Aileen Wuornos filmed for Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer in 2002 (Channel 4)

I wish I had Corrick and Wynn on my lap.
Fred Blink, convicted of murder, Illinois. Executed April 23, 1935

The men Blink addressed in his final statement were Tim Corrick, the husband of one of his victims, and L. L. Wynn, the prosecutor in the case. Blink claimed that Corrick gave him poisoned whiskey, which caused his murder spree. The World War I veteran was convicted in the shooting deaths of his former business partner and four other people. After the verdict was pronounced, Blink had to be lifted from his chair and forced from the courtroom.

I killed the president because he was an enemy of the good people—of the working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I’m awfully sorry I could not see my father.
Leon Frank Czolgosz (aka Leon Frans Czolgosz) , convicted of murder, New York. Executed October 29, 1901

Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley after waiting in line to shake his hand in Buffalo. Czolgosz’s reasons for doing so were not entirely clear, though he did express grievances against the United States and claim that the American dream was a lie. Eight weeks after the murder, he was electrocuted; his body was dissolved in acid as it was buried.

…Oh, I would like to say in closing, “What about those Cowboys?”
William Prince Davis, convicted of robbery and murder, Texas. Executed September 14, 1999

When Davis was twenty-one years old, he shot and killed Richard Lang, an employee of the Red Wing Ice Cream Company. Davis fled with a shotgun and $712. A week later, he returned to burglarize the business. He was convicted in a one-day capital murder trial. From childhood Davis had been in and out of reformatory institutions, and by the time he was executed at age forty-two, he had spent half of his life on death row.

I am so sorry for what y’all had to go through. I am so sorry for what all of you had to go through. I can’t imagine losing two children. If I was y’all, I would have killed me. You know? I am really so sorry about it, I really am. I got to go sister, I love you. Y’all take care and God bless you. Gracie was beautiful and Tiffany was beautiful. You had some lovely girls and I am sorry. I don’t know what to say. All right, Warden, let’s do it.
Dennis Dowthitt, convicted of murder, Texas. Executed March 7, 2001

Auto salesman Dowthitt received a lethal injection for the murders of his son’s sixteen-year-old former girlfriend, Grace Purnhagen, and her sister, nine-year-old Tiffany Purnhagen. Dowthitt’s sixteen-year-old son, Delton, first admitted to the gruesome killings before recanting and revealing that his father had slashed Grace’s throat and sexually assaulted her with a beer bottle and had strangled Tiffany with a rope. Delton led police to the evidence; he was convicted of murder and sentenced to forty-five years behind bars.

I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the Rock and I’ll be back like “Independence Day” with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I’ll be back.
Aileen Wuornos, convicted of murder, Florida. Executed October 9, 2002

Wuornos was labeled a serial killer for murdering seven men in less than twelve months. The life of Wuornos, from her abusive childhood to her life as a teenage prostitute, became the focus of the 2003 film Monster and two documentaries by Nick Broomfield. On the day of her execution, she told Broomfield that the police framed her and used sonic waves to control her. State psychiatrists decided that she was mentally competent for execution. Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of Wuornos in Monster.