8 Botched Execution Attempts That Went Horribly Wrong

Capital punishment: the age old way for humans to creatively dispose of one another for a host of reasons. Stole some bread? Hanged. Not a Catholic? Tortured. Oh, you are a Catholic? Beheaded. As an ancient practice carried out countless times throughout history, predictably there have been some horrifically failed execution attempts. These failed executions have almost always resulted in sheer agony for the condemned, adding insult, injury, and intense suffering to their final moments.

This list serves as a highlight reel for history's most brutally botched executions, from centuries ago to as recently as a decade ago. What follows goes to show that putting someone to death seems to be a system still working out a few bugs, even after hundreds of years of testing.    

Brian Steckel was a man of boundless cruelty. In the fall of 1994 in the town of Prices Corner, DE, he charmed his way into the apartment of 29-year-old Sandra Lee Long. Once inside, Steckel sexually assaulted Long for several hours before setting her bed on fire and locking her in her bedroom to die of smoke inhalation. 

Steckel was quickly apprehended after writing into the Delaware News Journal to brag about his crimes. Dubbing himself "The Driftwood Killer," he mentioned in his letter a woman he had been harassing named Susan Gell. Gell's phone calls were easily traced back to Steckel and he was caught and soon convicted. During his brief trial, Steckel wrote 75 harassing letters to the attorneys, judges, and, sadistically, Sandra Lee Long's family taunting them about their daughter being gone forever. 

Steckel repented on the eve of his execution by lethal injection, but it would prove too little too late for what fate had in store for him. The first drug of the execution process, designed to render the him unconscious, didn't work and Steckel remained awake. At one point during his 12-minute execution he even remarked, "I didn't think it would take this long." It would later be theorized Steckel had been fully lucid when the drugs that paralyzed him and stopped his heart entered his system. A member of the execution team would later go on record saying he was "okay with [the execution.]"  

Jimmy Lee Gray, a two-time killer, was responsible for the death of a three-year-old girl and his 16-year-old girlfriend. It was the brutal rape and murder of the young girl that would put him on Mississippi's death row in 1983.

Gray was subjected to the gas chamber. Eight minutes after the gas was released, prison staff had to clear the room of witnesses. Jimmy Lee Gray was convulsing, gasping for air, and banging his head on the chamber's concrete pole, repulsing the audience. Reporter's counted 11 anguished moans from Gray as he slowly asphyxiated. Later it was revealed the executioner was drunk during the procedure and his impaired performance contributing to Gray's long, repulsive end.    

William Kemmler was the unfortunate person to partake in an execution method still working out a few kinks. After killing his common-law wife with a hatchet in 1889, Kemmler was quickly convicted and in 1890 he was sent to his death on the electric chair. Though this method of execution had not yet been tried, it was thought to be a quick and humane method of dispatching the condemned.

In its trial run it proved to be neither. 

Kemmler was initially given a charge of 700 volts lasting only 17 seconds before the current shorted out. Kemmler was very much still alive despite his burnt clothing and flesh, so a second shock was delivered at 1,030 volts for about two minutes. This charge did the job and Kemmler's body was turned into a smoking heap with one of the chair's electrodes burning all the way through his spine. It was grisly display that filled the room with smoke and caused two witnesses to faint at the sight of the carnage.

Christopher Newton spent much of his adult life in prison seemingly by his own volition. Convicted in 1999 of aggravated burglary of his own father's home, the Ohio man would later claim in an interview he did so intentionally so he could go to prison. In 2001, he escalated his correctional career by killing his cellmate Jason Brewer over an argument about a chess match. 

The act was brutal. Newton stomped the man to death, repeatedly kicking his throat and skull. When Brewer's body was found it, Newton said he would only cooperate with authorities is he was given the death penalty. 

Christopher Newton got his wish, and in 2007 the hulking convict - who weighed more than 265 pounds - was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Because of Newton's size, prison staff struggled to locate a vein, striking him 10 times with a needle during the process. The procedure took so long Newton was talking, laughing, and was even allowed a bathroom break. When a suitable vein was finally found the drugs were administered to Newton who began convulsing and heaving - unusual occurrences for a lethal injection. Overall, the process took two hours, longer than any of Ohio's previous executions. 

Lady Margaret Pole, the 8th Countess of Salisbury, was English royalty with a strong bloodline - her two brothers, Edward IV and Richard II, were both kings. The bloodthirsty Henry VIII's reign, however, was not kind to the Poles, and in 1538 much of the family was arrested for treason and sentenced to death, including a then 65-year-old Margaret.  

Lady Margaret was sent to the Tower of London and imprisoned as a traitor for two years before her execution by beheading in 1541. When the time came, the former countess had the unfortunate indignity of receiving an inexperienced executioner. With his first blow, the axeman missed her neck. And then he missed it again. And again. And again and again, until after 11 whacks Lady Margaret Pole's head was finally severed. It was a gruesome and unfitting end the elderly Pole, who in 1886 would be blessed as a Catholic martyr by Pope Leo XIII, honoring her legacy and undue demise. 

In 1892, George Painter was found guilty of murdering his lover Alice Martin in their Chicago home. Up until his death,  Painter denied he was culpable for the brutal murder which left Martin a bloody heap. He would go on to get three stays of execution from Illinois's governor while his attorney scrambled to find witnesses to back his alibi that he was out at the pub when the crime was committed. But his attorney's efforts were ultimately useless and in 1894 George Painter was sent to be hanged. 

In front of about 75 people, Painter was led to the gallows where he declared his innocence one last time. "Listen! If there is a man here who is an American, on his soul I say to that man, see that the murderer of Alice Martin is found. Good-bye." 

With his final words spoken, a hood was placed on his head and the trap door was released, sending his body hurdling downward. Painter dangled in the air for a moment until the rigid rope snapped from his weight and he tumbled to the ground. Doctors rushed to Painter's side and discovered that while his neck was snapped, he was not dead. The solution to this problem, of course, was to hang Painter again. He was carried back to the top of the platform and as the broken noose was replaced, blood began to fill his white hood and cascade down his torso. Stunned onlookers began to flee from the grotesque display. Soon the trap door was again released, and this time, Painter was dead.    

Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum was an old west outlaw in the most classical sense. He and his posse - The Ketchum Gang - marauded across New Mexico and Texas during the late 1800s, robbing trains, saloons, stores, and post offices. By 1900, however, Black Jack's gang was decimated to nothing as a result of shootouts, gangrene, and other perils of a high-risk career path. Now a lone rider, Ketchum figured he had one more train heist in him. He boarded a train just outside of Folsom, NM, and stormed the engine with a pistol. The train stopped on a curved segment of the track, which allowed the conductor to get the drop on Ketchum and shoot him in the arm. He would be apprehended shortly thereafter.

After a short trial in Clayton, NM, Ketchum was condemned to death by hanging. This was a big occasion for the town of Clayton, as they had never hanged a man before. Novices that they were, the hangmen forgot about the 200-pound sandbag attached to the rope they used to test it out, which rendered the noose extremely taut. As a result, when Ketchum was dropped through the gallows he was decapitated instantly. 

Louison Cartouche was the younger brother of famed French robber Louis Dominique Garthausen, aka Cartouche. Cartouche and his gang were the type of noble thieves often depicted in literature, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, fully composed with gentlemanly charm and decorum. The young Louison was a novice member of the roving band of robbers, but when the gang was apprehended in 1721, the 15-year-old was punished far more severely than his older peers. 

Sentenced to hard labor for his crimes, Louison was also given the punishment of being hanged from under his armpits for two hours, an exercise designed to provide public humiliation. If this act sounds unusual, it's because it is: the judge who sentenced Louison devised it on the spot and it had never been tested before.

Louison was hanged with a rope around his chest, and immediately began screaming in agony. The hanging caused all of his blood to sink to his feet, causing immense pain for the young teen. Before his two hours were up, Louison's tongue rolled out from his mouth, and his pleas to his captors ceased. This barbaric method of humiliation had inadvertently killed the young Cartouche in a very slow and torturous way.