1885: Not John “Babbacombe” Lee, the man they could not hang

ExecutedToday.com ^ | February 23, 2009 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1885, a most inexplicable thing occurred on the gallows of Exeter. It was there that John Lee, nicknamed “Babbacombe”, made his peace with his maker and faced hanging for the murder of an elderly spinster a few months before.

Lee still protested his innocence. He was not generally believed.

We’ll let Charles Hoy Fort, that renowned chronicler of the impossible, take it from here:

It was a scene of the mechanism and solidity of legal procedure, as nearly real as mechanism and solidity can be.

Noose on his neck, and up on the scaffold they stood him on a trap door. The door was held in position by a bolt. When this bolt was drawn, the door fell —

John Lee, who hadn’t a friend, and hadn’t a dollar —

The Sheriff of Exeter, behind whom was Great Britain.

The Sheriff waved his hand. It represented Justice and Great Britain.

The bolt was drawn, but the trap door did not fall. John Lee stood with the noose around his neck....

[ZOOKER]

Reminds me of a joke I heard -It wasn't hanging, it was beheading by guillotine. When the lever was pulled, the blade refused to fall. Sentence commuted.

The next man was positioned for execution but once again, the blade failed to budge. Sentence commuted.

As he was strapped in, the third man, who was an engineer, said "I think I can see what's wrong..."

[null and void]

If you’d just put the rope back on the pulley...