Posted on 07/11/2009 8:19:04 PM PDT by Gordon Greene
Agreed!
Was he trying to spite his face?
Very easily. It isn't so much a matter of neatly slicing the head off, as it is forcefully tearing the head from the body.
In the American West, when they hanged criminals, executioners had to be very careful to use the right rope. If the drop was too high or the rope was too thin or too rigid, the head could tear clean from the body.
There were tables that showed the drop height taking the condemned criminal's weight into account to prevent it from happening.
Still it did happen from time to time. In 1901, Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum was a train robber and outlaw. He was caught and was sentenced to hang.
Ketchum gained weight in jail while waiting for his sentence to be carried out, and the executioners were inexperienced, so when he was hanged, his head came clean off. Only the hood, which had been pinned to his shirt, kept his head from rolling away.
There was a photographer on the scene and there are photos of him immediately before and after his hanging. Here is a short story with both photographs (^). The link is to page 1, the hanging photos are on page 2. Needless to say, they are graphic.
Two shots? I had only heard of one. And the one was a small, low powered handgun where he was shot through the soft part of his lower jaw, through his mouth and into his brain.
You’re way too paranoid
Ah, that's an excellent answer and explains it.
But I am NOT too paranoid. I am exactly paranoid enough.
I'm too cynical!
Realizing it was a UK story, I would have assumed such if “black” had been capitalized. Like you did with “President”, LOL!
This is the first thing I thought of. What’s wrong with me?
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