As My Grandfather used to say...
“have an Elephant step on his head”
This is from Wikipedia, it seems your grandfather may have been aware of something I only learned about recently. At least I don’t recall hearing anything about it until a few years ago.
“The use of elephants as executioners continued well into the latter half of the 19th century. During an expedition to central India in 1868, Louis Rousselet described the execution of a criminal by an elephant. A sketch was made of the execution showing the condemned being forced to place his head upon a pedestal, and then being held there while an elephant crushed his head underfoot. The sketch was made into a woodcut and printed in “Le Tour du Monde”, a widely circulated French journal of travel and adventure, as well as foreign journals such as Harper’s Weekly.[17]”