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27 seconds. Same thought. ;-)
I like either of these, with my personal preference being the latter:
Problematic hangings.
Where the drop is too long it can result in decapitation, as occurred with the executions of "Black Jack" Tom Ketchum on the April 26th 1901. Ketchum had put on quite a lot of weight while awaiting his execution and this hadn't been allowed for in calculating the drop. On the gallows his last words were "Let 'er go boys".
At 12.17 p.m. the sheriff cut the cord holding the trap and Ketchum plunged through it. Witnesses were horrified to see the head ripped from the body, which fell to the ground on its feet and seemed to stand a for a few moments before falling over, with blood pouring from the severed neck.
Frequently, however, the drop was inadequate and the prisoner strangled, as in this description of a hanging at San Quentin in California. Clinton Duffy who was the warden there from 1942 to 1954 described the execution of Major Raymond Lisemba on May 9th 1942 as follows:
"The man hit bottom and I observed that he was fighting by pulling on the straps, wheezing, whistling, trying to get air, that blood was oozing through the black cap. I observed also that he urinated, defecated, and droppings fell on the floor, and the stench was terrible". (This is not abnormal normal in death by slow hanging as the person slowly strangles).
It took ten minutes for the condemned man to die. When he was taken down and the cap removed, "big hunks of flesh were torn off" the side of his face where the noose had been, "his eyes were popped," and his tongue was "swollen and hanging from his mouth." His face had turned purple.