Major Crimes and True Crime

Execution of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss

Rudolf Höss was hanged on April 16, 1947, in the inner courtyard next to the former crematorium at Auschwitz. Höss was the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. There, he was responsible for the deaths of nearly one million Jews and other camp prisoners.

After the war, Höss lived under a false name for a time, but in March 1946 a British team located him. He later testified at the Nuremberg Trials. The Allies handed him over to Poland because Auschwitz was located in Polish territory during the German occupation. Therefore, he was tried in Poland.

Höss wrote his autobiography in his cell, in which he expressed regret for what had happened but denied guilt. He claimed he had only been following orders. In March 1947, the judge found Höss guilty and sentenced him to death.

A chip of steel flew off a piece of drilling equipment on a rig near Seminole, Oklahoma, and went into Wiley Post's left eye

A chip of steel flew off a piece of drilling equipment on a rig near Seminole, Oklahoma, and went into Wiley Post's left eye. Infection set in and the eye had to come out. He was twenty seven years old, a cotton farmer's son out of Van Zandt County with a grade school education, and he had just lost the one thing anybody would have told him a pilot cannot do without.

The state cut him a check for it that fall of 1926. One thousand six hundred and ninety eight dollars and twenty five cents, ordered against the drilling company's insurance carrier. He took every dollar of that settlement and bought a wrecked, second hand Canadian built biplane.

Then he set about learning to see again. He spent roughly two months at his uncle's place in southwest Texas doing almost nothing but practicing depth perception with the eye he had left, teaching himself to judge distance the way the rest of us do it with two. The government licensed him anyway after a probationary stretch of about seven hundred hours.

It is worth saying that he had been jumping out of airplanes before he had ever ridden in one. He heard a flying circus was coming through Wewoka and that their parachute man had been hurt in the previous show, so he volunteered, having never once been off the ground. He made better than a hundred jumps over the next two years, for as much as fifty dollars a show.

Here is what that eye's worth of money finally bought. In 1930 he won the nonstop derby from Los Angeles to Chicago in a hair over nine hours. In 1931 he flew around the world with an Australian navigator in eight days, fifteen hours and fifty one minutes. And in July of 1933 he did it again alone, in seven days, eighteen hours and forty nine minutes, cutting twenty one hours off his own record, sleeping in snatches while a prototype autopilot he had nicknamed Mechanical Mike held the airplane straight. Nobody matched that flight until 1947.

Two years later he flew Burbank to Cleveland, two thousand and thirty five miles in seven hours and nineteen minutes, at moments making a ground speed of three hundred and forty miles an hour in an airplane whose own top speed was a hundred and eighty five. He was riding a river of wind that nobody had figured out how to use yet. He did not discover the jet stream. He was the first man to fly up into it and put it to work.

He died that August in Alaska alongside Will Rogers, in a hybrid airplane he had put together himself out of two wrecks. Twelve thousand movie screens across the country went dark for two minutes.

In 1943, Shoichi Yokoi served in the Imperial Japanese Army on the island of Guam

In 1943, Shoichi Yokoi served in the Imperial Japanese Army on the island of Guam. When US forces invaded the island in 1944, he retreated into the jungle. Because he did not believe reports of peace to be credible, he constructed an underground bunker using BAMBOO and foliage.

All of his fellow soldiers eventually died, and for decades afterward, Yokoi survived entirely ALONE.

Yokoi was discovered by TWO hunters on Guam in January 1972. Upon learning that WWII had already ended twenty-seven years ago, in 1945, HE was stunned to discover this fact.

Upon returning to Japan in February 1972, thousands of people came out in droves to celebrate his survival. After spending thirty years isolated in the jungle, Yokoi struggled to adjust to the hustle and bustle of contemporary URBAN life.

His military experience prevented Yokoi from enjoying his reunion with civilization. Ultimately, he remarried, assumed the role of a farmer, AND maintained anonymity throughout his remaining lifetime

Yokoi's experience demonstrates how powerful the psychological impact of war may be upon an individual.

Two French soldiers after their capture by the Germans near Lille, May 1940.

The visibly distraught West African rifleman is comforted by a fellow soldier whose collar bears the number "38", identifying the 38th Infantry Regiment.

Part of the 25th Motorized Infantry Division, the regiment fought in Belgium before being encircled around Lille, resisting until May 31.

The African soldier probably belonged to a different colonial unit. His identity and the exact location remain unknown, but the photograph (a German soldier who took part in the campaign) captures the human reality of the French Army’s chaotic retreat.

Their names remain unknown.

Police bodycam shows officers handcuffing Henry Nowak as he lay dying

Police have released bodycam footage showing officers handcuffing 18-year-old Henry Nowak as he lay dying. The BBC has chosen to remove the sound in parts of this video due to its distressing content.

The footage from December showed his killer, Vickrum Digwa, claim he was racially abused by the teen and acted in self defence, which was a lie. He told officers his turban had been knocked off and said he had been injured.

Police say they liaised with Henry Nowak's family before sharing the footage. It was also played in court.

Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years on Monday. He used a 21cm (8in) blade he said he carried as part of his Sikh faith to kill Nowak, who was walking home alone after a night out with friends in Southampton on 3 December. A judge dismissed racism claims made by Digwa.

Speaking outside court, the victim's father, Mark Nowak, said the contrast between how his son and Digwa had been treated was "unbearable".

"Henry should not have died on the streets of Southampton in police custody," he said, calling it "inhumane and degrading". He added Digwa "was afforded decency" and "we understand, he was never handcuffed at all".

"Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him," he said.

A lion attack in Garajiya village of Bhavnagar district’s

A lion attack in Garajiya village of Bhavnagar district’s ..

A video on social media has captured a shocking Asiatic lion attack on a resident in Garajiya village, Bhavnagar district, Gujarat. The big cat blindsided the man and struck him on the neck with its paw, inflicting severe wounds.

A horrifying video captured has gone viral across social media platforms, showing the terrifying moment an Asiatic lion launched a vicious attack on a resident in Garajiya village, located within Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district.

The spine-chilling incident has sparked conversations surrounding the escalating human-wildlife conflict in regions bordering protected wildlife zones.

The sheer force of the claw strike left the man with severe lacerations and deep wounds. Hearing the commotion, nearby villagers rushed to the scene, making noise to distract the apex predator.

The bleeding victim was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital, where medical professionals are treating his critical injuries

On Camera, Bengaluru Woman Picked Up And Taken Away, No One Helped

Watch the video

Bengaluru:In visuals captured on CCTV, a 22-year-old woman is kidnapped just outside her home in Bengaluru and no one reacts to her screams.

The incident allegedly took place around 10 pm on April 23 in south Bengaluru.

The woman, who is believed to be from Manipur, is seen talking on the phone on the street outside her paying guest accommodation when she is suddenly grabbed by the man.

The attacker, his face obscured by a scarf and a cap, scoops her up and takes her away kicking.

A woman and two men - one on a scooter - were passing by at the time but they are seen in the footage continuing on their way without any reaction.

In a police complaint filed today, the woman said she was taken to a nearby construction site where the man tried to rape her. She alleges that he panicked and ran away when her screams were heard by people.

"I started shouting and he tried to shut my mouth. I bit him to save myself. He hit me and then I fell unconscious," she told reporters.

When she came to, the man had left. "My bag and phone were still there," she said.

The police said after the incident, the woman did not file a complaint but spoke to a local channel.

Manjula Manasa, the chairperson of the Karnataka Commission for Women, said: "Senior police officials should and will have to take action."

The police say the CCTV footage is proof enough for them to act. One person has been detained in connection with the attack

Dachau Horror: Reasons the Nazis Froze their Prisoners

One of the most well-known and horrible crimes happened in the process of the Dachau camp between 1942 and 1943 and was conducted by a physician by the name of Sigmund Rascher. He was fascinated with the study of the human body reaction on freezing.

The Military Problem Loss of Nazi pilots in the cold ocean and soldiers in the Russian winter were also becoming an issue. They had the desire to rescue these men. To do so, they chose to determine precisely how much cold a person would take before his heart failed, and how to re-start a body that had gotten close to being frozen.

More images

Human Beings as Lab Rats At Dachau, the prisoners were not treated like humans, but as objects.

Quite a number of them had to sit in tanks of ice water.
Some were left out in a freezing night naked. This failed to happen to most of these victims resulting in death as their hearts went dry because of the extreme cold.

Unsuccessful Efforts to warm the Dead To the survivors who did not perish at once, the treatments were no better. The physician attempted to resuscitate them by:

He threw them into baths of boiling hot water.
There was the act of using tubes to push hot water into their bodies.
Making them lie in between people to get body heat.

A Lesson to be Learnt Despite the fact that these crimes were found out after the war, it was obvious that the experiments did not work. The science was bad and the information was false.

Nevertheless, this tragedy transformed the world. It brought about the new laws according to which no doctor can ever test a human being without his/her consent. It showed us that humans should never be treated as instruments regardless of the purpose.

Someone executed by electric chair does not feel pain

The process of electrocution is pretty straight forward. You will be strapped into a hard backed wooden chair by leather belts at your wrists, ankles, forearms, chest and waist.

Electrodes will be attached to the crown of your head and one or both of your calves. The electrodes will be faced with sponges soaked in a saturated brine to conduct the electricity into your body and reduce burning. On command from the warden, the power supply will be activated, delivering a fatal electric shock through your body at the electrodes. Most electric chairs deliver somewhere in the area of 5–13 amps of alternating current at between 1,700–2,500 volts. Multiple shocks are applied prior to checking for signs of life. The process is often more of an art than a science; executioners developed their own particular techniques through a process of trial and error.

If done properly the sheer force of the electricity should depolarize and destroy your brain and central nervous system followed by disrupting the pacemaker in your heart causing cardiac arrest. By the numbers, an electric chair delivering 10 amps at 2,500 VAC to a convict will deliver 25000 watts of electric power through their body. Electrical energy at these levels is so powerful that it’s almost instantaneously fatal, at least when it comes to brain death. And with the electrical field traveling at the speed of light, the damage is rendered far faster than than the nervous system can record pain or physical sensations. As has been attested to by lineman who have suffered accidental electrocutions but survived, loss of consciousness was instantaneous upon contact with a high voltage source. So, if you’re going to die in a well designed and properly maintained electric chair and executed by a competent executioner, it must be something like a cessation of feeling. In one instant you’re sitting blindfolded in a wooden chair, the sensation of the straps holding you down, the cold wetness of the electrodes then BANG!!! - Unconsciousness and……whatever lies beyond death (if anything).

What happens to your body is, to say the least, unpleasant.

Hollywood productions like The Green Mile or Lonely Hearts portray electrocutions in a dramatic but unrealistic fashion. In the movies, the electric chair makes loud electrical noises with the prisoner screaming, shaking and flopping about during the ordeal. The claim of eyeballs popping out of their sockets is another Hollywood fabrication from the fake electrocution scene in the low budget snuff film Faces of Death. A real life lightning ride to the other side doesn’t look like that. Typically, the chair is eerily quiet during operation; the only sound is the hum of the power supply transformer nearby or the whirring of an auxiliary generator in the prison. The prisoner jerks upright when the first jolt of electricity is applied; the skeletal muscles will tense and contract maximally under the force of the current. Inmates can defecate and urinate uncontrollably, the skin will turn bright red, then white. They can drool or foam at the mouth as well. There are almost always first and second degree burns around and under the sponges from electrothermal heating of the nearby tissue due to the extreme current flux at the electrodes. When the power is shut off the convict slumps down in the chair against the restraints. There will be an odious smell of a mixture of burnt flesh, singed hair, urine and feces in the death chamber.

If the execution is not done properly and with defective equipment, the nightmare only intensifies. The electric chair would be a horrible way to die if unconsciousness is not instantaneous. The sensation of a botched judicial electrocution, I’d guess, must be like a massive, jagged splinter being driven through your entire body followed by the sensation of being on fire after a few seconds. If the sponges are absent or improperly moistened with brine, both they and the skin under them can catch fire. A nightmarish spectacle of electrical arcing between the electrodes and the convicts body can occur as did in the executions of John L Evans and Joseph Tafero in Alabama and Florida, respectively. Oftentimes the electric shocks can leave the body mangled and in a vegetative state. The heart is still beating and the convict still breathing, leaving the prison staff with no other choice but to continue applying jolts of electricity until death occurs. Use of excessive amounts of electric current can cook the flesh on your bones, similar to that of a cooked chicken. The skin can slough off and fall off the meat, and is particularly revolting for the prison staff to deal with post-execution, as they unstrap and remove the dead convict from the chair. Additionally, some doctors have claimed that electrocution may actually stimulate parts of the brain associated with fear and nightmarish imagery. Quite an ominous prospect, especially if the state has to give you 5 or 6 jolts of electricity before you finally die.

There was only one person to have survived an electrocution and been interviewed afterward about the ordeal. Willie Francis, a 17 year old youth, was supposed to be electrocuted for a murder at St Martin’s Parish Jail in Louisiana on May 3, 1946. But a poorly wired portable electric chair and a drunk executioner failed to deliver a shock strong enough to kill him before the generator was damaged. Francis claimed later that the experience was “plum miserable” and that it had made his mouth taste like cold peanut butter and made him hallucinate little pink and blue speckles. He screamed during the ordeal and told his keepers to “TAKE IT OFF!!!!!” as the shock was applied. Francis remained on death row for another year after the botched execution while his lawyers argued that a second attempt to kill their client would violate his Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy. Louisiana ex rel Francis v Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947) ultimately went before the United States Supreme Court, but in a 5–4 decision, the Court turned down this argument, stating that Francis’ right to protection from double jeopardy had not been violated as his sentence had not yet been carried out. On May 9, 1947, Francis was successfully electrocuted a second time.

How people on death row act on the day of their execution

According to some Death Row people I have corresponded with, people are generally quiet and perhaps reflective on their final day.

They know exactly how the day will end for them, and they know (in virtually every case) that there is no possibility of reprieve or postponement. They have had plenty of time to write final letters or notes or poems or anything else, so there is no hurried scribbling.

There are no maudlin farewells and forgivenesses or confessions. No wailing or crying all day. No pronouncing curses, no swearing, no angry outbursts, no complaints about unfairness or innocence. Generally, no conversations except perhaps with a priest or other religious figure.

While every person approaches his execution in his own way, people generally are stoic about it. Some read a Bible or other holy book. Some pray, generally silently. No one tries to be humorous or heroic or memorable. They just wait, patiently, for the end to approach.

There are of course the B-movie depictions of prisoners led to their death screaming or crying or begging, or of people passing out or going limp and having to be dragged. All of that, I have been told by those who watch prisoners go to their death, is Hollywood hokum. People on Death Row have had plenty of time to adjust to their upcoming death, and for many it is something of a relief that the waiting is almost over.

One might suppose that an inmate who has committed very severe or very many crimes, and who believes in Heaven and Hell, would be fearful of his approaching punishment. Evidently that is not so. Consider, as we have all seen, the officers about to be hanged for war crimes, or the director of the Auschwitz concentration camp on the gallows. Those men all were cooperative and stoic and silent, allowing themselves to be executed without resistance or objection. So it is, I am told, for even the most extreme criminals in prison.

And yes, I have read the stories about John Wayne Gacy crying like a baby before his execution. But that is an urban myth. He was unrepentant, to the very last. His actual execution (by lethal injection) was botched, by a clogged tube, delaying the procedure by at least ten minutes. Gary made no objections, but waited quietly for the procedure to be re-started. Instead of crying, his last words were “Kiss my ass”.

“They say” are the opening words of many stories of condemned men swearing at guards, fighting or resisting, breaking down emotionally, vomiting, soiling their pants (though they actually are wearing adult diapers), and other dramatic acts near the end. Impressive Gee Whiz tales, but all untrue. When they know that all the fights and appeals and requests for clemency are all over, they just wait quietly for their turn to die.

Death row inmate chooses to be executed by firing squad over the electric chair

A man sentenced to death in South Carolina has chosen to be executed by firing squad rather than the electric chair, which would make him the first death row inmate to die by firing squad in the state.

Richard Bernard Moore, 57, would also be the first person executed in South Carolina in more than a decade, as the state has struggled to procure the drugs required to perform lethal injection.

Moore, who was sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of a convenience store clerk, is set to be executed on April 29.

In a court filing Friday, Moore chose to die by firing squad but added in a statement he will not lose hope in two pending court challenges to the constitutionality of the state's death penalty methods.

"I believe this election is forcing me to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and I do not intend to waive any challenges to electrocution or firing squad by making an election," he said in the statement.

He did not have the option of choosing lethal injection, as South Carolina does not have the necessary drugs, according to the filing. The department previously told CNN the state has not been in possession of a usable dose of lethal injection drugs since 2013.

Lindsey Vann, one of Moore's attorneys, told CNN Friday they have asked the state Supreme Court to put the execution on hold in order to give them time to appeal his conviction to the US Supreme Court.

Last year, the South Carolina legislature passed a law which made electrocution the state's primary execution method, though death row prisoners have the option to choose a firing squad or lethal injection instead if the options are available.

On April 6, the South Carolina Supreme Court denied an appeal by Moore which argued his death sentence was disproportionate to penalties imposed in similar cases.

Moore's attorneys previously filed for a stay of his execution in 2020, arguing the state was trying to carry out his execution under a "veil of secrecy midst a global pandemic" and pointing to other states who have delayed executions due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was denied.

South Carolina is one of four states, including Oklahoma, Mississippi and Utah, allowing executions by firing squad.

Reasons why the Germans Shoot Female Russian Soldiers on Sight

Stories about military history often focus on battlefield tactics and strategy. When they do focus on people, it is usually on a male soldier. However, during WWII, the Germans often executed female soldiers on sight.

This is doubly amazing because it suggests women were a significant part of the fighting forces and that they provoked a visceral reaction from the Germans who captured them.

Ancient battlefields were often just outside their city walls, and rulers formed armies composed of people who were normally peace-time farmers.

With limited manpower, the bulk of the conscripts were needed for fighting. The remaining camp followers transported supplies, prepared the food, and performed other non-combat functions in order to

maximize the availability of men for combat.

Soviet soldiers of the Eastern Front during a short rest after fighting, 1 April 1944.

The lack of weapons and armor for camp followers allowed them to carry more supplies than the soldiers, thus extending the operating range. It also sped up the march to their destination. Based on rough estimates from other ancient armies, it has been concluded that non-combatants constituted roughly 33% to 50% of the army. It is assumed that these additional women and children allowed the maximum number of soldiers to perform

military tasks, such as scouting or building and manning city walls. But when the army was defeated or attacked in their camps or cities, the women often became easy victims or active participants in battle.

Soviet women in wWI: 588th Night Bomber regiment. In crusader cities under siege, women were recorded as manning the wall with a pot as a helmet. Some scholars suggest the strange headgear highlighted the otherness of women fighting in a traditionally male domain.

The women nornmally filled the role of water carrier and additionally boosted morale. Ancient Greek women and slaves would hurl stones and boiling water to kill invading soldiers. Again, note the nontraditional

weapons.

The women present in crusading camps often faced the enemy when the army was defeated and fled. One account includes a camp follower killing a soldier with a knife. A Muslim victim being killed by a woman was

used by writers to make the enemy seem less manly, with the knife implying a cooking instrument rather than a weapon.

The rise of total warfare often blurred the lines even further. Sherman's march to the sea attacked the population that supported secession as well as the army fighting for it. Airpower theorists like Billy Mitchell and Giulio Douhet promised that these strikes at the population would undermine morale and become such a horror that they could easily win the wars. Their theories didn't pan out

as nations developed defenses against air attacks.

This environment of partisan warfare behind the lines, massive armored warfare, and desperate loss on the front lines resulted in the women of the Soviet Union volunteering in huge numbers. The Soviet government

itself treated women differently by promoting the image of the "martyr heroine" in Russian propaganda.

The Germans also had propagandist views of women that were almost the inverse of the Soviet "martyr

heroine." The Russians viewed women as heroically defending the motherland. In contrast, the Germans

had rather simplistic views of women with a virgin/whore dichotomy.

Language itself was further used to delegitimize them. They were called Flintenweiber, or "rifle broad" instead

of Soldatinnen, "female soldier"

The women deemed Flintenweiber ended up on the wrong side of the virgin/whore dichotomy by taking ug

the activity of soldiering, wearing a uniform, and fighting in the field. Their very existence was a violation of a traditionally male purview

Reasons why execution by hanging still exist

Because it works and it is not complicated to do. All you need is a strong enough rope and a strong enough support to hang it from - no more technology than that. No drugs or gas the supplier can cut off the supply of, no high-voltage electric generator, no guns, just a simple rope.

It also happens to be a very quick method if done by the measured long drop. This was invented in the UK. If the rope is too short, the prisoner strangles slowly, and if it is too long, there is the risk of ripping his head off. So the key point with this is to calculate the right length of drop according to the prisoner’s weight. Get this right (and British executioners were good at doing the sums) and the prisoner dies almost instantly of the hangman’s fracture - fracture of the second and third cervical vertebrae, which will also cut the spinal cord. The normal range of drops is between five and eight feet - a heavier prisoner needs a shorter drop as his own weight does more of the work in creating the breaking force.

In British practice, the two executioners (who were trained for the purpose) would arrive at the prison the previous day to get the prisoner’s weight, determine the correct length of rope, soak the rope in water, set up the gallows for the correct length of drop and leave the rope hanging overnight with a sandbag hanging on the end to take the stretch out of it. Next morning, the sandbag was removed and the rope readjusted, coiled up and tied with a thread so the noose is hanging at head height. At the appointed time, the executioners entered the condemned cell next to the gallows chamber, the bookcase hiding the connecting door was pushed aside, the prisoner’s arms were strapped to his sides and he was marched through to stand in the gallows chamber directly below the suspension point of the rope. At this point he is standing on a trapdoor. The second executioner strapped his ankles together while the no. 1 executioner hooded and noosed him. Quick look round to ensure nobody is standing on the trap except the prisoner, the no. 1 pulls the lever, the trap opens, the prisoner falls into the room below, and the jerk as the rope reaches full length breaks his neck. The body was then left hanging for an hour to ensure death, though done right he was probably dead almost instantly.

From the prisoner’s point of view, the whole process took less than ten seconds. Possibly the best portrayal of this on film is in 10 Rillington Place. The renowned executioner Albert Pierrepoint advised on the film and made sure it was shown correctly.

Thus the UK’s abolition of the death penalty debates were never about the method. It was a good method. The question was whether it is ever right to execute people, and eventually we decided it isn’t.

Reasons Why the Nazis send Jews to the concentration camps and not just kill them on the spot

I know a lot of Jews were shot and killed in their homes and on the streets but there is also a large majority of them that got sent to the camps. Why go through all that trouble if they were going to be killed anyways? I know Nazis used the Jews as a slave labour force too but did they also pull women and children into slavery too? Because if they didn’t, then I don’t see why the Nazis wouldn’t have just shot them outright.

Feel like I need to declare that I’m not a holocaust denier nor a Neo-Nazi, just genuinely curious why the Nazis chose to commit genocide the way they did.

Two reasons

First, maintaining cooperation. They gradually moved the Jews out of their homes to concentration camps and the Jews complied. If they just started shooting them the Jews would flee or fight back.

Second, because it was too hard on the people doing the killing. The Germans had mobile death squads at the start of the war. When they seized land in Eastern Europe they would have villages line up beside the train tracks and then shoot them all with machine guns from the trains.

Massacring civilians like that in cold blood caused severe trauma to the German troops involved. So they needed to find a way of doing it that had less impact on the soldiers.

Child kidnapper' jumps off balcony onto car roof - and right into the clutches of angry crowd armed with sticks

'Child kidnapper' jumps off balcony onto car roof - and right into the clutches of angry crowd armed with sticks

Watch The Video

Out of the frying pan into the fire - man made jump for it after the child's mother snatched daughter back but could only land right in front of furious armed gang An alleged child kidnapper jumped off an apartment block balcony and landing on a car roof in a dramatic moment which was caught on camera. But even then his getaway was thwarted when he ran into a group of waiting neighbours, all armed with sticks. The man, from Foshan in China's Guangdong Province, has been accused of attempting to snatch a six-year-old girl from the building. It is believed that the girl's mother noticed him in the corridor of the residential building as he tried to grab the child.

The girl's mother immediately fought off the suspected kidnapper and took her child back. During the incident, she managed to capture the attention of the neighbours by shouting and screaming for help. According to CCTV News, after hearing the woman's cries, neighbours shut off the front door to the building to prevent the man from escaping.

The suspect then headed up to the roof where he attempted to climb back down to ground level. After reaching a second floor balcony, the man launched himself onto the roof of a car. But he wasn't quick enough to outsmart the neighbours, who were waiting at the bottom to beat him with sticks. Police arrived soon after and detained the man. His family have claimed the suspect has a mental illness. Investigations are still ongoing, according to local media

How the process of an execution by gas chamber, in the U.S., looks like

I wasn’t a pleasant way to die. It had to be very emotional and stressful despite an inmate waiting for the execution for a long time. First, the inmate was sent to have a shower. After the shover he got the clothes. In the past, they often gave a white shirt , black pants to men and a skirt to women. But in the modern era, were inmates executed in a one colour prison uniform. The inmate could have his last call, last meal, and write a goodbye letter. According to many resources, they probably didn’t give to the inmate any shoes after the shower. That’s because inmates in a gas chamber were executed barefooted.

So he had to go the whole way from the cell to the gas chamber without shoes so they often put a carpet on the floor to don’t let the inmate walk on cold concrete as he had bare feet. When they entered the gas chamber, guards strapped the inmate to the chair and asked him to say his last words. Then they asked him if he wanted to cover his eyes. If yes, they covered them. After this, guards left the gas chamber and turned on a poison gas. Inmates were requested to take a deep breath to make the execution fast. Unfortunately, the gas made incredible pain, so it was very common that inmates' bodies shake. After he died, guards took his body from the chair and took off all his clothes. They washed settled gas from his feet and took the body from the gas chamber strapped on a board. After this was the execution over, and the inmate could be buried.

To know some more details, check this video. There are some parts about gas chamber execution:

Reasons why capital punishment was removed from the UK

At one point the United Kingdom had no less than 220 crimes that were punishable by death, and included such monstrous behavior as "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age," "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime," and theft of any object worth more than 12 pence. The law in question was called the Bloody Code. Most of this had to do with the wealthy trying to deter crimes against property, although I'm not sure how executing children for "strong evidence of malice" was supposed to help anything.

Anyway, in time people got sick of it, and Europeans in general were especially sick of executions after the Second World War, when vast numbers of people were legally murdered by the Nazis. In 1950 a Welshman named Timothy Evans was tried and hanged for the murder of his wife and baby daughter, and in 1953 evidence emerged that he almost certainly did not do it (he lived upstairs from the serial killer John Christie, the likely culprit), and this case helped to turn public opinion against capital punishment. Another similar case at the same time strengthened the national sense of revulsion. The number of things for which you could be executed in the UK was reduced and reduced until nothing was left but treason and piracy, and eventually the country dropped those too.

Today the death penalty is banned by the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a party.

The death penalty degrades everyone and everything associated with it. If misapplied in error, as in the Evans case, it cannot be remedied, and it is either absurdly naive or outrageously arrogant to assume that a judicial system cannot sentence anyone to death in error. The effort necessary to avoid those errors is expensive. If the goal is to remove a dangerous person from society, there are cheaper and easier ways to accomplish the same thing. If the goal is to exact retribution, then we simply descend to the barbarism of earlier years. Today, along with most of the world, the UK recognizes that this medieval practice belongs in the dustbin of history.

The horrific execution of Clayton Lockett by lethal injection this spring in Oklahoma took an astonishing 43 minutes to complete

The horrific execution of Clayton Lockett by lethal injection this spring in Oklahoma took an astonishing 43 minutes to complete. Together with other botched killings, the incident has focused attention on the inexperience and incompetence that now accompanies many executions in America.

"After he died, an autopsy showed potentially toxic levels of the drug in his system, suggesting he also attempted an overdose before he was executed."

So he might have done this to himself with the drug reaction issue. Who knows if it would have been this bad if he hadn't attempted to OD first.

But if you read about what he did to that girl, he deserved every second of that agony. He buried a girl alive for shit's sake!

Guillotines have moving parts and require mechanical maintenance and lubrication (plenty of failed beheading by guillotine in France when it was in vogue), they're also needlessly bloody when a bag of nitrogen accomplishes the same goal.

Reasons why death row prisoners executed at Midnight

I used to wonder why executions were held at or as close to midnight on the date of the death warrant. I did some research awhile back and spoke to several corrections officers and one warden.

Executions are very difficult emotionally on prison personnel and the other prisoners in general. They have had time to get to know these people up close and personal—not about their crimes, but their wives, children and family. In short, they have become humanized waiting for their sentences to be carried out and they will be taking part in ending their lives. During the late hours, the prison is quieter, other prisoners are asleep and locked down. A “rehearsal” is conducted the day before an execution so each person will know his or her role in the process. It is a very sad state of affairs when a life is taken after having known the person for years on end.

When a woman is in the holding cell, it is doubly difficult for the prison. If you recall the woman in Texas may years ago who found Jesus as her savior long before her execution date arrived. She was guilty of the crime, but was no longer the person she was when she committed the crime. It is easier for the person being executed as well as the prison staff to conduct executions during the quietest part of the day—between Midnight and 1:00am. I was allowed to witness an execution in Georgia where the convict was on death row for 35 years.

He was still the monster he was when he committed one of the most heinous crimes in Georgia history by killing an entire family in Seminole County, Georgia with several accomplices. He truly deserved his fate, but I was affected by this experience for many years. It was difficult to watch, but having to participate in the actual killing of another human being was not easy on the warden or his deputies. Still, it was a lot less stressful at Midnight than it would have been at 12 Noon. It isn’t easy to watch another human being die by lethal injection, let alone the electric chair. It haunts me still today

Reasons why France use the guillotine as a method of capital punishment

Originally? Because it was the most painless way to kill someone. The inventor, Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, was very clear about his intention to botched and painful executions.

In an era before firearms and pharmaceutical solutions, the quickest way to execute someone was to chop of their head. That, itself, was a nod to civility, as the alternative was something like hanging (which could result in slow strangulation) or other methods that were actually intended to be as long and painful as possible. Beheading might look gruesome, but it’s definitive and it’s quick. (People still argue over whether it’s actually painless or not, but it was clearly as quick a method as they had).

The problem was, you were depending on the skill of the headsman. Taking off someone’s head with a single blow is very difficult, and it wasn’t uncommon for executions to require more than one hit, and end up being unnecessarily traumatic for the condemned.

Now, in modern times, many people would take that as a reason to eliminate capital punishment. In the 18th century, the idea of not executing murderers would have bee considered shocking. But Guillotin was convinced it could be done better, and so invented a machine that would do it, consistently, effectively, and in a single blow every single time. Because it was so effective for this purpose, it was widely adopted.

As for why they continued to use it, the fact is, there are other methods that look cleaner, but none were implemented that were clearly more humane, and certainly none that were more effective. France officially abolished the death penalty in 1981, but their last execution (in 1977) was still by guillotine. What were the alternatives at that point? America, by then, was using the electric chair and the gas chamber, but both were relatively complicated methods which could be (and were) botched, resulting in a gruesome and painful death. 1977 was the same year that execution by lethal injection was first proposed in the US, but even if it had been an established method, it’s once again complex, with a lot of open questions (then and now) about how reliable and painless it actually is.

Bluntly, if you’ve determined that it’s appropriate to kill a human being, I respect the guillotine as a method, because it doesn’t try to hide from the reality. I mean, it’s messier than most methods, and makes an open casket funeral difficult, but it’s efficient, reliable, and likely to be as painless than any other method we’re likely to develop. If we’re unwilling to cut a person’s head off, maybe we should be unwilling to kill them in the first place.j