The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New York dentist, conceived this execution method in 1881. It was developed over the next decade as a more humane alternative to conventional executions, particularly hanging. First used in 1890, the electric chair became symbolic of this execution method.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Ohio, although all executions have been suspended indefinitely by Governor Mike DeWine until a replacement for lethal injection is chosen by the Ohio General Assembly. The last execution in the state was in July 2018, when Robert J. Van Hook was executed via lethal injection for murder.
Old Sparky is the nickname of the electric chairs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Old Smokey is the nickname of the electric chairs used in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. "Old Sparky" is sometimes used to refer to electric chairs in general, and not one of a specific state.
Willie Francis was an American teenager known for surviving a failed execution by electrocution in the United States. He was a convicted juvenile sentenced to death at age 16 by the state of Louisiana in 1945 for the murder of Andrew Thomas, a pharmacy owner in St. Martinville who had once employed him. In the modern day, Francis's guilt has been disputed. He was 17 when he survived the first attempt to execute him, as the chair malfunctioned. After an appeal of his case taken to the Supreme Court of the United States failed, he was executed in 1947 at age 18.
John Arthur Spenkelink was an American convicted murderer. He was executed in 1979, the first convicted criminal to be executed in Florida after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, and the second in the United States.
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. Before his convictions for murder, Gaskins had a long history of criminal activities resulting in prison sentences for assault, burglary, and statutory rape. His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins' home in Prospect, South Carolina.
George Dale was the lover and criminal partner of Eleanor Jarman, dubbed by the press "The Blonde Tigress". Dale was executed by the state of Illinois in 1934 for the murder of Chicago clothier Gustav Hoeh, which he committed with Jarman and another criminal associate, Leo Minnici, acting as his accomplices.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
David Joseph Watson was a member of the United States Navy who was executed by the U.S. government for a murder committed on the high seas. Watson was convicted of the murder of Benjamin Leroy Hobbs, a fellow seaman, aboard a U.S. naval ship that was docked in Florida. After two trials, Watson was executed in Florida's electric chair, since, at the time, federal death row inmates were executed in the state where they committed their offense, by the primary method of execution prescribed in that state. Watson was the third inmate executed on a federal death warrant under President Harry S. Truman, as well as the second executed in Florida.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Dakota.
John Rooney was an American convicted murderer who was the last person executed by North Dakota.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Carolina.
Winford LaVern Stokes Jr. was an American criminal and serial killer. He murdered three people, for which he was sentenced to death and subsequently executed in 1990.
Chester Allan Poage was an American man who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by three men in Spearfish, South Dakota, on March 13, 2000. Elijah Page, Briley Piper, and Darrell Hoadley were convicted of the torture and murder of Poage. Page and Piper were sentenced to death, while Hoadley was sentenced to life in prison. Page was executed by lethal injection on July 11, 2007, becoming the first person to be executed in South Dakota since 1947. Piper remains on death row and is the only person left on death row in South Dakota.
Asbury Respus was an American serial killer who confessed to at least eight murders throughout North Carolina and Virginia in the early 20th century. Respus was not a suspect in most of the murders he committed until he gave a lengthy confession during his trial for the murder of 9-year-old Vera Leonard, the murder for which he would be executed. Respus's victim profile was particularly unique in that his victims were not of a particular age or racial group, as four were white, four were black, two were children, and one was over 80 years old. Respus was executed in the electric chair at the Central Prison in Raleigh in 1932.
Edward Dean Kennedy was an American murderer who was executed for the murders of Florida state trooper Robert McDermon and McDermon's cousin Floyd Cone. The killings occurred just hours after Kennedy escaped from the Union Correctional Institution, where he was serving a life sentence for murder. Kennedy was sentenced to death for the murders of McDermon and Cone and was executed by the electric chair.
James Morelli was a gangster based in Chicago, Illinois, who was executed for participating alongside gangsters Thomas Daley and Lowell Fentress in the mass murder of three people. Several newspapers called the killings the "Mad Dog" murders. Although Morelli participated in three murders, he was only sentenced to death for the murder of one of the victims, 30-year-old Emil Schmeichel. Some reporters described Morelli's crime as "the worst Chicago mass killing since the Saint Valentine's Day massacre."
Herbert L. Copeland was an American murderer and self-confessed serial killer who was tried, sentenced to death and executed for killing two deputies and a police officer in the District of Columbia in 1918. Moments before being executed, Copeland confessed that he had killed 12 people in various states throughout his lifetime, but none of these could be definitively proven.
