The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1909-03-23
Frederick Lang, Last VIC
tim. Of Moose, Hanged
at Middlesex Today.
HANGMAN VAN HISE PULLS
HEMP THAT ENDS ALL
Father of Girl That Was Mur-
dersd Is a Witness to
Execution.
KILLED SWEETHEART
NEARLY 8 YEARS AGO
Neck Was Not Broken, But He
Was Strangled to
Death.
TYronl a staff Correspondent. ]


passing Of the hangman and his moose
from the criminal history of New Jer-
sey was marked here today by the
execution of Frederick Lpns, who
killed his sweetheart three years ago.
John Gordon. the murdered girls faith
Ell, saw her slayer die.
Lang was led from his cell in the
county jail at $40 a m. The moose and
bIsck-cap were quickly adjusted.
At 9.42 Hangnan Van Hise pulled
the rope which released the great iron
weights. For eight minutes the mur-
derer's body dangIed in the air, then
it was lowered that the physicians
might examine it.
Lang was dead; there was no ques-
tion of that His neck had not been
broken. He had been suffocated, but
tie doctors took no chance.
Hung Ten Minutes.
FOR ten more minutes the body was
permitted To hang, the feet a few
i1cnes from the floor, then twas low
cred into the casket. the snap on the
rope from the moose released from the
great iron ring at the end Of the heavy
rope ana AdllS was FiCHouio'u escsDu7
legally dead.
There were those sinister features
about this last legal hanging n New
Jersey Which kept back from any Of
the thirty witnesses of the execution,
with the possible exception of Hang
man Van Hise, who saw his occupation
gone, and John Gordon, who was preju-
diced, any tiAge of regret that it was
the last
Twenty.four of these witnesses We're
the Jurors who sat IN the Judgment
upon Lang. They knew he had killed
young girl in cold blood, they knew
all the cruel circumstances.
Girls Father Glad.
~ ,vps glad to watch this execution
from the beginning to- the end" John
Gordon said when it was over; "very
gicd rhis man killed my daughter,
ond she ,vas only 1S. Every father
will excuse my fecHngs.A They were
not unnatural. j could not have pre-
vented them III ] would; would not il
+ could. I am not ashamed of them"
On April 20, 1906, Lang. then % years
old. shot and killed Kate Gordon, Is
years old. II was said she had refused
to marry him. Her younger sisters
Mary and Rose. witnessed the murder.
John Gordon her father, heard the four
shots, ran into the road and pursued
Lang, who escaped. On June 8, 1905
Lang was captured.
He WIS tried, convicted and sentenced
to hang. His lawyers secured stay.
For two years the sentence was fought
in the courts, and 1t was not until a
week ago it was finally decided that he
r,,tef lie bu 1,apoinr
Laws Changed In Interim.
In the interval between his first con-
viction and this last decree the criminal
laws of New Jersey had been so
changed that death on the scaffold had
been relegated to the barbarous past.
But Lang had been sentenced to hang
by his neck until he was dead, and the
sentence stood.
Lang spent a sleepless night. Still he
was composed. Part of the time Father
j. N. Szeneczey was with him. The
condemned man did not openly espouse
the Catholic faith, but he said he hoped
to he saved.
Smoked Last Cigar.
This morning when Sheriff William H,
Quackenboss visited his cell at an early
hour he found the man with death a
lew hours in front of him smoking a
cigar.
"f am moi feeling very welI," said
Lang TO the sheriff, 81 have a head
ache. But l am rcndy, will not finch
when the time comes.
At $3.50 the twenty-four jurors, four
newspaper men and two assistant hang
men were admitted to the prison shop.
1t is q low one-story building; its walls