The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-08-12
All the Victims Had Been Con
Yicted of Murder.
Time, HOUR and 16 MINUTES
One Man Faints as Straps Are
Being Adjusted.
Another KneeIs in Prayer Be-
side the Electric Chair.

Ossinfng. n. J., Aug. 12.-Seven muir
derers were taken from their cells in
Sing Sing prison today and put
to death in the electric chair. This
is the largest number to suffer the
death penalty by electricity on one day
since the electric chair was adopted.
Six italians and one negro went TO
their death quietly and the executions
we're accomplished within an hour and
sixteen minutes. The condemned were
executed in the following order:
John w. Collins, Lorenzo l. Cali,
Salvatore de Marco, Filepo de Marco,
Angelo Giusto Vincenzo Coma and Jose
Ferrone.
Prison guards expected that Ferrone
might put up a fight on his way to the
execution chamber, but he walked
neekly to the chair.
Coma tainted as the straps were being
adjusted. He walked to the chair
white faced and trembling and as he
kissed the crucifiX when the straps
were being placed about his body he
fell over limp in a dead faint.
All the prisoners except Collins walk
ell into the death chamber protesting
their innocence.
Collins came in smiling and seem
ingly happy and did not deny his guilt
He prayed on his knees at the chair
for a minute before he was executed.
Marcos were convicted of the murder
of Mrs. Mary Hall, wife of Henry Hall.
a superintendent of cOnStruo ion on the
CrontOn aqueduct in a lonely farm
house at Griffen Corners in Westches-
ter county on November 8, 1911. Santa
Zanza the sixth member of the band of
assassins was electrocutted July 8,
after he had confessed in letter to
Governor Dix that he stabbed Mrs.
Hall to death. The others were con-
-
The men gained access to the house
Oh the pretext of buying milk.
One Negro.
John w. Collins, d young Florida
negro, shot and killed Michael Lynch,
a New York policeman. on the morn
ing of July l, 1911. Collins had been
drinking and fired a revolver out of
the window of his apartment in the
section of New York known as HeH's
Kitchen. Officer Lynch heard the
shooting and went to investigate.
When he knocked at the door Collins
opened it and fired. He appealed to
Governor Dix to commute his sentence
to life imprisonment, claiming he was
so intoxicated at the time that he was
unaware of what he was doing and
asserting that he had never known the
officer. The governor refused to in
terfere.
Jose Ferone killed is wife Kate in
New York city on October "a, 1911.
Mrs Ferone had refused to live with
her husband because of II treatment,
she claimed, but she was induced to
return from Philadelphia where she
was living a few days before the crime
was committed on Ferones plea that
their child was ill in a hospital.
Friends endeavored unsuccessfuIly to
bring about a reconciliation and the
murder followed The woman's body
with her throat SLASH ed was found in
the street. When convicted Ferone
attacked juryman and attempted to
kill himself by cutting his throat with
q piece of broken watch crystal. When
taken before Judge Foster for SEN
tence the murderer's hanuo and feet
werH shackled to prevent further vio-
lence- On the way to the death house
at Sing Sing Ferone p-ade second at
tempt at suicide by trying to swallow
jagged piece of tin.