Rockingham post-dispatch. [volume] (Rockingham, N.C.) 1917-1965, 1922-09-21
Double Electrocution.
Continued from Front Page)

AQouAtudS6 AtStth G0St
ent at number of hangings, he,
when a lad, driving 40 miles to
Carthage to see a man hung.
The following account of the dou-
BILE electrocution is copied from the
Raleigh News and Observer of Sep
tember 10Th and gives the story in
full:
Mute and blinded by overpower-
ing fear, neither seeing the imple-
ment that snuffed the life out of
them nor uttering a syllable, Angus
Murphy and Jasper Thomas, both
negroes, sat down to death in the
electric chair at the States Prison
Friday morning and paid to the
last drop the laws judgment for
criminal assault ON white woman.
Seventy-two people, including four
women members of the nursing
staff at Rex Hospital, saw the going
of Angus Murphy and u others
were brought in to witness the
execution of Jasper Thomas. The
women stayed through both execu-
\ tions. Outside the prison gate a
. crowd of several hundred people
vainly sought admission.
Fifty-Ninth To Die.
No man among the SO who have
died in the chair since it was in.
stalled in March, 1910, died with
more oblivion to the thing that was
about to be done to them than did
these two negroes who went out
Friday morning. Murphy seemed
dead already when he was dragged
{ into the death chamber with his
eyes and his lips tightly closed.
Thomas moved his hands slightly
until the mighty current arrested
y their motion in mid-air.
Each of the negroes was accompa-
MED through the door to the cham,
Der by minister of his own color,
and there read Psalms in sonorous
voices while the trappings of death
were buckled around men who
were about to die. Neither seemed
to hear, neither gave the slightest
heed. Not even did their flesh
finch when the deadly electrodes
were fastened totheir legs and the
cap and straps fitted over their
shaven skulls.
Great Crowd Gathsrs
An hour and a half before the
execution hundred people were
waiting before the gates of the
prison, some of them with tickets
that might admit them to the death
4 chamber, and others hoping that
something might happen that would
allow them to pass within the gates,
Ten o'clock found the crowd grown
to several hundred The tops OF
box cars parked along inc prison
wall were covered with men and
boys.
None were allowed TO enter the
prison grounds, save some few who
had official connection with the ex-
ecution presently to take place. AT
10 O'clock an automobile with the
four women spectators crept slowly
Through the throng. 1t was allowed
TO enter. A moment later the "a
men nearest the gate were passed
through, and all Of them who were
able to run, made for the outer door
OF the death chamber in dead run.
Then the door was opened, and
the first u poured through the door,
but first lane was opened for the
I four women to pass in. These wo-
men stood against the chain barrier
that separates the crowd from the
chair, not four feet away. They
stood there while the crowd eddied
around them, and smiling assured
Warden Busbee that they would be
all right there; that they didn't
need to stand back against the wall.
II was a nervous crowd, gripped
BY a1tension that found outlet
through suppressed laughter at any
thing that anybody might say.
Some few Of the men smoked, and
stie ulainitiated ii such matters ask.
81 nervous questions Of anybody
who apnenad to be standing near
lsein TIE women steQd quietly