Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1926-04-08
GERALD CHAPMAN
HANGED TUESDAY
Notorious Murderer Met Death Calm
ly, With Only Few People Wit
Messing the Execution

etiH.fStbelu, Ionn-, April D.
Gerald Chapman, notorious, bandit.
was hanged at 1904 o'clock this
morning for the murder of New
Britain policeman.
Chapman walked to the blue chalk
circle on the floor of the death cham
ber in full strength. He looked
quietly around, his glance lingering
an instant on the closet in which the
mechanism of the hanging machine
was hidden.
Father Michael Barry entered the
chamber with Chapman. He did not
have crucifix.
A few minutes before Chapman's
neck was broken by the automatic
hanging machine the third reprieve
given him by Governor John H.
Trumbull to permit counsel to battle
n the courts for the mans life ex-
pired. The governor in final appeals
for still another reprieve refused to
grant ''even another hour" the
courts, federal and state, for lack of
evidence or legal reasons, having de-
clined to grant a new trial. Chap
mans hope for delay in execution,
waning as his counsel lost in the
courts, faded when the board Of par
dons rejected his application for COM
mutation to life Imprisonment.
In the death chamber were the
officials required by law, representa-
tives Of seven daily newspapers in
Hertford county, who under the law
were permissive witnesses, and three
persons, selected by the condemned
man.
Chapman walked from the death
cell to the death chamber, a distance
of about 10 feet, across narrow en-
try. In the death chamber guard
on either side of the moose, dangled
the end of new, well-stretched rope
which disappeared in the ceiling, the
unseen e..d being attached to the ma
chine which was not within sight of
the witnesses.
The witnesses and prison officials
passed into the death chamber. The
midnight hour had come and the re-
prieve was ended. The door was
closed. All except the parole clerk
and the warden passed by the dang
ling moose and took seats on benches
in the rear of the room, ten feet from
the rope, while the parole clerk and
the warden passing to the left stop
ped at metal coverlet into the floor
in the extreme left hand corner, their
figures masking plunger which pro-
truded from the cover much like an
automobile footbrakc.
1t required only a minute to seat
the witnesses. The chamber door
opened and Chapman with his arms
bound by leather strap, guard on
either side, walked in without stop
ping to look at the moose, five feet
from the door sill. A guard passed
a strap around his legs above the
knees and in almost simultaneous mo-
ton other guards slipped q black
satin cap over his head and the moose.
drawing the latter taut. A signal
was given, foot pressed the plunger,
noiselessly the slack of the rope was
taken UP and second jerk carried
Chapman straight upwards several
feet.
After brief interval the body
was lowered so that the feet were a
few inches from the floor. The pris-
on physician and medical examiner
rose from their seats and opening the
coat and shirt of the dead man ap-
piled their stethoscopes. When Chap
man had been officially pronounced
dead the chamber door opened again,
a man wheeled in an undertaker's
basket and the body was placed in it
anc removed to the room which
Chapman had left in life few min
utes before.