“Hanging is okay. It will clear up my debt.”

-Elton M. Stone, 1936

“The secret why I killed her, that will go to the grave between me and my God.”

-James Berry, 1897

“I’m going to commit a terrible crime tomorrow. I’m going to commit a tragedy that will shock the whole community.”

-Frank Belew, 1897

“I am not afraid to go to my finish. It is not courage, but fate.”

-Samuel Raber, 1915

“I’ve taken a life and I’ll give one, but don’t ever tell my wife.”

-Alex A. Kels, 1923

“Gentlemen, I am innocent and being railroaded from life.”

–Glenn Witt, on the scaffold, 1916

“The older a man gets, the worse he is, you know.”

-Mrs. Eva Bollinger, 1924
speaking of her husband’s victim

“The monkeys and parrots drove me crazy and I did not know what I was doing.”

-Aldrich Welsford Lutz, 1935
in defense of killing a man

“I am innocent. Please cut this noose into thirteen pieces and give one to each juror and the judge who convicted me.”

-Ray Arnold, on the scaffold, 1927

“I am not afraid. I am ready to go. Seems funny, though, that this is my last day on earth.”

-Charles Peevia, on the scaffold, 1926

“If I am hung, I’ll come back after I’m dead and get even with some of these people who have been prosecuting me.”

-Micheal Leahy, 1910

“It’s terrible. I don’t see how I can stand it. It’s torture. Why can’t I be hanged now, and have it over with?”

-Edward K. Sayer, 1927

“Won’t you look at the Scales of Justice and see how uneven they are—hear the cries to even them—to let me live.”

-William Henry Burkhart, 1930,
pleading for clemency

“There is no woman going to double cross me and get away with it.” 

-Thomas Walker, 1931