MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL The Story of the Rope and the Thunderbolt

Hardback. The last moments of 171 convicted killers who paid the ultimate price. At the time of publication there were 2,547 condemned killers on Death Row in US prisons. In this unique and powerful book, the author focuses on one particular county, Cook, in Illinois, where 171 killers were put to death before Chicago retired its electric chair and turned the task over to the state. What Baumann found and reports will stimulate discussion on the controversial death penalty in force in many USA states. Without taking a position, the author takes the reader up the steps to the gallows, or along the infamous "last mile" to the chair, with each of these convicted killers, some frightened and forlorn, some defiant and brave. Here are the last words these condemned men uttered before the trap door fell or the current was turned on. The author, who attended every execution in Cook County during nearly four decades of newspaper reporting, discloses the bizarre confession Vincent Ciucci made to him and other reporters just moments before 1,900 bonecracking volts coursed through his body. He introduces the reader to 34yr. old John Stone, the central figure in Chicago's first legal execution, whose public hanging in 1840 was carried off with all the hoo-rah and trappings of a festive holiday in the young prairie town. Other chapters tell of the last moments of the "Italian stranglers" in the county's first triple execution; the hanging of the Haymarket rioters; the agonising death of George Painter; the story of Dan Francis, who gleefully declared from the gallows, "I would not change places with John D. Rockfeller," and how Buff Higgins got his dying wish. The book includes an essay by Governor Mario Cuomo of New York in opposition to the death penalty and one supporting it by author and philosopher George Murray. Illus., Bibliog. and Index. 495pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in Nr. F. dw. A heavy book which will require additional postage, both domestic and overseas.