WORLD OF ALL

Lisa Marie Montgomery - the latest Federal execution in the USA. Soon after midnight on Wednesday January 13, 2021, 52 year old Lisa Montgomery became the first female inmate in 67 years to be executed by the US federal government.  The murder. 23 year old Bobbie Jo Stinnett was 8 months pregnant with her first child at the time of her murder in her home in the small town of Skidmore, Missouri.  Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett from behind with a rope and cut Stinnett's unborn child from her womb using a kitchen knife on December 16, 2004. The unharmed baby was safely recovered by police the following day.  Montgomery met Stinnett in an online Rat Terrier chatroom called "Ratter Chatter".  Montgomery told Stinnett that she, too, was pregnant. The two women began chatting online and exchanging e-mails about their pregnancies.  Montgomery used the name Darlene Fischer in these correspondences. Montgomery drove 175 miles from her home in Melv...

Perrie Dyon Simpson in North Carolina Perrie Dyon Simpson was executed by lethal injection at 2.00 a.m. on the morning Friday January 20th, 2006.  He received a lethal injection at Central Prison in Raleigh North Carolina and was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m.  In his final statement Simpson said "I want to say I am sorry for what I did, I'm sorry for the victim and the families. I'm sorry for my family.  I'm sorry for everybody." His last meal was a McRib sandwich from McDonald's, a double cheeseburger from Wendy's, macaroni and cheese, cheesecake, and a Pepsi, according to prison officials. 43 year old Simpson had been convicted of the 1984 murder of a retired minister in Reidsville, North Carolina.  His victim was 92 year old Jean E. Darter, who had been a Baptist preacher.   On August 26th, 1984, Mr. Darter had given food and $4 in cash to Simpson and his girlfriend, Stephanie Eury and allowed Simpson to use his telephone.   The couple returned ...

Charles Rodman Campbell - Washington State’s last hanging. At 12.08 a.m. on Friday May 27, 1994, the US State of Washington conducted its last execution by hanging at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla.  Charles Rodman Campbell, age 39, was put to death for the 1982 murders of two women and a child. He appealed his conviction and sentence for 12 years.  Campbell had a choice between hanging and lethal injection, but he refused to make that choice, so under state law at the time, hanging was the default method.  After this, in accordance with a law passed in 1996, the state turned to lethal injection as the default method, unless the defendant chooses hanging.  Campbell refused to cooperate with the execution. He had to be removed from his cell with pepper spray. It took prison officials 90 seconds to place a hood on his head and to fix the noose before the trap was opened.  Campbell was unable/refused to stand in the execution chamber so he was str...

Michael Richard - the last American execution until May 2008. A U.S. Supreme Court decision to review whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel failed to stop the execution of a Texas man as the high court allowed his punishment to be carried out. Michael Richard, 49, was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday the 25th of September 2007 within the Walls Unit at Huntsville Texas, using a combination of drugs that U.S. Supreme Court justices hours earlier decided they would examine after a challenge from two condemned inmates in Kentucky. Richard’s Texas Defender Service lawyers had gone to the court asking that lethal injection in Texas be halted and cited the Kentucky case (Baze v Rees) in their appeal.  However the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals closed at 5 p.m. on the day of the scheduled 6 p.m. execution, and Judge Sharon Keller refused to accept an appeal filed a few minutes after that time.   She came under heavy criticism for this action....

Michael James Perry  Michael James Perry was executed by lethal injection in the Walls Unit at Huntsville, Texas at 6pm. on the evening of Thursday July 1st, 2010 for the murder of 50 year old nurse, Sandra Stotler, at her home near Houston nine years earlier on October 24th, 2001 and stealing her red Chevrolet Camaro convertible. Perry had shot Sandra Stotler twice in the back with a 12 gauge shotgun, stolen her car and then, along with Jason Burkett, dumped her body in Montgomery County’s Crater Lake. They then returned to Stotler's Lake Conroe home to wait for her son, Adam Stotler.  Prosecutors said Perry and Burkett lured Adam Stotler, 16, and his friend Jeremy Richardson, 18, to a nearby wooded area, shot them dead and stole Adam Stotler's Isuzu Rodeo SUV. On Tuesday morning, October 30, 2001, a Montgomery County Sheriff’s corporal found Perry, Burkett, and another man in the stolen white Isuzu Rodeo at a truck stop.  The vehicle hit the corporal in the course of fl...

Charles Rodman Campbell - Washington State’s last hanging. At 12.08 a.m. on Friday May 27, 1994, the State of Washington conducted its last execution by hanging at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla.  Charles Rodman Campbell, age 39, was put to death for the 1982 murders of two women and a child. He appealed his conviction and sentence for 12 years.  Campbell had a choice between hanging and lethal injection, but he refused to make that choice, so under state law at the time, hanging was the default method.  After this, in accordance with a law passed in 1996, the state turned to lethal injection as the default method, unless the defendant chooses hanging.  Campbell refused to cooperate with the execution. He had to be removed from his cell with pepper spray. It took prison officials 90 seconds to place a hood on his head and to fix the noose before the trap was opened.  Campbell was unable/refused to stand in the execution chamber so he was strapp...

REMEMBER THE NOBLE, DIGNIFIED WOMEN OF 1916.    The mothers, daughters, sisters, wives of those who defended Ireland. Joseph Mary Plunkett and Grace Gifford were introduced by mutual friends in 1913. By 1915, Joseph proposed to Grace.   Grace and her sister Muriel (McDonagh) converted to Catholicism. Wedding plans were put on hold when Easter week was chosen for the Rising.  Plunkett was one of seven who signed the Proclamation.  He knew it would most likely lead to his execution if the rebellion failed. Sentenced to death by military court, authorities agreed to let Joseph marry Grace. Grace wasn’t informed of this until late afternoon 3rd May.  About 5:00pm on 3 May, she stopped at a jeweler’s shop just as the shop was closing to buy a wedding ring. At 1:30am, Joseph & Grace were married in Kilmainham Jail Chapel with soldiers as their witnesses. The wedding ceremony  was conducted by light of a single candle.  Twenty British soldiers s...

"Oh, Grace, just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger." Today we remember Grace Gifford Plunkett, who died #OnThisDay in 1955.  Grace was born in Dublin in March 1888, and as a young woman, studied art in both her home city and London. In 1915, she met Joseph Mary Plunkett and was soon engaged to be married.  Unknown to Grace, however, Joseph was a member of the Irish Volunteers and was involved in planning a rebellion in Dublin in 1916. When the Easter Rising came to an end, the rebel leaders, including Joseph, were imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol and subsequently sentenced to death.  When she heard that her fiancée was to be executed at dawn, she bought a ring, and persuaded the British authorities to allow a marriage to take place in the Gaol.  They were married on the night of May 3rd 1916, just a few hours before Joseph's execution by firing squad.  In the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, Grace became a key figure in the Republican movement, using her...

Two formper Ravensbrück concentration guards were hanged at Hameln prison in Germany on this day in 1948. They were Emma Zimmer and Ida Schreiter. Emma Anna Maria Zimmer was born Emma Mezel on the 14th of August 1888 at Haßmersheim in Germany. In 1938, she became an Aufseherin (guard) at Lichtenburg concentration camp at Prettin, near Wittenberg in Saxony, which housed female prisoners from 1937 to 1939, when they and she were transferred to the new camp at Ravensbrück.  In 1941 Zimmer selected mentally ill prisoners for euthanasia at the Bernberg Euthanasia Center, where they were gassed with carbon monoxide.   In October 1942 she became assistant camp leader (SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin) at Auschwitz II (Birkenau).  Normally Aufseherinnen had to retire at 45 but Zimmer was allowed to stay on until January 1945, when she was dismissed, either due to her age or her alcoholism. Zimmer was convicted of maltreating prisoners and making selections for the gas cham...

Ruth Closius - Nazi war criminal. Ruth Closius was born Ruth Hartmann in Breslau in Germany on the 5th of July, 1920. Growing up it is probable that she was influenced by the propaganda of Hitler’s National Socialist Party. Prior to going to work at Ravensbrück concentration camp she had worked as a wages clerk. Her first marriage was to a man named Neudeck, who had since died.  In some accounts she is called Ruth Closius-Neudeck, but there is no indication that she used that name.  Her second marriage was to a Herr. Closius.   In her signed (as Ruth Closius) deposition dated the 20th of April, 1948, she told British authorities that she was a widow.   She was conscripted to the staff of Ravensbrück on the 3rd of July, 1944 and worked there as an office clerk until November 1944.  On the 5th of January 1945 she became block leader in Block 27 and refused a post back in the office.   Five days later she transferred with five other Aufseherin t...