Brief History Of Mass. Capital Punishment
By EMILY HOPKINS
12:53 AM SAT OCTOBER 31, 2015
... In 1726, infamous pirate chief William Fly was brought to Boston and executed. His body was then gibbeted hung by chains on Nixes Mate as a warning to other sailors not to turn to piracy. Fly is remembered for having berated his undertaker for tying his noose incorrectly. Fly famously removed the noose, retied it, and then put it back on his own neck ...
... On April 15, 1920, as is commemorated by this plaque in Braintree, two men were murdered in an armed robbery. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchists living in Boston, were convicted of the murders in a lengthy trial that drew international attention. Despite pleas and protests from thousands and multiple attempts to appeal (all of which were denied), the pair of radicals were sent to the electric chair ... Over 10,000 people viewed their bodies over the course of a two day funeral ...
The prison was built during the 1800s and housed thousands of prisoners before being shut down in 1955. Before its closure, the prison witnessed the last execution to be carried out in Massachusetts. Phillip Bellino and Edward Gertson, two gangsters who were convicted of murdering a former U.S. Marine, were executed by electric chair ... Four years later, Massachusetts restricted the death penalty ... The death penalty was then abolished in the state in 1984 ...
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