Last Words Of: James French, convicted murderer

James French was already serving a life sentence in an Ohio prison in 1966 when he began to realize that life is a really long time. Unwilling to complete his sentence and reportedly scared of suicide, he did the only logical thing: kill his cell mate in an effort to convince the state to execute him.

These were his final words as being strapped into the electric chair.

Last Words Of: Giles Corey, farmer and accused witch, while being crushed with stones

According to colonial law, a person who refused to plead innocent or guilty of a crime could not be tried. This was particularly vexing to the courts when they had people accused of witchcraft, since they weren’t going to torch themselves.

Their remedy for this was “peine forte et dure”, the process where the accused was slowly compacted by rocks until a plea was entered. “Tough love” was pretty new back then and clearly had some refining left. Giles Corey, knowing he wouldn’t be afforded a fair trial, challenged every plea request with the above “More weight,” as in, “add more stones.” He did this literally down to his last breath. Read the rest of this entry »