Latest / Beheaded / Getting Westinghoused: The Execution that Shocked America | William Kemmler

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Getting Westinghoused: The Execution that Shocked America | William Kemmler · Beheaded

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Beheaded.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to season seven, episode nine.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Megan Moore.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Elizabeth Black.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: We made it.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Six weeks later.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: We did say sometimes certain seasons take us longer to get through based on life events, and it's one of those seasons.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, where does it I don't know what anyone was talking about.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was just yesterday.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We were we just did the Carmelite Nun episode.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was just Easter.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you been?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you been?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um you have had life events though, so like kind of have a you know what?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a reason to take a little hiatus, there's really only two reasons that are good enough for any type of hiatus.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's the first one?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first one would be any type of surgery around the lips, the teeth, the neck, the tip of the tongue and the neck.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, yes, those.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The second would be an excursion to Europe.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: European travel.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: European travel.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: That trip snuck up on me.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had it planned for a while, but I feel like it just like arrived and it was wonderful.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It snuck up on me as well.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We never even like talked about it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Said where you just disappeared and you went to Europe.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, yeah.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was like a friend of mine actually might be moving to Europe soon.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we just like had this thing kind of planned together.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it was one of those, like, yeah, we'll just throw it on the calendar, we'll get to it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then it just like happened, and I was like, Yeah, I don't, I didn't really tell anyone about this.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even my work was like, What are you doing?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna be gone for like a week and a half.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Five different countries.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's fine.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, but we did a little European excursion.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: We started in the Netherlands, um, went down through Germany, did a little like Rhine River type of thing.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, went through Lucerne, Switzerland, which was my first time in Switzerland.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, maybe new favorite destination in Europe.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like obviously I love London and like all the historical sites, but just in terms of like sheer beauty of the countryside, like, oh my god, Switzerland, I can't speak highly enough.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we went through Lucerne, um, did like some alpine kind of adventures there, and then ended in Paris.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, yeah, it was just kind of like a whirlwind.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: We did so much, saw so much thing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish I had like more historical stuff to post.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I apologize for people that were like potentially looking for more like historical sites on my Instagram stuff, but uh it was it was fabulous.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Swiss Alps were beautiful.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those are historical, those are old.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're old.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want history?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Look at these.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: You went to Notre Dame, like I did, yeah, Paris.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: There were because like I hadn't been to Notre Dame since 2009 when I was in college.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that was pre-fire.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I I told, like, we were with this um the girl who was kind of in charge of our travel group, and I told her, I was like, I remember being so, and I have to look at pictures to confirm, but I remember it feeling so much darker in there and more medieval feeling.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and now like new Notre Dame, in my opinion, again, this is I've only been there twice pre and after the fire, but it was very bright and like airy, it felt lighter.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did you like that better, or do you like the dark gothic depends on my mood?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I liked it because it was different, but I didn't miss the like medieval feeling punch back of Notre Dame.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Esmeralda to be walking in the candlesticks, cry a little bit.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted a little more like, you know, like rugged mystery, and this was a little more bright in your face.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the end of the movie, not the beginning of the movie.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: The trials and tribulations here.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but yeah, I I should actually find my old pictures.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're literally all printed out.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't have any more digital photos of Notre Dame from 2009, but I should find my old photos and kind of compare them to new and maybe do side by sides or something because it was it was very different.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I was asking her, and she's she was about my age.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this was different, right?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like this felt different.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Oh yeah, it used to feel much darker and like you know.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize they were making any like changes in that way.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought they were trying to preserve it exactly how it was before, but I I really don't know much about it, so I'm not one to talk.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the specifics, so sorry if I'm completely like wrong here, but I think they were mostly focused on preserving like the artwork and everything.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the actual stone of like the cathedral is a little bit brighter.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if that's intentional or just because it's newer.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you know listeners, correctly.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are some cool documentaries on Disney Plus about the rebuilding of Notre Dame that I watched a while back and now I can't remember anything, so I'll have to rewatch them.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh quasi moto stories.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we're kind of like doing that trip together next year.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not entirely jealous.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, go scoop it out, and then we're gonna do it because as we have shared before, there's still some open spots.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Author fan travel is hosting a Rhine River Cruise tour next year with Susanna Lipscomb, Owen Emerson, Kate McCaffrey.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's it's very similar.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's Germany.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think we still start in Belgium, not Germany.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where we're going.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I need to relook up the cities.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be in like Amsterdam, Rotterdam.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't there, I thought there was one other country.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's Germany, but we have to look to I have to look at the itinerary.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: We certainly know exactly where we're going and when.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Please come.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You should just come.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be an adventure.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: We've had some people already sign up and who are like coming to like, you know, kind of hang out with you.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It should be headed podcast if you do sign up, as you should, because why wouldn't you?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's exciting.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know, so that kind of was like a whirlwind thing that I wasn't like, again, I it was just to me so distant in the future, and now it's over, and I'm like, oh yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm back in the States, and I was joking with Megan.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I like went to my dentist office, and like the there's like a beautiful picture of Notre Dame, like in the waiting room, and I was just like, oh yeah, I'm back in shitty America, and the closest I get to Notre Dame is this like beautiful, yeah, Arizona rendition of Notre Dame and my dentist office.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yay!
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So great to be back.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and it's starting to get hot here.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And because of our um hiatuses in between episodes, it kind of feels like um like in school when you have a lot of snow days and they kept pushing back the last day of school.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that before you know it, if you had a lot of snow days out here, you're like school is like after 4th of July.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that ever I grew up in New Hampshire for a little bit as a kid, so that definitely would happen to us sometimes.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I feel like this season is going.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're on we're on episode nine.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We we do 13.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We finish 13 around this time.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you guys get us through the summer, it sounds like.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for you it's bonus episodes.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: For us, we're just like, we just gotta finish the season at some point.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: We get to finish.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: We get to get to finish.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a privilege.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is a privilege.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can experience us in the thick of summer in Arizona when it's 115 degrees and we're like we're just gonna look sweaty and damp.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you'll notice a change in our looks cranky.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Probably cranky, probably dehydrated.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a little bit less clothes on for sure.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but don't worry, just because we're a little bit late, we're not going to be uh ending the season any sooner than we normally do.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we have like Anne Boleyn week coming up.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Was it last year or the year before?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: But we had like a special Anne Boleyn Day we shared together where we did like a brunt a few years ago.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was it already?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot it was last year.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a few years ago.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anne Boleyn Week, of course, the week of May 19th, where Anne Boleyn's execution, her anniversary, and for her um those five very unfortunate men who who went on with her.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we did like a really, really sweet tribute day to Anne Boleyn one year.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You hosted like a nice brunch, and then we watched Anne of a Thousand Days.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that was so special because it was like a morn, like usually when we hang out, it's like in the evenings when we can, but that was like a special Sunday morning.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was nice, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: We should do something like that again.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm down.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know, and in 2022, uh on May 19th, I was at the Tower of London.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you were.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the year when I I got there so early.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was like first one there.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a few other really big, you could tell Anne Blyn enthusiasts that were there for that reason as well.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we got to put roses on her on the execution site.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I asked this before, but was it especially crowded?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Did you notice, or was it just kind of like only a few diehards?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was that day we were traveling to get to the Cotswolds that day.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't do like a full Tower of London day.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure my husband was still like getting ready at the hotel, but we were staying at a hotel directly across the street called the Tower Hotel.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or the Tower Suites, I think it's called.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were staying directly across from the Tower of London.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as it opened up, I was like, I'm just gonna run over there and like deliver some flowers.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you get the membership pass, it's like Disneyland, you can just go in and out.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just amazing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I went there right when they opened.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a Wednesday morning or something.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it was empty except for a few people who were there, like paying tribute.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but it probably got busier later.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I was in and out, unfortunately.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Would have hung around and had a sandwich, but that's okay.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And would have wanted it to be a nice, simple, swift service.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we well, yeah, before we get into our episode of the evening, um, it's a good one.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited about this one, but I was just listening back to our Carmelite Nun episode and six weeks ago.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm, you know, I'm normally bad at like taking notes of what we talk about to discuss later, but this time I'm hell bent on it.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about in our last episode, we were like, what the hell is the difference between being a martyr, being canonized, and being a saint?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like we use those very interchangeably in a lot of these episodes.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I finally looked it up.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: We looked it up and discussed it.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna lie, it's a little confusing still.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna do the best I can.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still confused, yeah, but I'm gonna go with that.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do the best I can to explain this.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if you're someone who's very into um Catholic canonization, reach out and let us know.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: But this is what I've found out.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the entire process of becoming a saint is canonization.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's the canonization process, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's a few ways to become a saint.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh typically, if you become a saint, you have to perform at least two documented miracles in your lifetime.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to leave lead a life of like goodwill and have like proven documentation that you've like spiritually, physically changed someone's life with two uh documented miracles.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Easy.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Easy peasy, right?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: But martyrs get a special pass where they only have to produce one miracle to be considered a saint.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that gets very blurry.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that in a second.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, martyrs are initially like, oh, you get you get the first miracle waived, and it's called beatification.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, beatification.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I guess.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I kept saying beautification, that's wrong.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not beautified, you're beautified.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Beautified.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Also, martyr, don't worry if this is all like new language.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: A martyr is someone who was killed for their faith.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Joan of Arc was a martyr.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas More was a martyr.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: The Carmelite nuns that we did last episode, martyr.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Carrie Queen of Scots thought she was a martyr.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: They try.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: She worked out.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, please make me a martyr.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so so that's you know, they they're executed or die for their faith, thus, they are martyrs.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So then they still have to produce one more miracle to be considered like a saint.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were like, well, what did Thomas More do?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because we always refer to him as like the example of like he was a martyr and then he became a saint.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Thomas More.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we were looking it up, and I guess you knew you read this today.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's like one American woman who was like, I had this incurable disease or something.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I know, I'm sorry to make light of it, but like she prayed to Sir Thomas More and was fixed.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And all of the doctors said there was no like physical proof like or evidence to show how she was fixed or why she was fixed.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: She just got better.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a miracle.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle because she prayed to Thomas More.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that counted as his miracle after death.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that wild?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is kind of crazy.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I I feel like the qualifications to become a saint.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like getting into a high university.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can get into community college with just one miracle.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the prerequisites.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need a miracle to get into community college?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you need for your prerequisites for a higher, like you need two miracles, but there's an exception.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you were a martyr, you only need the one.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just feel like in my brain, it's like when you have to like figure out how to get how to navigate life.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's always like the fine print, and this is the this is the requirements, but there's always an exception to things.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't realize the Catholic Church was so structured.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously it's structured.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not surprised it's structured.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize the structure that went into identifying someone as a saint or not a saint or just canonized, but not canonized, or a martyr, or a saint, but not can't whatever canonized but not a saint.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I learned something new.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the first step is the beatification, and then the second step.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Beatification.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Beatification.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second step is sainthood.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it again, it is very blurry because I always thought you had to do these things in your lifetime, but apparently, even after you die, like if I died today, but then everyone started praying for me and with me or whatever.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Having to having praying to you.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like fixed something.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We could really take this in a new direction.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we going to be saints?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is like so sacrilegious.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry, everybody, but we're gonna become saints, I guess.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: We just promised.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where's it?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed like it was just one American woman.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm saying.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like she was even an English woman who existed 10 years after Thomas More died.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was like Elizabeth Barton or something.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like if it was someone in that realm, I'd be like, okay, I can see it.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like, I don't know what era this woman's from, but she's an American and she's like, yeah, Thomas.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: 1998.
• 15:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: 1993, she's like, oh yeah, I prayed to Thomas More, and he's great, and he's a saint now.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, my drink is clunky today.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I like your clanky drink.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: A glass straw in my glass glass.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is really pretty.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: The what are you drinking?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not an affiliate marketer with Dr.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper, but if I were uh the creamy coconut Dr.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper Zero, chef's kiss.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it is so good.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the Truman show.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're just integrating this in your daily life.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been drinking too many of these coconut Dr.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Peppers.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a limited edition.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had the original.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Megan, I swear we're not getting it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart has them.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you're seen a line right now.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've also seen that in the cherry coke float, and I'm very interested in both.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have both in my fridge right now.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've been really on it with the weird sodas.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have a plan after this, then.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do have a plan.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Post podcast date.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So let's hurry through this.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we gotta get going so we can have our cherry coke floats and Dr.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper coconut cream, whatever.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Coke had a limited edition Oreo flavored.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I did not have that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then it ended.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't you bring that shit?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: They should do a Halloween edition.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, started on the if you're gonna talk about freaking Oreos again.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you just talked about Coke for 10 minutes.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm allowed to talk about Oreos.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are looking for sponsors.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So uh okay.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Tonight you did not come here to talk about Coke Zero or Dr.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper Zero.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a fun bonus.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh tonight we are talking about someone who it's not necessarily his crime that is the hot topic of the evening.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: But how he was executed and his method of execution.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're gonna talk about William Kemmler, the first person to be legally executed by electrocution using the electric chair.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we learned a lot about electrocution science tonight.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'm taking on early life.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love when Megan does early life.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna sit back and I'm gonna let you kick it off.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she's all coked up, ready to go.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: The year was 1860 when young William Kemler was born on the 9th of May.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Philly boy.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's American.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: His parents were very heavy drinkers.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: His father, in fact, died after a drunken brawl and got an infection of some type.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they're both German immigrants, his parents.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he spoke English and German.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I got this.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna let you go.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: My German note came at the end, but that probably should have been the next episode.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh mother died of just full-on alcoholism, like bad liver and um, yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So he got out of school really early by the time he was 10.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: He couldn't read or write.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I read another article that suggested perhaps he was a little bit more on the mentally disabled side, but no proof of that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, this is also 1860.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they just summed him up as being kind of stupid, I guess.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: He couldn't read, he couldn't write.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: They took him out of school.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: They said that about Albert Einstein, so who knows?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: He could have been a genius.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: He could have been on the complete ex opposite of everything, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he started working um before his father died.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, I can't do early life.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: My notes are all out of wax.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: You just love execution.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just want to get to the execution.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh his he worked at his father's butcher shop up until his father died.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then he became a veggie peddler.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Veggie peddler.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Veggie peddler.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be like a funny Halloween costume.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like just to be a peddler.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have like a cart and it's just full of like fake veggies and you're just kind of like poor looking.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why he went to that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, pedders.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Back then they just had we still have peddlers, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just walking around the streets selling these things.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say half the people on Instagram are peddlers.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Advanced peddling.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Click here and get your free box of whatever the fuck I'm selling.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Coke Zero?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but no, he sold vegetables.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: He also, like his parents, a very heavy drinker, alcoholic, constantly known as like the drunk guy.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was very well known in all the saloons.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they called him Philadelphia Billy because he got up to New York eventually from Pennsylvania.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: They called him Philadelphia Billy with his peddling cart.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have his cart for very long, though, because in one of his drunken episodes, he was fooling around with some friends and convincing them that his horse attached to the cart could jump eight feet over a gate.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, they're like, okay, Philadelphia Billy, let's see it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's ridiculous.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so this poor horse, he gets him to try and do it, and the whole cart shatters.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's his whole life.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was his whole business was on that cart, all of his goods.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So stupid.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: He kind of went out of business after this situation of trying to get the horse to jump over.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: He he put the horse before the cart, literally.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then the cart did not jump over a fence.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just an example of kind of his character and and uh has he no respect for horses.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: No respect.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he was known again, and he's now living in like Buffalo, New York at this time.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where he's up to all of his shenanigans.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the year 1889, March 29th, um, something interesting happens.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: We already know he's known for his drinking around town, and he gets in these weird drunken episodes where he does stupid things like the cart.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but on that specific day, he was actually not not drunk, but hung over.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So he's recovering from drinking and he becomes enraged with his girlfriend.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: His girlfriend who made it might have been his common law wife because they'd been together for so long.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were shacking it up.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Shacking it up, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is all according to the New York Times.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the New York Times published exactly this.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: But they said uh her name was Matilda Tilly, so Tilly Ziggler.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he got in so such a bad fight with her.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was accusing her of stealing from him.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was accusing her of planning to elope with one of his friends or run away with one of his friends.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So during the height of their argument, he gets so upset that he goes out to his barn and he gets a hatchet.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: We know where this is going.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: He grabs his hatchet and he strikes Tilly repeatedly until she's dead.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oof.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Little Billy had an axe.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Gave Matilda.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Tilly killed Billy with Billy killed Tilly.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Billy killed Tilly with.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, I didn't even think of that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was Billy and Tilly.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of cute.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Natchmade in Heaven with her cute little hatchet.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so he kills her.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then after he kills her, and we know this again based on the New York Times publishing, but he calmly walks to his neighbor's house and he just announces that he killed her.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like straight face, you know, probably blood on his clothes, just as like, hey, just so you know, till he ain't no more.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: At least he was honest.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so it is a very easy process from here because he confesses there's a lot of witnesses.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt that he killed his girlfriend slash wife.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: So on May 10th, Kemmler is convicted of murder in the first degree.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, quick trial, open and shut case.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then it only took them a few days to decide that his sentence was in fact death.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's again brutal.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's late 1800s New York.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is a brutal murder.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: They say, hey, sorry, there's no way out of it.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be condemned to death.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And at that specific time in history, under New York law, hanging was going to be replaced by something that was quote unquote more humane and more progressive.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they come up with this entirely new way to kill people right at this time.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what is that?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Electrocution.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about this though, because this is where the this is the meat and potatoes of this episode.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: The history of the electric chair spectrum.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's which I didn't realize.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a year before January 1st, 1888.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's when New York changed the laws that they are legally able to execute people by electrocution.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: They hadn't done it yet, but legally went into place in 1888.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they were looking for new um execution methods because they thought hanging was too inhumane.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways it was.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So around this era, they there were a lot of botched hangings.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it on the show before, but a botched hanging can happen for a number of reasons.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't do the calculations right.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's all based off of weight, size, height of the victim, length of the rope, and how it's being dropped down.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: The mathematics have to be calculated out to a T before the execution happens.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, they could end up with two issues.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: One, the neck may not snap.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, it's asphyxiation at that point, which can be very long and grueling.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we hear of like these incidences of them pulling on the legs, trying to get the person to die faster.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some hangings could take up to 30 minutes if it's a slow asphyxiation.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happened before they had that trapdoor.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: We need my little model for the YouTube show.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no hanging model here.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Should we get it?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Should we pause and get it?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's right over there.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do a little demo.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other way it can be botched, which is even more gruesome, and we've had execution stories like that on this podcast, is they could actually be beheaded.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Decapitated.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Decapitated from the rope, pulling the head off.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like too aggressively.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like the drop was too heavy.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It just rips their head off.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Which is fast.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say on a pretty sight.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I don't want my head to be ripped off, but if I had to choose that over being strangled for 30 minutes, I'd probably be fine with that.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gross for everyone.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's gross for the spectators, but for you yourself, it's quick and easy and you don't know about it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't expecting that to happen.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you weren't anticipating.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're still confused.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, wait, what's that just happened?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not terrible for you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you're going to uh a guillotine or a beheading, you know your head is coming off.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you're about to be hanged, you're like, yeah, this is gonna suck.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully my neck will snap break and then gone.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't even know it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's only sad for those around.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well that said, the hangings were becoming an issue.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't like it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna rewind even before that, a little less than 10 years before before this new law went into place.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna introduce you to Alfred Southwick.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I like that name.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is an engineer slash dentist.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is this when barbers were also uh physicians or whatever?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Multitalented.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was commissioned to work out this issue of like finding a new form of capital punishment.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was a steamboat engineer and a dentist.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Man of many talents.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lived in Buffalo, New York.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he was inspired one evening because he saw a very drunk man touch a generator and died instantly.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought, wow, that is a really fast death.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was just electrocuted and fried, this guy.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Instantly.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he starts testing out this theory of death by electrocution by this is sad, by euthanizing stray dogs on the streets.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: That kills me.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: My dog is a stray dog.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I get it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: You see what I mean?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hate that.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one, though.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Shocking doom.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was less than a year later, he's like, take it a step further.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: These dogs are going out fast with this new method.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna propose this as the new form of capital punishment.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: He his his aesthetics as a dentist starts tying into his design for this new contraption.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: They tried out a few different ways that this could like like imagine, they had to understand how do we even what does this look like?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: If someone's standing in a room, how do we do we just zap them?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: They thought even like putting them standing up straight in like a phone toll booth type style box.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: A tiny booth where they could just run electric electricity through a glass booth so everyone can see.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then they thought that would be really jarring that they're standing up straight and then they would slouch and collapse down.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: They thought perhaps um like a gurney type style, like an operation type style bed.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That seems a little dramatic, I guess.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they landed on the the best form would be a chair inspired by the dentist chair.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ever felt uncomfortable in a dentist chair, you're gonna feel even more uncomfortable thinking that the the dentist, as he's working on his customers, on his patients, these customers, on his.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they are customers.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like a customer.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: On the patient's teeth, he's like, this would be like a comfortable position to be electrocuted in.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: So they they landed on having someone sitting so that they wouldn't fall over too dramatically and they would die with some dignity.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting up straight on in a chair.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's just how the electric chair came into theory, but there's so much more Elizabeth's gonna get into about how did it get invented with the electricity?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this is really fascinating.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: But what's happening like in the in the background at this time is there's what's called a current war going on.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're like, what does that mean, current as in modern day?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, current as an electrical current.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's literally an electrical electrical current war going on between mostly two parties.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: On one side, you have George Westinghouse, who is a big proponent of um alternating current AC.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: So he's saying whatever we do going forward with electrical technology has to be powered by alternating current AC.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: On the other side, we have someone you might have heard of, Thomas Edison.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Edison says, no, no, no, AC, that's not what the future is.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: The future is direct current, DC, which is kind of funny.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: A C, DC, DC.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what they named it after, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: AC DC.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of funny.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Thomas Edison is saying, no, no, no, direct current, what my invention is, the way I'm harnessing electricity is the future.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So this is so silly, but like my modern comparison, and I don't know if you remember this, Megan.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, please.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So back in like mid-OOs, um like after DVD, it was like, oh, is there gonna be Blu-ray?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you remember HD DVD?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was just such a brief moment of history, but we would go to the store, and I remember this specifically because I was a big Lord of the Rings fan.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: You were.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I are.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: But back in the day, like my first, like when I bought like Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers, they were on VHS.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's how old I am.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And these are God, you're so old.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember when Return of the King came out, they only offered it on either HD TV or Blu-ray.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't remember DVD.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was H sorry, HD DVD.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which you apply to definition machine for that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or could you use a DVD player?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I think you can maybe use a DVD player, but for a Blu-ray, you had to buy a Blu-ray.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Was a Blu-ray.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like so specific, and it was this ongoing war of like which of these technologies is gonna be the one that wins.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny when you think about anything like that, whether it's like, you know, iPhone, Android, or whatever the competing things are.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Something similar.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: When iPods were first coming out, I was my sister, I mean, I remember the year.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: The year was 2004.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And iPods were just coming out, and my sister, all she wanted for Christmas, was an iPod.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be like different and cool.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, guys, it's not about the iPods.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the serious handheld XM radio.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: What a winner you chose.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was convinced that my portable XM radio was the future.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just radio stations, like that you had to pay$10 a month for like the subscription for that my parents paid for one month, and they're like, we're not gonna pay for this.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, it's kind of similar.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was I really advocated for XM radio portable, handheld.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: The first time I saw an iPod, I didn't even know what it was.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you had to buy mini CDs that went into the iPod.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was an odd concept for us.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they had those.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Remember those little mini.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was a thing like that where you all like all like you know, in Xenon.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like in Xenon, she has like the little discs.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was the future.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, instead of a CD, it's just gonna be a tiny disc and you insert it in like an iPad.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Each one was a song.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was that's it's this whole transition.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, we're getting a little off topic here.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hit clips, that's what it was.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hit clips, and they advertise them as like you can put them on a keychain and wear them on your pants.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you advertise the songs that you listen to, like you put them on a keyboard.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like getting them on a keyring, yeah, putting them on the loop of your jeans.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, we are really reading ourselves.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that's my point.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, I won't digress too much about the the transformation of music technology.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's no, but but like, you know, for those of you that are roughly our age or even a little younger, like you've seen or older, you've seen everything.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you've seen these, yeah, or like when they had laser discs, you know, like there's so many things.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that like competing technology that comes out at the same time, and you're like, well, which one do I pick?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember for for my to settle my Blu-ray debate, I I chose Blu-ray because Disney movies started coming out on Blu-ray.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's the winner because Disney knows what the future is, and they've decided Blu-ray is king, and then you never heard of HD DVD again.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Died.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, died.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's happening in this era.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like, this don't just think of it like ha ha, like novelty products, who's gonna win.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this is big business.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're actively competing for the public's um attention, for the public's support.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you have again Thomas Edison versus George Westinghouse.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, sorry, Tesla is on the Westinghouse side.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was team AC.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Nicola Tesla heard of him.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: He has nice cars.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Bravo.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of competing technologies, no, but but George Westinghouse like had the backing of Nicola Tesla.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so Nicola Tesla and Westinghouse are saying AC, alternating current, is the future.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they knew about the electric chair and they were kind of mad.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: They said, we don't want our technology, AC, to be used in this way.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like they started coming up with high-profile appeals um saying that the execution was a form of cruel and unusual punishment.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and Edison was very anti-death penalty.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in general, yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it was electrocution or anything else, he didn't really want to be a part of it in a positive way.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: So Westinghouse is saying, don't attach my technology to this electric chair.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Thomas Edison is who's against death penalty altogether, is saying, you know what?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in DC and direct current.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: So go with AC for this electric chair because I don't want my name and my technology to be associated with it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So he had this whole kind of public campaign saying, hey, public, AC is dangerous.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: AC is lethal.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is unsafe for household use.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you're ever thinking of powering your home on electricity, you cannot use AC.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have to use DC.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so he actually supported the development of the electric chair, even though he was against the death penalty, just because he didn't want DC attached to it, he wanted AC attached to it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and yeah, because if the general public knew that AC is also being used for the electric chair, it made it seem like AC was unsafe.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like for your home.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, how can I use something regularly in my home and in my kitchen, right?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: In my living room, if that's the same voltage that is killing people intentionally.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have to remember, like late 1800s, this is the time where we're introducing like the industrial revolution, right?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like people had candles like for light in their homes, and then they went to oil, like oil lamps for light in their homes.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And now there's this new technology of electricity.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're like, okay, do I want DC or AC in my house?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: What is safe?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: They had to choose.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously now we landed on the AC route.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny that we actually chose the one that was marketed as lethal.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like right now, if you look around your home and all the lights, that's all AC, that's alternating current.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Alternating current because it reverses the direction of the current.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: DC is direct current.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it there's a direct one-way flow.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And for AC, that's used for like residential homes, like your small appliances, your lighting, all of that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: DC right now is used for more like giant commercial spaces, like they still use it.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's still, yeah, they still use it, but we use AC in our home.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't even know that until tonight.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fascinating.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And like again, this isn't the like, like, yes, the electric care came into play because they were looking for a more humane method to kill people, but I don't think there would be an electric chair if it weren't for these two guys competing against each other to see who's gonna be the villain in this situation.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were both kind of pushing each other.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like Edison went so far as to say, hey, if you're gonna execute somebody using AC current, call it being uh Westinghoused.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he said being electrocuted, you're Westinghoused.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're Westinghoused.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he wanted to use like coin that phrase.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was spreading it around.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh yeah, that guy was executed.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, he was being Westinghoused.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he was spreading around.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: That name too.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something so morbid.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually, Westinghouse, who did not want to be associated with the electric chair, um, eventually his appeals fail in Supreme Court.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: This whole this goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: So by October 9th, 1889, the Supreme Court officially says, sorry, we don't consider this cruel and unusual punishment.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna move forward with the electrocution and we're gonna use AC current.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not only Westinghouse was appealing it, but if we go back to our dude, William Kemmler, his lawyers were also appealing it because they were saying that they were heavily funded by Westinghouse.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: The lawyers were funded?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I read.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: But his lawyers that was part of their tactic was to appeal the whole thing, but they were being funded by Westinghouse.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because yeah, and they're their reasoning, they were leaning on the Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, like Elizabeth said, October 9th, 1889, the US Supreme Court said, nope, we're gonna go forward with it, really bought Billy a lot of time because he was sentenced May 13th, 1889.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: October 9th is when the Supreme Court decided.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is when they decided we're gonna move forward with it.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: The execution happens on August 6th, 1890.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like almost a full year later.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Over over a full year from his from his conviction.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: From his conviction.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Over a full year later.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's 30 years old, if this helps anyone visualize what our what our dude is like.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Drunk in 30.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't even know about Blu-rays.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Murdered his sweet girlfriend Tilly with a hatchet, and now he's gonna be the first guy who is executed by electric chair.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Little guinea pig of a test subject.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: He had no say in it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, if you're executed by a new technique, do you have to like sign a waiver or do they not care about you?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think, especially in 1890, I don't think they give two shits.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are they like, sir, can you just sign this and acknowledge that yes, you agree to be a guinea pig in this new test of electricity?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's the last thing you'd want to be a test subject for, is a form of execution.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, no matter what it is, whether it's guillotine, hanging, electrocution firing squad, I do not want to be the first one of that.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is kind of sad, but they did test it the night before on a horse.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like that either.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the dogs.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the horses.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think the horse had really bad stage four cancer.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: The horse was unwell.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Very terminal horse.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: The horse signed the waiver.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: The horse certainly hooved the waiver.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: He hooved the neighbor.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: God, I'm so funny on cooking.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Dr.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper Zero.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was really bad.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was good.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: I liked it.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so they they know it should work.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if it's working on a horse.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: It should work on a what, a hundred and fifty-pound dude.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, horses are huge.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, this guy is definitely gonna die because the horse died.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the the day is now August 6th, 1890.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Kemler's awakened at 5 a.m.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: quite early.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, How do you even sleep the night before?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way you can sleep in the book.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way they woke him up.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably laying there staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes, like, oh my God.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, and if you are sleeping, can you let me sleep in on the day I die, please?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but 5 a.m., they wake him up.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's is put in a suit, a white shirt, a necktie.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: He has a breakfast.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's nice.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Again, are you able to eat?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know about it?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Final meal.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Got some bacon.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then they had to shave his head because it like, even though he's the first person to be electrocuted, they were aware that his hair would burn and it would smell and all that.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, to be safe, we're just gonna shave your head.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they thought about any of his other body hair, but they shaved his head.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where the direct contact is, right?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: To the conductors.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like they uh, if you're thinking about like imagery of what an electric chair looks like, they do put a little like cap, I guess.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Also, this'll probably it was definitely in my mind while while I was reading this, is for those who remember The Green Mile.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, such a sad movie, too.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna relate a lot to that of like, mm-hmm.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how it looked and what happens.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so his head is shaved, and then an hour about an hour later, so this is now 6:38 a.m., which I like that they document all these times.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Very specific.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all news reporters were there, like they were very aware of what was happening.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: But he enters the execution room and the warden is there.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, his name's uh Charles Durston, I believe.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: He yeah, he presents Kemmler to the witnesses.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's 17 witnesses, 14 of them are physicians, which is interesting because they're probably there for just it's like an experiment.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like scientific purposes.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then Kemler says to everybody, like he, again, I can't imagine him being so calm in all this, but he was calm when he killed Tilly, and now he's calm on his execution day.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's like an even killed kind of guy.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's very even killed.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, are you are you drunk again?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you just uh, you know, whatever.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: He he was he's very cool, calm, and collected.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Gentlemen, I wish you all good luck.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: I believe I'm going to a good place.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to go.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: So he says that to all the witnesses.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean he's had over a year to think about this.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the best you got, Billy.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kidding.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they said again, he was composed, he got in the chair, he didn't cry, he didn't scream, he didn't resist, he just sat calmly.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um they apparently had to cut like an like a hole in his shirt because yes, you have the point of contact uh on the head with a little cap thing he has to wear, but you also have to have a second point of contact that runs the electrical current through you.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: So like point A goes to point B type of thing and strikes through you.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: So they had to cut a little like place in his shirt and they attach um another electrical port or whatever you want to call it.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine like this whole process of getting set up.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Man, it's creepy.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know he says at this point, take it easy and do it properly.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in no hurry.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: As they're setting him up and making sure everything's right and checking their conductors and yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: They put like a like a face covering on him.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: They called it a metal restraint.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure if it's like mesh metal or like a very thin metal, but they put they put some sort of face covering on him.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: So people don't want to look at his face.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, nobody wants to see that shit.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so yeah, so they strap him down, they put this this facial thing on, and their first plan is to run a thousand volts um through him.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: What did they use on the horse?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And why wouldn't they just I mean maybe they wanted a thousand volts on the horse?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because the horse probably had stage four cancer and was giving up easily.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: The horse was ready to die, so a thousand volts.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm telling myself this narrative just to make it better with the horse.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Terminal horse.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so they they run a thousand volts through him, and for 17 seconds they did it for 17 seconds straight of the a thousand voltage.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then he's sitting there, presumably dead.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: They they declared him as dead.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have some random notes on this.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor, the neurologist who was there who actually declared him dead, his name is Edward Charles Spitzaka.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was also the same doctor who stood as a very important witness during the trial for the assassination of President James A.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Garfield.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was the one who said that the guy who did it was like clinically insane and should be in an asylum.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he was doing like a neurology test on the I can't say his name, Gwit Guito, Guito?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: The guy who killed Garfield.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the guy who killed Garfield.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that name.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then even more fun, this doctor's son performed the autopsy on President William McKinley.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they kind of have their in on everything where like you need a neurologist, evidently.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very uh close to the White House.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: But he wasn't that good because he declared this guy dead, and someone else was like, um, I think he's still breathing.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: In the words of Sherlock Holmes, no girl wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man's dead or not.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Good that was some good acting.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Downing Jr.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so so they claim it they say, Oh, he's dead.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then after he says he declares um uh Kemler dead, Kenler starts breathing and groaning.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, so they know that like he's still alive and he's probably in immense pain because we just ran a thousand volts through him for 17 seconds.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone's kind of frantic at that point.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: You have this room full of physicians and they're saying, turn it on, give him more voltage, like kill him to make sure he's not suffering.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: So they they turn the current back on and they crank it to 2,000 volts.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they double the voltage of the first one.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: What could go wrong?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, they've thought it, just double the amount, make sure it gets done.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not good.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's happening at this point is clearly it's killing him because they start to see blood vessels under his skin rupturing.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he's starting to be covered in blood because he has like internal bleeding.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: His vessels are rupturing.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like vessels are rupturing.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: They explained it, it looked like he was sweating blood.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like the blood was just coming out of his pores.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was boiling from the inside.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: And because he was still wearing clothes, they said they saw like the edges of his clothes catch fire.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: So now parts of him are on fire.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: And they said the odor was unbearable.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: The odor was like singed hair, burning flesh.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like the people that were there who are physicians and are not scared of blood, they're like fainting and they're getting nauseated, and everyone is kind of freaking out that this is such a gruesome death.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it took eight minutes.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Eight minutes of that.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it reminds me of the Green Mile.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I wonder, because Stephen King originally wrote that novel for the Green Mile.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if he was inspired by this botched electrocution.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure he was a very important thing.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: They discovered through all of this his the blood vessels on top of his brain were being carbonized and hardened while he was alive.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's nasty.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's so aggressive.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: That is a garched execution.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: So after all of this, the New York Times came forward again and was like, this is far worse than a hanging.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: We thought this was supposed to be quick, easy, and humane.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: We were trying to find an alternative.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: The whole point was like a quick zap and you're gone.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Eight minutes.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Eight minutes of like gruesome gruesome.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Of being burned from the inside out to your blood vessels.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then even um uh Westinghouse came came out and he said they would have done better using an axe.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here, like it's funny because it's like, oh, we're America, we're not England, we're not just gonna behead people with an axe or a sword.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Westinghouse is like, yo, we should have just used an axe because this was far worse than that.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and also I think alluding to how he murdered his girlfriend too with a hatchet.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like his girlfriend had it easier off than he did.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Which whatever.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: And what one thing I learned in this like whole thing, I didn't know electric chair was so specific to America.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that either.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow assumed that, you know, like anything, it's like, oh, they find these weird methods and it spreads worldwide.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Electric chair was very specific to America.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's because of the current wars between Westinghouse and Edison.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's in America.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why it became so prevalent here.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: I looked a little bit into why the electric chair wasn't used in other countries.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: They felt pretty confident in their current strategies for capital punishment.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they it sounds like they were more uh experienced with the hangings, also firing squad and some other methods.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: But they um they were concerned about the number of botched electrocutions that were happening.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: They did make improvements though.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Also, another fun fact.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Gross fact, not fun.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another result of a botched electrocution is that the the victim could be writhing and like so intensely trying to break out of the chair.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: The chair that they could break bones.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: We did see a documentary about that.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: They said because like obviously you're spasming and your muscles are contracting so aggressively that your muscles could get to a point where it snaps its own bones.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you're you're so not only are you frying, you're also breaking your bones.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they made some improvements.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, okay, guys, let's go back to the drawing board because that was a disaster.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they needed to make some redesigns and and updates.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they decided that the electrodes should change from metal to brass.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: They added a copper mesh scalp covering.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then they realized that they need to have some direct connection to the heart to make it instant.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when they implemented these improvements of the old Sparky 2.0, the big improvement, there were less than 2% failed electrocutions overall.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there have been 4,000, well, this is probably this is an accurate number.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have 4,374 deaths by electrocution in the United States.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where of that 4,374, less than 2% have been botched.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: So a handful of people.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that, yeah, that is pretty brutal.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: We saw an electric chair.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: We did.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we mentioned this a while ago.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: A long time ago.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: When we first started the podcast.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was in like 2020 when we did this.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we took a little drive down to Florence, Arizona.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not a lot going on down there.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Don't recommend it.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they have a cute little museum, and the museum focuses heavily on executions in that uh county of Arizona.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this cool area where there's like nooses of actual people, like the actual nooses that hung hanged people, um, and with a little photo and a description of what they did to deserve the hanging.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: But also they had a dual electric chair.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it was two brothers who committed a crime and they were sentenced to death by electrocution.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: So they created a specialty, like like tandem chair that they both sat in to get electrocuted.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it was weird, because it's the actual chair that they sat in.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it happened.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even so much that it's the chair itself that's the technology, because it's just a wooden chair.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just a wooden chair.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they added on the conductors and the metal cap.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what made it an elect-like metal appendage.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: For for some reason, I envisioned always an electric chair as like some weird salon style.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was all like you plug it in and it's all connected.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's really just a wooden chair with straps, and then they add on the additional fixtures.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like a cross between the iron throne from Game of Thrones and like the salon chair.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like something heavy metal that straps you down, straps you in.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was so interesting that electrical uh current was such a new discovery that like it inspired, again, not only these electrocutions, but we talked about this in a previous episode, but like um Frankenstein stories, you know, like everyone had this sudden fascination with what could electricity do?
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost seen as like magical.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because no one had ever seen anything like this.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody believed it could power an entire building with light.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you have to imagine it as something that people have never seen before.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, what do you mean this could power an entire building with light?
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Or kill someone instantly or kill someone instantly.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, or in these, you know, stories bring someone back to life, even is electricity that powerful?
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think about it from a lens of late 1800s, when you're only used to, again, candlelight and oil lamps, you're like, this is witchcraft.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is like, this is futuristic shit that we don't understand, and it is like magical in a way.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if you're wondering, just real quick, uh to recap our story, but he was just buried on the prison grounds, like the precinct of the prison.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously he didn't have family, girlfriend.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was around to really claim him.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone died around him.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so he was just kind of tossed into the sad, yeah.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, but also he created he he had a brittle act of violence, died in perhaps an even more brittle act of violence.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, I mean, the US really likes frying people up, evidently.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: So and I think it's still legal here now.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is still legal.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty wild.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: And again, like not to talk about current day stuff because we focus on history, but I think uh in the US it's like aside from lethal injection, you can die by firing squad or electrocution, which is just archaic.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Wild.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: It just seems so medieval, but here we are.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Especially some of those southern states have uh some interesting, you know.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I actually I had to fact check myself because when he uh Kemmler was was first in prison, he was at the Auburn prison.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Auburn is a university in the South.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and I was like, wait, did they transfer him to the South of New York?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I looked and I yeah, I double checked, he was in New York State, it was in Auburn, New York.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to know something shocking once again.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: The last electrocution uh was in 2013.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Damn.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's really recent.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not that long ago.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: They knew about Blu-rays by then.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it it's interesting when you look at what created it.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: And like it like we said earlier, it wasn't so much like, yeah, they wanted to find a humane way, but it was also just a business war.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: It came down to money in the end.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: So as much as William Francis Kemmler probably deserved to have something bad come his way after his wrongdoings.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is pretty gruesome.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel bad for stray dogs and horses and men used as guinea pigs.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth, that's my closest.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Are those your final words?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Tonight, yes, yes, those are my final words.