The electric chair in the little octagonal room in the state penitentiary over at Raleigh took its 90th victim Friday morning in the person of John McMillan, negro rapist, convicted in this county in September of assaulting Mrs. J.W. Sides of Eagle Springs.
Several Moore County people, including the husband of the negro’s victim, Deputy Sheriff Lawrence Killy, A.W. Lambert and Myrton Stewart, witnessed the electrocution.
Another negro, from New Hanover, Tom Robinson, having gone to his death in the chair just before McMillan, the News and Observer gives the following version of the double electrocution:
Two medium sided, shrinking, brown-skinned negroes yesterday passed into eternity in the death chair at the State’s Prison where some 92 men, white and black, have paid the extreme penalty demanded by the state.
Tom Robinson of New Hanover County and John McMillan of Moore County were the two to die yesterday. Each was 20 years old and each was charged with a criminal assault upon a white woman, which each had previously confessed.
Robinson Goes First
Yesterday Robinson, who had previously confessed to an attack upon a nurse in a Wilmington hospital, died with a denial of the crime upon his lips. McMillan, in the presence of J.W. Sides, husband of the woman he wronged, and four other witnesses from Moore county, repeated his confession.
From the viewpoint of those whose duties have caused them to witness electrocutions over and over again, there was nothing noteworthy in the double electrocution except the speed with which it was accomplished. Eleven minutes after Robinson entered the octagonal death chamber he was carried out in a willow basket and only eight minutes more elapsed before McMillan’s lifeless body was occupying another basket.
But six special witnesses of the Robinson execution, from Wilmington, and another half dozen who were turned in when the Wilmingtonians went out with Robinson’s body, found in the spectacles something awesome and horrible.
“It was not as bad as I thought it would be,” one spectator comforted himself as he left.
“But it was the taking of a life,” replied his companion in a hushed tone.
Shaking Like a Leaf
Robinson was brought in, shaking like a leaf, one bare leg remaining in a constant tremor until his body was rendered lifeless by the application of 18,000 volts of electricity. He was strapped into the chair and asked permission to make a speech. The leather strap was removed from his mouth.
“I am trusting in the Lord, and I expect to make heaven my home,” said the negro. “as for this crime they have got against me, I am not guilty, but I must go down to judgment all the same.”
That was all. The strap was tightened again and the current applied by J.E. Thomas, one of the state’s executioners. For one minute and 14 seconds it sizzled, as the body which had grown rigid after the first shock shrunk lower and lower. The current was taken off. Once more the switch was turned and blue sparks hummed and hissed for 31 seconds. Warden Norman raised the switch. This time the current ran through the small frame for 30 second. There was no need of more.
“Going to Heaven”
On the day of his conviction, Robinson had confessed to Sheriff George Jackson of new Hanover, who yesterday witnessed his execution along with two deputy sheriffs, two police officers of Wilmington and C. Fickenstein, a resident of Wilmington. The basket came for Robinson’s body.
McMillan was marched down the corridor of “death row” to the accompaniment of the same “spirituals” sung by the other six doomed men that had ushered Robinson to his doom.
The second execution took even less time than the first. McMillan’s utterance was briefer.
“I am guilty, but I am going to heaven this morning, thank God,” he said.
Executioner Joe Stone pulled the switch. For one minute and 35 seconds the current hissed and steamed without intermission. After a brief pause, it was applied for 43 seconds more without any examination. Little was needed.
The man was dead.
The curious onlookers passed out.
From the front page of The Moore County News, Carthage, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 8, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92074101/1925-10-08/ed-1/seq-1/
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