History Kerila Chessman (4 photos) Bashny.Net

In the late '40s in Los Angeles terrible things happened, the city was intimidated by a mysterious serial killer hunted for young couples who loved to retire somewhere in the depths of tree-lined avenues or in branched deserted parks. No sooner had the young people to stay on a single friend c other, as in the glass or in the roof of the car knocked loudly, they were unable to turn in the face as they hit the bright lights. And then there was a horror.



In 1948, the case was arrested Caryl Chessman some who were charged with robbery, PHI * silovaniyah and abductions. Total 17 points. It is noteworthy that the charges of kidnapping he faced because of the fact that one of his victims before PHI * silovat, Chessman carried some distance from the machine. Despite the fact that this distance was small, the court found it sufficient to qualify not only the PHI * silovanie, but the kidnapping.



At trial, Chessman, as people called him-hook (the shape of the nose), klyalcya and pleaded not guilty, claiming that it wrongly identified. He even said that he knew the name of the killer, however, so it not called. So, he blamed the police that she was during the interrogation torture applied to him and he was forced to slander themselves. The Court is not persuaded by the arguments Chessman and he would have sentenced to death. He spent 12 years in a cell awaiting sentencing. Caryl Chessman filed countless appeals and eight times the verdict set aside.



In anticipation of his death, he did not sit idly by, he wrote letters and essays, even managed to write several books, thereby forming public opinion against the death penalty. He almost succeeded. Memoirs of a prisoner became bestsellers, he has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Cabinet of the then governor of California Edmund Brown threw the letters in support Chessman. Brown also received messages from Aldous Huxley, Norman Mailer, Robert Frost and Ray Bradbury. The governor was an opponent of the death penalty, however, it is up to the last moment and did not intervene when the time came, the most that he could do is to postpone the execution of penalty for 60 days.



May 2, 1960 Caryl Chessman went to the gas chamber. It is said that when the gas had already begun to fill a sealed capsule and Chessman was still alive in the room when the phone rang. Goodman called the judge. He quickly told accepting tube assistant warden Reid Nelson that has been newly discovered facts of the case Chessman, but she just shook her head: "I'm sorry, sir. Execution has already begun. " There was no such a process that will stop the flow of gas and quickly ventilate the camera to the condemned alive.