Guns, Kiss, Plunge, Fear

Last week the State of Utah paid five gunmen $25 each to hide behind a screen, shoot a man dead. In a fit of jealousy, dim-witted young Delbert Green had killed his wife, his mother-in-law and her husband, delayed his execution for six years by fruitless appeals. Finally given a choice between rope and firing squad, he shrugged, got shooting because it was cheaper.

In the State Penitentiary at Salt Lake City one dawn last week, hooded and clutching a crucifix after a last-minute shift from Mormonism to Roman Catholicism, Delbert Green was led out into a dirt courtyard, strapped in a chair against a wall. A physician pressed a stethoscope to his heart, then pinned a red target with a yellow bulls-eye over it. Green's executioners stood 26 ft. away across the court, their guns, of which one contained a blank cartridge, poked through slits in the screen that hid their identity. At the Sheriff's signal, they fired, and Delbert Green's head jerked skyward, the crucifix dropped in the dirt. Physicians said that he died instantly.

Thus was accomplished Utah's first execution in ten years.

P:.In Arizona State Prison at Phoenix last week, for murdering a fellow cowboy, Frank Rascon was led into an airtight chamber, executed by cyanide gas. When the corpse was carried out, his widow embraced it, kissed the face and lips. Few hours later Mrs. Frank Rascon was hospitalized, seriously ill with cyanide poisoning.

P:. In North Carolina State Prison at Raleigh last week, Negro Henry Grier, condemned to death for murdering his wife, was led out to say good-by to his prison mates. He jerked away from his guard, raced up two flights to a balcony, plunged down to the concrete 30 ft. below. Two hours later Henry Grier, crushed, bleeding and unconscious, was carried to an electric chair, executed.

P:. In New York's Sing Sing Prison, waiting to die this week for murdering her lover's wife, Mrs. Mary Frances Creighton was so overcome by fear that she could keep neither food nor water in her stomach, suffered paralysis from the waist down.

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