Narrator: Tonight, the most notorious methods of execution...
Bones breaking, skin ripping, blood flowing...
...and the diabolical devices used to carry them out.
It's gonna slice through whatever's in its path.
From a seemingly ordinary wheel...
The execution would weave them around the spokes of the wheel.
...to an infamous chair...
Blood vessels are bursting in his face.
It looks like he's sweating blood.
...we'll reveal the surprising origins
of these lethal objects.
The darkest marvel of all is the human mind.
People get an idea of a way to be cruel to one another
and then they build it.
Narrator: Not all inventions are made with good intentions.
Unlock the twisted history
behind the world's darkest marvels.
Throughout history, the death sentence,
that most final of punishments,
takes many forms.
( screaming )
And one of the most infamous
begins with an accident.
Buffalo, New York, 1881.
A drunken worker named Lemuel Smith
touches a live circuit in an electrical plant.
( electricity buzzing )
He got a very heavy jolt
of electricity all the way through him,
and he fell over dead.
In the 1880s, the electrical industry
is very much in its infancy.
Ordinary people saw electricity as something magical,
maybe even divine.
You've got Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein",
where the monster of Frankenstein
is brought to life by a spark.
At the time, there were experiments that doctors would do
where they would administer electric current to corpses,
causing the corpse to twitch.
So there was this incorrect assumption
that electricity had something to do with powering life.
So news of Smith's death travels very quickly.
This creates a sense of apprehension.
People start to realize
that electricity is a really lethal
and potentially life-ending force.
Narrator: And that sparks a thought
for local dentist Alfred Southwick.
Alfred Southwick is living in Buffalo at the time
Lemuel Smith dies.
Seeing the news of Smith's death,
which by all accounts was instantaneous,
was probably painless,
gives Southwick some ideas.
Maybe electricity can be used
to put people to death humanely in the United States.
At the time, the dominant mode of execution
in the United States was hanging.
There were a lot of people who were concerned about hanging.
Bungled hangings had been turning people off
of capital punishment as a practice.
LaChance: Part of the problems with hanging
were a lot of the time the neck did not break,
and as a result, the person asphyxiates to death.
Sometimes people are left dangling for 20, 30 minutes.
Hangings took too long,
and they caused incalculable distress
to the people that were hanged,
but also to the people that had to do the hanging
and the people that had to watch the hanging.
Narrator: Among the most publicized
of these botched executions
was the hanging of a woman in New York.
LaChance: In 1887, Roxalana Druse
was put to death for the crime
of murdering her abusive husband.
And because of her petite size,
Roxalana doesn't die quickly.
And this is one of the many cases of this period
that galvanizes public sentiment against hanging.
Narrator: The state creates a commission
to look for alternatives.
On that commission is one Alfred Southwick,
who suggests electrocution.
They just need the right device.
There were a bunch of different options that they were considering.
One of them was to put the condemned
in a telephone booth type structure.
Another option was to put the condemned on a table
and strap them down to the table
and electrocute them in a prone position.
Now remember, Southwick is a dentist,
so Southwick proposes the dental chair.
Now in many people's minds,
the dental chair is an instrument of pain,
but in Southwick's mind
the chair would give just enough dignity
so that it didn't look like the person was a specimen being operated on.
But it also wouldn't create the collapse of the body
and the dramatic sort of evidence
of the violence of the state
that a standing execution would create.
Narrator: But the chairman of the commission isn't convinced.
Mark: Elbridge Gerry had been an advocate of using a poison,
probably morphine, as a means of capital punishment.
One of the objections to executing somebody with a dose of morphine
was that it would be too easy,
that it would be too peaceful,
that it wouldn't be scary enough.
There was still the idea that executions should serve a deterrent effect.
You didn't just want to just put somebody to sleep.
You wanted to make it fearsome.
No one kills other people with electricity.
The state would be the only entity
that was using electricity to inflict on death on folks,
and its violence would have that kind of godlike, awe-inspiring authority.
But Gerry isn't persuaded by these kinds of arguments,
so Southwick decides he's gonna contact Thomas Edison.
Now Edison was against the death penalty.
He saw it as a barbaric activity
that humans shouldn't do.
Southwick wrote to Thomas Edison and said,
"Your personal opinions about the death penalty don't really pertain.
While it is the law of the land, don't we have a responsibility
to make it as humane as possible?"
And that sways Edison. Edison writes back and says,
"I would be pleased to speak with your commission about electricity."
Now Edison genuinely cared
about reducing pain and suffering in the world,
but he also had his own financial interests.
Edison had started to really feel the squeeze of competition
from a man named George Westinghouse.
Narrator: George Westinghouse is a Pennsylvania engineer
who in the mid-1880s
is promoting a different form of electricity
than Edison's direct current.
It's called alternating current,
and Westinghouse's success
makes the two men bitter rivals.
LaChance: Alternating current is superior
to Edison's direct current in a number of ways,
so to Edison, alternating current is nothing short of an existential threat.
His whole company is invested in direct current.
Greg: Edison is convinced that direct current is safer than alternating current
because the voltage is so much lower.
Sure, it can hurt you,
but he says it's not gonna kill you.
Narrator: Spotting the perfect opportunity to undermine his enemy,
Edison agrees to help create the electric chair on one condition.
He said the best tool for the job
would be alternating current generators,
and he even specified,
manufactured by George Westinghouse of Pittsburgh.
What better way to demonstrate
how unsafe alternating current is
than to have that be the current that's used by the state
in its execution of condemned criminals.
Narrator: In June 1888,
the state of New York approves execution
by electric chair as the primary form
of capital punishment.
But the state of New York has still not settled on
what the current for the electric chair will be.
Mark: Edison released an illustration
of the first design he proposed,
and on that generator he made a point
of putting the Westinghouse label on it.
Edison starts a rather gruesome series of tests.
LaChance: He convenes a who's who
in the world of electricity at these demonstrations,
and what happens is by all accounts
a really horrifying scene.
Mark: There were many dogs, several horses,
a bunch of calves, all with the goal of establishing AC
as the preferred current of death
and establishing the correct amount of current required.
Well, nobody thinks this is a good experiment.
The people are looking on in horror.
They're watching these animals be tortured in front of them.
Narrator: Despite the negative reactions,
Edison hopes he's made his point.
And the Edison Company, they're talking about with delight
the idea maybe people would start referring to executions
by electricity as being "Westinghoused."
Narrator: But as the first live human to experience it
is about to find out, the early electric chair
is far from perfect.
Narrator: In early 1889, after a gruesome
demonstration electrocuting animals,
Edison's campaign to make alternating current
power the electric chair pays off.
Mark: The experiments at the Edison laboratory
convince New York State that alternating current
is what should be used in killing condemned prisoners.
So Governor David Hill signs into law a bill
that funds the construction of three electric chairs
for the state's three prisons--
Clinton, Sing Sing, and Auburn.
Narrator: The first electric chair has a sturdy oak frame,
leather straps to bind the person
at the chest, arms, waist, and legs,
and two metal electrodes placed at the head and back.
When the switch is flipped, a thousand volts of current
will surge through the victim,
supposedly killing them instantly.
Greg: William Kemmler is the unfortunate first person to be sentenced to death
under the state's Electrical Execution Act.
William Kemmler has been convicted of murdering his common law wife.
One day, after a long bender,
Kemmler came home and accused his wife Tillie
of stealing from him and cheating on him.
They begin to fight,
and in the heat of the moment,
he suddenly just stops fighting
and calmly leaves...
...finds a hatchet...
- ...comes back... - ( screaming )
( screaming, crying )
...and murders her.
Narrator: On August 6th, 1890,
Kemmler is escorted to the electric chair
at New York's Auburn Prison.
He is strapped in. A mask covers everything but his mouth.
He is, by some accounts,
the calmest person in the room.
Everything's secured and attached to his body
to send these volts jolting through him.
He's been assured that this is going to be a rather humane experience.
LaChance: The doctors standing next to the chair,
they have a plan to put 1,000 volts into Kemmler.
The appointed time happens. The knock happens.
The dynamo runs.
Narrator: Among his final words are,
"Take it easy, and do it properly.
I'm in no hurry."
Mark: They turned the current on.
It flowed for 17 seconds.
( electricity buzzing )
Jordan: Multiple different things occur
when the body is electrocuted.
You can have sparks flying out of somebody.
Your eyes could actually pop out.
You're gonna have a significant amount
of muscle contraction,
and if they're fighting against it,
the amount of muscle contraction
could also cause bones to break.
But at the end of the day, if you have enough energy
and it gets to your heart, it's gonna stop,
and you're gonna die.
LaChance: Everyone immediately starts to celebrate
because it looks like Kemmler is dead.
Men approach what they think is Kemmler's corpse...
Initially they think, "All right, that's done."
LaChance: One person reaches out to touch it.
( groans )
Then he starts gasping for breath.
Kemmler is not dead,
and they realize that they have not completed their task.
Everyone in the room is appalled.
You have a lot of witnesses.
Narrator: They recharge the chair
for another attempt,
this time doubling the voltage.
They amp up the voltage to 2,000 volts
and this creates a gruesome spectacle.
He's convulsing, foam is coming out of his mouth,
bits of Kemmler's jacket began to smolder and catch on fire.
It looks like he's sweating blood as blood vessels are bursting in his face.
Smoke was rising from his head by some accounts.
An ungodly smell was filling the execution chamber.
You have grown men fleeing from the room
feeling that they're about to vomit.
By the time they flip it off,
he looks absolutely grotesque.
This has been anything but a humane execution.
What happened in Auburn that day was a nightmare.
Reformers had wanted this quick and painless execution.
What they got was this eight minutes of hell.
( coughing )
The main problem with Kemmler's botched execution
was the placement of the electrodes.
Instead of at the head and the middle the back,
it should've been placed at his head and his feet.
That path would've ensured that most of the current
would've passed near or through his heart,
which would've killed him much quicker
than what the botched execution actually did.
They cooked him rather than electrocuted him.
LaChance: So in the aftermath of Kemmler's horrific execution,
Westinghouse goes on the record by saying simply,
"They would've done better by using an axe."
Narrator: The botched execution
prompts engineers to redesign the chair.
Later incarnations of the electric chair
improved upon that first design
by changing the electrodes from metal to brass,
a copper mesh was introduced to the top of the scalp,
and it ensured that the current path
would actually pass through the heart,
killing the person quickly.
Narrator: These upgrades eventually reduce
the chair's failure rate to less than 2%.
As of 2023, the electric chair
is an approved method of execution in eight states.
There are 4,374 people
who have died by the electric chair in the United States.
And when you think about this,
this device that probably wouldn't have existed
if Thomas Edison hadn't wanted to damage
the business interests of one of his rivals,
that that device could end up killing so many Americans,
it's astonishing and it's horrendous.
Narrator: Ironically, Edison suffers his own loss
when his direct current loses out to his rival.
In the end, alternating current won the war of currents
because the electricity that we use every day
is in the form of alternating current.
Alternating current offered such an advantage
in terms of carrying electricity cheaply to more people
that it just left direct current in the dust.
Narrator: The electric chair is a stark reminder
that modern technology can be twisted to serve unintended ends.
Narrator: The wheel is often called
the most important invention in human history,
but for centuries this seemingly simple object
delivered more than transport.
It also delivered excruciating death.
The darkest marvel of all is the human mind.
And what we see over time
is that people get an idea of a way
to be cruel to one another,
and then they build it, and then they implement it.
- ( screams ) - ( electricity buzzing )
So if we start with a wheel,
all right, a wheel is a wonderful thing.
And then somebody had this bright idea,
oh, how to make this wheel more lethal.
The wheel, of course, was never intended
for men to be splayed on it, have all their bones broken.
- ( screaming ) - But for 2,000 years,
it was used as a means of punishment and death.
Narrator: Known as the breaking wheel,
the exact origin of this execution device is unclear,
though some historians trace it back
to a notoriously cruel Roman ruler.
Commodus is a second century Roman emperor
who's known to have a particular bloodlust.
Commodus famously killed
80 lions all by himself with 80 spears
just to show off how powerful and masculine he was.
Cord: So if indeed the wheel was invented by him
for uses of punishment,
it would be fitting
for what we know of him.
Commodus uses the wheel
because he likes the entertainment,
if you will, out of the death.
He was a ( bleep ) up guy.
Narrator: In early versions,
the wheel is outfitted with iron spikes
that roll across the victim's body.
Later, a gruesome variation emerges
that makes very clear why it's called the breaking wheel.
After tying a victim to the wheel,
executioners use a hammer to break their bones.
There were essentially two ways
of going about killing somebody
on the breaking wheel like this.
One was to do it from the bottom up,
which is to say to start at the extremities
at the bottom of the body and start breaking the bones going upwards.
That's not the way you wanted this to happen if you were the victim.
You wanted to go from the top down,
which means that the initial blows were done to the head,
to the top part of the body, which is going to kill you faster
so you suffer less.
So it was usually an act of mercy
for somebody to get it top down.
At that point, the executioner would simply take the limbs
and weave them around the spokes of the wheel.
Cord: If you've ever broken a single bone,
you know how painful that can be.
This would be having all four of your limbs
shattered so completely
that they could then be manipulated
and tied around a spoke of wood.
That is extraordinary pain.
Narrator: For the truly unfortunate,
the wheel does not kill quickly.
The point of the breaking wheel, especially in public,
was to have the largest amount of visible suffering,
and the bones breaking, the skin ripping,
the blood flowing,
and the screams from the individual,
who would not die.
That is what the executioner wanted.
In one case, we have a report
that somebody lives for four days
woven onto the wheel in horrific agony,
but they're kept alive for that long
in what must've been to the executioner and those involved
a real horrible high-five moment,
but absolutely incredible, awful pain
for the person involved.
Ultimately what's going to kill you on the breaking wheel
is not the pain and the agony of the injuries,
it's the decreased amount of blood in your body,
and it doesn't sustain life
because you don't have any oxygen to your tissue.
( screams )
Narrator: Once the victims do succumb,
their mangled corpses are left on display.
Jordan: This kind of execution is public.
You're wanting people to see this, to hear it,
to be horrified by it,
because people are often fascinated about death.
There's also an element of social control
whereby displaying a broken body on the wheel,
everyone who's looking on is reminded
that you, the powers that be,
have the power to do that to them, too.
Narrator: Twisted tales of the breaking wheel
reverberate throughout history.
But the most famous story
may be the legend of Saint Catherine,
a Christian tortured by Roman Emperor Maxentius
in the fourth century AD.
Emperor Maxentius was persecuting Christians
because he wants to unify
the whole Roman empire in his worship.
Catherine was a young woman, only 14 years old,
and she had already heard about Christianity
and persuaded many others to follow Christ.
And so the emperor had her arrested.
And first they tortured her down in the dungeons.
The beat her and starved her.
Then he finally decided to bring out the worst torture of all,
the breaking wheel.
She was raised on the wheel.
They were ready to break her bones,
and the wheel fell down.
Joyce: When she touched the wheel and it broke to pieces,
finally they gave up in despair and cut off her head.
Real or not,
because of this story, the breaking wheel
has been associated with Catherine so fully
it's called Catherine's Wheel across time.
Narrator: It remains one of the more popular forms
of public execution in Europe for centuries,
until the late 1700s when the citizens of France
start to question the barbaric practice.
In 1788, seven years after Marquis de Lafayette
plays a pivotal role in the American revolution,
his countrymen are still being broken on the wheel.
The last person to be sentenced to death in France by a breaking wheel
was a convicted murder Jean Louschart.
People were so angry that a whole mob rushed forward
and basically rescued Louschart from this device.
He is pulled off and taken away by the crowd to freedom.
Rebecca: King Louis XVI actually ended up
banning the use of the breaking wheel in 1791.
Narrator: And so a new form of execution is needed,
one that's more humane.
And among the next death machine inventors,
a French doctor whose name is forever tied to the Reign of Terror.
Narrator: France, 1789.
Fueled by immense gaps between the rich and the poor,
a social revolution is starting to boil.
Since the time of King Louis XIV,
we are seeing a lot of excessive spending coming from the crown,
such as the building of the Palace of Versailles,
which practically bankrupted France in the early 1700s.
We are also seeing a long time period of famine due to weather crises.
Harvests aren't going very well,
and France goes into a lot of debt
because of various wars against England.
So we're seeing a lot of people who are hungry,
they're exhausted, they're angry,
and this is going to kick off
what becomes known as the French Revolution.
Young: One of the other causes of the French Revolution
was the American Revolution.
The American Revolution spread the mystique of revolution.
It showed an example of a successful revolution,
and that served as a powerful role model for the French.
Narrator: The French Revolution
officially begins in late spring of 1789
with the formation of the National Assembly,
a governing body of the people
meant to represent all classes.
Kelly: With revolutionaries now in control in France,
they start looking at things that would change society,
and one of them even was how to put people to death.
Rebecca: The major problems of inequality in France
even extended into death.
The different classes got different treatments
in terms of execution.
If a member of the upper class
was going to be executed,
they would get the most humane way-- being beheaded.
Those of the lower classes though
were given really harsh punishments.
These included things like hanging.
These included things like drowning,
burning at the stake,
or being put onto the breaking wheel.
Narrator: On October 10th, 1789,
a prominent French physician steps forward
with an innovative idea--
using an efficient sharp blade
to kill everyone sentenced to death,
regardless of class.
That doctor's name, Joseph Guillotin.
Guillotin hated public executions of any kind.
But he knew there was no chance in eliminating the death penalty,
so what he advocated was at least making the execution
more humane if possible.
The practice of beheading was far from perfect
because it didn't guarantee
a quick or painless or clean death.
Sometimes the axe might be dull,
and it would require multiple attempts
to actually sever the head from the neck.
The executioners would often show up drunk and miss their mark,
or they wouldn't swing hard enough and it would be very messy.
So what Guillotin was proposing
is we have to create some sort of mechanical device
that will make it so any sort of beheading
will automatically be very clean and painless and immediate.
Narrator: The National Assembly agrees and commissions a prototype.
The project is overseen by the king's physician Antoine Louis,
who looks at other beheading machines around Europe for inspiration.
The Halifax Gibbet is essentially a frame of about 14 feet high,
and there's an axe blade that's attached to a wooden piece
that then drops with a rope and a pulley.
The Scottish Maiden is more sophisticated.
It works on an arm lever, and you have the blade drop.
It's a sharper blade.
It is more effective,
and because it's in use until 1710,
it is an immediate inspiration for the guillotine.
Narrator: Though it was initially called the Louisette
after Anton Louis,
the death device is soon renamed
after the man whose idea triggered it.
The first guillotine is a tall wooden frame
with a heavy blade suspended at the top by a rope.
When the rope is released, the blade falls
severing the head in one swift, fluid motion.
Rebecca: Legend has it, King Louis XVI also gave an idea
of how to make the guillotine even more effective--
make the blade slanted
so it could go in with a sharper and even cleaner cut.
You have essentially an 88-pound weight
that's hoisted 14 feet above the ground.
And released from rest,
it's gonna accelerate very quickly.
And at the end, it's moving 15 miles an hour.
It's gonna slice through whatever's in its path.
In this case, it's the human neck.
In 1792, they start testing it out.
So first they release it down onto bales of hay
to see how it would slice through.
Once they perfected this,
they went through and they began beheading animals.
Once they realized it worked for that,
they began testing it on corpses
to make sure it would also work on human beings.
And they tested it very quickly,
and they ironed out the kinks very fast.
Within just one week, the guillotine was ready
for use on live humans.
Narrator: It's April 25th, 1792,
and a notorious instrument of death
is about to make its bloody debut.
The first person to face the guillotine
is convicted robber and murderer
Nicolas Jacques Pelletier.
Christine: The guillotine was set up publically
in the square in front of the town hall.
This was a big gravel pit
where all kinds of executions,
even some market activity were happening.
So people are kind of always coming through this area.
It was really central in Paris.
Rebecca: This was such an event
that thousands upon thousands of people
showed up because they had heard about this guillotine.
They'd heard about this new method,
and they wanted to see it put into action.
Narrator: The crowd watches intently
as Pelletier is escorted to the guillotine.
He is secured into the stocks.
The blade is released,
and he is instantly decapitated.
It just happened so fast, many people didn't even see it happen.
Christine: And the crowd is not satisfied
because they're used to the spectacle of torture.
They start getting upset. It hasn't taken long.
They wanted a more lengthy execution.
They started to say, "Bring back the gallows.
Bring back the gallows," so that they can see men writhing in pain
for a little bit before they finally go to their maker.
Rebecca: The whole point of this invention
was to level the playing field
and create a painless and humane way of death
for all classes.
And instead of people being happy,
people were actually furious
because they felt they were missing out
on a grand public piece of entertainment.
Narrator: But as more citizens are sent to the guillotine,
the public's attitude starts to shift.
What people came to realize was that the guillotine itself
offered a different type of spectacle.
People could now watch many executions in a row
because it made the process so fast.
The crowds go for an afternoon.
10, 12 people would be executed.
Young: Some say it had a carnival-esque quality to it.
There would be hawkers or vendors in the crowd
selling food and drink and souvenirs,
maybe even little models of the guillotine itself.
People gawking at the murder of a fellow human being.
We're seeing so many executions
that the process kind of restores that raucous
and social tradition of public execution.
Narrator: As public executions continue to draw crowds,
those in the front row begin to notice something peculiar.
Larissa: Because the guillotine was so sharp,
there are reports of a severed head
being so quickly severed
that the eyes and mouth of the head
would open and close.
And the implication is that
because it was so swift, so clean,
the neural impulses, the electrical impulses
were still going to the brain.
Narrator: Soon the efficient new killing machine
becomes a symbol of the French Revolution,
an era that's so deadly
it's referred to as the Reign of Terror.
Rebecca: So many people in Paris got executed a day
that by halfway through the day
the blade would've gotten dull.
And what happened is that people had to
start releasing the blade multiple times
just to behead somebody,
and so this humane method of execution
became an absolute horror.
Kelly: Initially the guillotine's victims
were nobles, they were the bourgeoisie.
Pretty soon though it's pretty much anybody who doesn't agree
with those in power will be sent to the guillotine.
We get musicians, we get painters, we get teachers.
Young: Anybody who might be viewed as an enemy of the revolution
could be guillotined.
Nobody was safe during the Reign of Terror. Nobody.
Narrator: Eventually, even King Louis XIV
is convicted of treason and conspiracy
and condemned to die.
The ruler who outlawed the breaking wheel
will meet his end at the guillotine on January 20th, 1793
before a crowd of thousands.
Christine: He's there on the scaffolding
looking out at all of these people
who are kind of lusting for his death,
and he finds out that, of course,
the person that will be setting the machine in motion
is his former employee the royal executioner.
Narrator: Ironically, King Louis XVI
dies by the very blade he helped design.
By the end of the French Revolution,
the list of guillotine victims
includes Queen Marie Antoinette
and revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre.
As nearly as we can tell, some 17,000 people
were killed by the guillotine.
Maybe 15% were from the nobility,
leaving another 85% from all the other walks of life.
Narrator: In 1774, the Reign of Terror draws to a close,
but the guillotine remains in service
for another two centuries.
Rebecca: Despite the horror that the guillotine
came to represent during the Reign of Terror
in the French Revolution, it remained France's
only method of public execution, because no matter what,
it was still seen as more humane than any other method.
Narrator: France's last beheading by guillotine
occurs on September 10th, 1977
with the execution of convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi.
And the death penalty in France
would be abolished ultimately in 1981.
So basically during the 20th century,
we were putting people into space
while we also still chopping off people's heads.
Narrator: But the guillotine is much more civilized
than one of the most excruciating
and elaborate execution methods ever conceived.
Narrator: The electric chair...
...the breaking wheel, and the guillotine
remain among humankind's darkest objects of execution.
But they pale in comparison
to one medieval method
that begins with a rope.
One of the oldest forms of execution is death by hanging.
That is tying a noose around somebody's neck and pulling them up,
stringing them up until they strangle to death.
There are records of hangings that go back centuries.
Shelden: The first physical evidence of hanging
dates from 500 BC--
a person they now call Tollund Man,
who actually has the rope still attached around his neck.
There are other examples in the Bible
and "The Odyssey," all sorts of literature,
but we actually have a body.
Larissa: Because hanging could be achieved almost anywhere,
over a tree limb, over a beam,
hanging is very easy and very common.
But towards the 13th, 14th, and then 15th centuries
in England in continental Europe, hanging becomes a spectacle.
It is a public performance of state sponsored execution.
As a consequence, some of those sights of execution
become permanent structures.
By the Middle Ages, gallows were being built,
and these were outside of castles,
they were outside of fortifications,
often at crossroads.
And this is where people could observe
the hanged body for many, many days afterwards
until basically the birds ate it
or something along those lines.
Narrator: To give onlookers a better view,
gallows are often constructed atop high platforms.
When the lever is pulled, a trap door opens
allowing the victim to fall straight down,
being strangled by the noose and their own body weight.
Larissa: The laws that you needed to break in order to be executed
were few and far between.
Murder, theft, counterfeiting,
those warranted capital punishment, mostly by hanging.
Narrator: But the most brutal form of punishment
is reserved for the highest crime-- treason.
It involves three excruciating forms of torture
that ultimately end in death.
Hanging, drawing, and quartering,
this is something unique.
This doesn't happen nearly as often,
and it's extremely gruesome.
Livingston: The process of being hanged,
drawn, and quartered
really begins at the prison.
The person is often stripped naked, their hands are bound,
and then they are dragged
to the place of actual execution.
The point of this is humiliation.
It is to give people the opportunity
to throw things, to cause violence to the victim,
and then you start with the hanging.
Narrator: Unlike most hangings,
the goal at this stage isn't death.
Livingston: The idea here instead
is to put the noose around and tighten it
and lift the body so that they are choking.
You want to bring them right to the point of death
and then bring them down so that they're still alive.
And now you begin the next stage.
Now the drawing part of this punishment
basically had two methods.
One is you are literally being drawn
across the cobblestones by being attached to a horse,
or it's going to mean that you're going to be disemboweled alive,
meaning that your organs are going to get drawn out of you.
Basically, your body is cut open,
and your intestines are going to be removed.
Shelden: And then, finally, came the quartering
in which either a man with an axe
chopped off your arms and legs,
or horses were gathered on four sides of you
and a rope was attached to your various limbs and to the horse.
And someone said, "Giddy-up," and there went your limbs.
And at that point, you probably should've suffered death,
but just in case, they also then follow that up with a beheading.
And then usually the parts of your body are put on display,
all to say, "Don't do what this person did
or the same fate will await you."
Narrator: One of the best known examples of this barbaric practice
is the execution of Scottish knight William Wallace.
In 1305, William Wallace helps to lead
a Scottish force that defeats a far larger English force
in the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
This definitely puts a target on his back.
William Wallace is brought just outside of London to Smithfield,
he's brought in display of everybody, and he's hanged.
He's cut down before he can die.
He is then laid out
and they begin to pull various pieces off of him.
Larissa: He is disemboweled.
His entrails are burned in front of him,
but he is also castrated.
This is meant to wipe out the lineage of your enemy
and drive home the point
that Scotland has no future of its own.
After he is castrated, he is beheaded,
and his corpse is cut into four different pieces.
Those four quarters are sent to the four corners of England,
and they're put on display on city walls.
His head is placed on a pike on London Bridge.
William Wallace may have been a famous victim of this,
but he's by no means the only one.
Rebecca: The very last person to actually be hanged,
drawn, and quartered, this occurred in the 1700s.
But the actual law for hanging, drawing, and quartering
wouldn't get outlawed until 1870.
Of all the executions out there in history,
hanging, drawing, and quartering
was one of the most painful and humiliating ways
one could ever be executed in the world.
( screaming )
Narrator: If the history of execution
has proven anything,
it's that there's often a dark side to innovation...
...and where there's a will, there's a way
to transform even the most mundane objects
into instruments of death.
( screams )