Lore - Lore 305: Botched

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then our journey toward a more human method of execution is a bloody highway. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— PRE-ORDER EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources:  Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore to get 50% off a new SimpliSafe system. Gusto: Online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. Try Gusto today at Gusto.com/LORE, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. To advertise on this podcast please email: [e-mail]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

The vineyards of St. Julian had been destroyed. Crops pillaged. The harvest ruined. And French winemakers were not happy about it. But at least they knew who to blame, and so eager for retribution, the winemakers took the vandals to court. Now, we have to be clear here. It wasn't prank-pulling teenagers or even rival farmers who ransacked St. Julian's

vineyards. In fact, the culprit wasn't even human. It was a we-eith. or rather many weevils. That's right. In 1545, French winemakers took a bunch of bugs to court. The crime, chowing down on grapevines. Granted, the chair of the ecclesiastical court, François Bonavar, found this just as ridiculous as you probably do today.

He ordered the winemakers to chill out and repent for the sin of blaming an innocent animal for snacking. But in 1587, the winemakers tried again. And this time they weren't backing down. For eight wild months, the winemakers and the weevils battled it out in court. Or rather, the humans battled it out. The weevils had no idea what was happening. The defense, yes, the weevils had a lawyer,

argued that as God's creatures, it was their prerogative to eat what they wanted. The mayor of San Juliane even got involved offering the weevils the opportunity to move to a sanctuary, under threat of excommunication. Now, before you ask exactly how one excommunicates a swarm of weevils, I cannot answer that question. Unfortunately, the final page of the court proceedings didn't survive the centuries. Ironically, it seems to have been destroyed by insects.

Throughout time, society has struggled to determine the balance between crime and punishment. Who is guilty? And what do the guilty owe? Perhaps money? Perhaps in time behind bars or banishment from their home? And then there are the times when the condemned are forced to pay the most precious currency of all. Life itself. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

There has always been some form of capital punishment. No matter where or when in history you lived, if you messed up badly enough, you might be put to death. And while today we try to prevent what's known as cruel and unusual punishment, let's just say that for much of human history, cruel and unusual, was kind of the goal. Take this tactic from way back in the 23rd century BCE, one of the earliest execution methods we know of, in fact. And you can thank pre-imperial China for this creative bit of gore. It was called the Five Punishments, and as the title suggests, it had five distinct steps. Number one, tattooing. Number two, cutting off the nose.

Number three, cutting off one or both of the feet. Number four, castration. And number five, death. And number five, by the way, was dealt out via strangulation, decapitation, or for the real ne'er-do-wells, the cheery little something called death by slicing that I would rather not go into here. You see, in ancient China, it was believed that the body did not belong to you. It was a gift from your parents.

So if you really wanted to punish someone, then messing up that precious gift, was pretty much the worst thing you could do to a person. Ancient Egyptians placed a similar importance on a pristine body, but for different reasons. They believe that in order to have a good time in the afterlife, you needed to stay intact after death, hence the whole mummies thing. And suffice to say,

Egyptian executions reflected this. Everything from murder to tomb robbing to perjury in courts could earn you a messy death, while nobles were usually allowed to drink poison, ordinary citizens weren't so lucky. Techniques included being buried alive, impaled on a steak, and my personal least favorites, being fed alive to a crocodile. Some crimes even had specific corresponding penalties.

For example, children who killed their parents would have finger-sized pieces cut out of them with a sharp reed before being burned alive on a bed of thorns. Pleasant stuff, for sure. In classical Greece, they try to keep things a bit more civil, tried being the operative word here. You see, the Greeks believe that committing a murder, even in the context of execution, left behind a hideous spiritual stain called a miasma. And so they came up with ways to kill someone without, well, actually killing them. Things like throwing the convicted into a deep

pit and just leaving them there, or tying them to a board before abandoning them to the elements. You see, the state didn't really kill anyone, just left people outside for. a while. And if that person happened to die, well, no harm, no foul. By the way, that tie-to-a-board method is sometimes called a bloodless crucifixion, which, yes, I hate as much as you do. Much more rarely, people were forced to drink hemlock, the famous death of Socrates being one of those examples. But to be honest, it was a pretty short-lived trend. Glee was on TV for longer than Greece's hemlock phase. Now, I know that ancient Greece and ancient Rome are sometimes spoken to of interchangeably, but believe me when I say that the Romans had a very different approach to

executions. While the Greeks were trying to keep their moral hands spotless and preserving capital punishment for cases of homicide, the Romans were just straight up beating people to death for crimes as menial as, and I quote, publishing insulting songs, or making disturbances in the city at night. And it wasn't just beatings. If convicted, you might find yourself drowned, strangled, buried alive, crucified or thrown off a special execution cliff known as Tarpean Rock. And remember how the Egyptians had a special punishment for people who murdered their parents? Well, so did the Romans. It was called Penalty of the Sack and involved being stuffed into a leather sack alongside various unfortunate guests, such as a dog, a monkey, a snake, or a rooster, all before being flung into the sea.

So, yes, clearly the Romans weren't too worried about the spiritual miasma that the Greeks were, and nothing proves this more than Rome's most famous execution method of all, Domnatio Adbestius, or condemnation to the beasts. Imagine that you're found guilty of theft. You have been stripped naked, chained at the neck, and dragged into an arena where thousands of eager spectators scream for your death. And then suddenly, across the stadium, a trap door swings open, someone steps into the ring, but it's not someone, it's something, a monster, and the monster

is hungry. And while this may sound like a blend between the Hunger Games and Hopper's storyline and Stranger Things Four, I assure you that it is all too real. Romans imported lions, tigers, wild boars, bears, elephants, and leopards, all for the single purpose of tearing condemned men and women apart in front of a cheering crowd. And unlike the gladiatorial fights, Those poor saps weren't given a single weapon for protection. Now, while the Romans were making sport of death, the Brits were keeping things pretty simple. During the 5th century BCE, the go-to appeared to tossing criminals into a bog.

Pretty straightforward, I know. By the 10th century AD, they had upgraded to the gallows, with a smidge of drawing and quartering tossed in for good measure, not to mention beheading and burning at the stake. By the Middle Ages, torture was all the rage. In comparison, bog death, must have felt like a spa day. And while I would rather do literally anything other than list medieval torture methods for all of you, I should mention that in the 1530s, boiling alive was

added to the mix, which could take up to two hours. Now, what would earn you one of these delightful afternoons exactly? Well, in the 1700s, crimes punishable by death in Britain included murder, arson, forging currency, cutting down a tree, stealing a rabbit warren, destroying a fish pond, and being out at night with a blackened face, just to name a few. Luckily, in the 1800s, courts started to feel a little squeamish about executing someone for, say, counterfeiting stamps, and they started to rein it in. By this point, hanging had become the standard penalty, with burning at the stake having been abolished in the late 1700s.

The idea was that hanging was more humane. It was quicker, an efficient, merciful way to die. But, unfortunately, no matter how painless and painless and it was a moment, it was a bit of execution method may be, even death itself has a way of going terribly awry. Mary Martin was only 22 when she climbed the Boston Gallows. She was a servant girl who'd become pregnant with her employer's child. And for a poor unmarried woman in 1647, well, that was basically a death sentence in itself. And so desperate to put the whole thing behind her, Mary had killed the child on the very day it was born. First, she tried to smother the infant, but,

When that failed, she resorted to dashing it on the floor. And yet, it was all for naught. The tiny body was still found, and Mary was sentenced to hang. But here's the thing. When the time came for Mary's big drop, it did not end up being that big at all. That is, the executioner had made the rope too short. And so, rather than a clean snap, Mary just dangled there. One witness said that after swinging for a while, she choked out a few words, asking what they intended to do next. Of course, the answer was to try again. And this second time, it stuck. Not a great look for the Massachusetts justice system, but hey, at least one guy found the whole affair rather fitting. Cotton Mather of the Salem Witch Trial's fame. After all, Mather figured that

Mary had tried to kill her child twice, so why shouldn't she be killed twice as well? It's an ugly story from top to bottom, I know. But the worst thing about it, botched hangings like Mary's weren't even rare. In fact, they happened all the time. Ropes too short leading to strangulation, ropes so long that the condemned would hit the ground, heads slipping out of nooses, or, in particularly grisly cases, popping off altogether. Not to mention the fact that the crowds attending public hangings tended to turn into drunken mobs committing even more crimes, and suffice to say, things needed to change. A more humane, precise method was in order. And with the election, electricity knew on the scene, it seemed this buzzy modern tech should play a part.

Enter a little piece of furniture called the electric chair. In 1888, New York became the first state to allow the use of the electric chair. And two years later, in 1890, it was officially put to the test. The guinea pig's name was William Kemmler. He was a vegetable seller from upstate New York who had murdered his wife with a hatchet. and when, on an early August morning, he stepped into the death chamber at Auburn Prison, he knew full well that he wouldn't be walking back out. To quote the newspaper from the time,

Kemmler easily settled back into the chair, turned calmly to the warden and in such tones as one might speak to a barber who was shaving him, said calmly, Now take your time and do it right, Warden. There is no rush. I don't want to take any chances on this thing. Meanwhile, citizens outside the prison scaled trees and telegraph poles eager to catch a glimpse of the strange spectacle. Some even perched on nearby rooftops as if watching a parade,

but what they were about to see would be about as far from a parade as you could get. Snap went the straps, tying Kemmler's arms and legs and torso to the chair. Even his face was buckled in. Finally, though, he was secure, and then the chair was turned on. Kemmler convulsed. He went rigid, and then the electricity was turned back off. It was done. Or so they thought. Because then to everyone's horror, Kemmler began to drool. He foamed at the mouth and made odd noises while his chest heaved with clear evidence of breathing. There was no doubt. The man was still alive. On went the chair again, and this time the capillaries in Kemmler's face began to burst. An awful smell filled the room. singed hair and flesh. One full excruciating minute passed as the chair continued to fizz and rattle, until at long last it was over. Kemmler was dead.

The next day, a furious article scorched the front page of the New York Times. Far worse than hanging, read the headline, a disgrace to civilization. Later, an autopsy noted that Kemmler's muscles underneath where the electrodes were placed were, and I quote, cooked like overdone beef. So much for a more humane punishment, right? But did Kemmler's botched death spell the end of the electric chair? Of course not. In fact, not only did New York go right on using the thing, but soon other states hopped on the bandwagon as well. And this was the world in

which Philip Jackson was executed on a spring day in 1928. Jackson, a black man, had been accused of raping and assaulting a white woman, right on the grounds of the U.S. U.S. Capitol. The woman, Daisy Welling, described her attacker as a light-skinned black man around 30 years old, which is vague, to say the least, but police were more than happy to round up any and all men fitting that profile, including Philip Jackson. So who was Jackson? Well, he was indeed a light-skinned black man. He was also illiterate and may have had intellectual disabilities. In short, he was an easy scapegoat. After two days of violence, he was a white-skinned black man, he was a lot of interrogation, Jackson confessed to the crime. He later recanted that confession and his lawyers even

produced an alibi, but it didn't matter. It took only an hour for the all-white jury to seal his fate. On May 29th of 1928, Jackson was led to DC's brand new electric chair. Accompanied by a reverend, Jackson muttered the Lord's Prayer, continuing to pray even as his words were muffled by a leather mask. The electricity surged to life. Jackson shuddered and the chair was turned off. And then, just like Hemler, Jackson continued to breathe. It took six total tries before Philip Jackson was finally dead. One man who had been present for nearly 60 executions by hanging, pronounced it and I quote, the most horrible death he had ever seen a man die. And the story repeated itself over and over again. A corrupt justice system, the false promise of a humane death

for a marginalized person who may or may not be guilty in the first place, a defective torture machine straight out of a horror movie, and still the electric chair has remained in use for over a century. In December of 1955, two Black brothers, Willie and Clay Daniels, were executed via electric chair in South Carolina. Willie's death went as planned. Clay's, Not so much. Again, the articles that followed cried for reform, for humanity and mercy. And one newspaper in particular believed that it had the answer to painless executions. South Carolina, the headline read, needs a gas chamber. On the surface, it seemed like a progressive move. But you know what they say. Be careful what you wish for.

In ancient Greek, the word Numa means breath, but it also refers to the spirit. The word Spirit itself comes from Latin spiritus, literally meaning breath. In short, for thousands of years, we have believed that breathing is intricately linked to the human soul, which begs the question, what happens when that sacred breath of life is poisoned? As far as we know, the first instance of state execution via lethal gas took place way back in the late 1700s, and surprise, it is not a pleasant story. In a nutshell, a group of enslaved people in what's now the Dominican Republic had rebelled against their captors, retaliating French officials packed black prisoners into the hold of a ship and then sealed the exits. And then they lit a stockpile of sulfur aflame.

The sulfur burned through the night releasing toxic gas all the while. By dawn, the prisoners were dead. Of course, these days when we think of gas chambers, we, tend to think of the Holocaust. And it's true that the modern incarnation of the gas chamber was indeed a product of the 20th century, despite its early start. But it wasn't the Nazis who developed it. No, who we really have to thank for execution by gas is none other than the good old U.S. of A. That's right, during World War I, the U.S. Army did a bunch of research on chemical warfare, and a direct byproduct of that research was the gas chamber. In 1921, Nevada became the first U.S. state to adopt it as a form of capital punishment, and in

2024, the first execution took place. Clouds of hydrogen cyanide were pumped into an enclosed chamber. Within minutes, the prisoner was dead, as simple as that. Honestly, things couldn't have gone any better from a technical standpoint. And okay, they probably would have been better if the now very dead man, a Chinese immigrant named Gijan, had actually been guilty. Unfortunately, he was almost certainly innocent, sentenced not due to evidence, but rather a surge in anti-Chinese prejudice at the time. But as for the gas itself, well, it seemed to have worked like a dream. After that, what happened in Vegas definitely didn't stay in Vegas. With the Gijon case deemed a success, gas chambers popped up all across America. Could it be that after thousands of years

in countless torments, humanity had finally discovered a painless ethical means of of executing someone, go ahead, take a wild guess. I think you know the answer. It's a story that will sound chillingly familiar by now. A white woman is assaulted. A black man with intellectual disabilities is arrested for the crime, in this case a black teenager, the 19-year-old Alan Foster. In Allen's own words, I didn't know what I was arrested for and they beat me till I was all bloody and then made me tell them what I did. Hardly grounds for conviction. but young Alan received a death sentence nonetheless. His mother begged for mercy,

pleading for life imprisonment instead, but her pleas fell on deaf ears, and on January 24th of 1946, Alan Foster stepped into a North Carolina gas chamber. Now, you might think that the room would have been stifling and warm, but the chamber was literally freezing, kept at around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. As if that weren't bad enough,

Foster was nearly naked, and his head had been shaved bare. You see, authorities were afraid that the deadly gas might permeate his clothes and hair, hurting the officials who would later remove the body, and so it all had to go. I can only imagine how terrified young Alan was as he was strapped into a high-backed oak chair.

Maybe hymns still echoed in his head from the night prior when his fellow inmates had tried to comfort the frightened young man by singing to him. The soul can be ready, Alan told a report. quarter, but the flesh ain't, and I'm worried. Leather straps tightened around him. Through a window, Alan mouthed goodbye with a forced smile. And then the dreaded fog began to rise.

It swirled in silver clouds at his feet. It clawed up his legs and then his torso. Alan waited until the gas had reached his face, and then he inhaled deeply. In the words of one witness, he exhaled the grayish vapor, as if it had had been cigarette smoke. But it wasn't, of course. It was something far worse. And within moments, Alan Foster began to shake.

And then he kept on shaking. Whatever peaceful, painless death Guy John had experienced back in Nevada, this was not it. Before 30 horrified witnesses, including doctors and reporters, Alan reched and jerked. His eyes glazed and his head tossed. And beyond a doubt, one thing was devised. statingly clear. The young man was suffering. It took 11 minutes for Alan Foster to die in the chamber that day. Eleven minutes. In the words of one witness, this was one of the most terrible and horrible things I ever looked at. And for the record, that particular witness was no stranger to death.

He was none other than the county coroner. Alan Foster was the first prisoner ever executed by lethal gas in the state of North Carolina. This case was to set the precedent for all those to come, but while outrage poured in, the state of North Carolina didn't have time to deal with criticism of their fancy new facility. Why? Because they had another condemned man to execute, of course, in just a week's time. On January 31st of 1936, Ed Jenkins was executed in the same manner. This time his death took an excruciating seven and a half minutes, which, compared to Allen's was celebrated as a success. The director of the state's penal division was ready to make a formal statement.

Lethal gas, he declared, is here to stay. We tend to think of ourselves today as more advanced than the Romans. After all, we don't stuff people into sacks to be flung into the sea. We certainly don't watch from the sidelines while helpless naked people are thrown into an arena to be mauled by lions. But then, that image of Alan Foster resurfaces, a helpless naked teenager thrown into a chamber to be choked by gas. And I can't help but feel that we really haven't changed at all.

The last gas chamber execution in America took place in 1999 in the state of Arizona, but nine states still have lethal gas on the books as authorized methods of putting a prisoner to death. Of course, the death penalty in the United States remains. alive and well, with capital punishment still very much legal in 27 states. At the time of writing this, more than 2,000 prisoners currently await execution. These days, lethal injection is the primary method of choice, and you'll recognize the argument its proponents make. It's more humane, they say. It's less painful. After all, when implemented correctly,

this cocktail of barbiturates, paralytics, and potassium make the victim fall unconscious. before the real poison sets in. Yes, when implemented correctly. But it turns out the prize for most drawn-out botched execution in American history goes to none other than the most modern form, lethal injection. The duration? Three hours. And it took place in 2022.

And speaking of statistics, regarding those 2,000-plus prisoners currently on death row, according to a National Academy of Sciences study, roughly one out of every 25 of them, is actually innocent. I hope you learned something on this journey through history's most badly botched executions. Clearly, even the best laid plans can go horribly wrong. But according to one last story, while most of these accidents led to more suffering for the condemned, some have occasionally led to selfation. Stick around through this brief sponsor break, hear all about it. This episode was made possible by SimplySafe.

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John Lee woke from the strangest dream. At least that's what the papers claimed. In this dream, Lee was visited by an angel. The celestial being spoke to him, assuring him that, yes, he was innocent, and because of this, he would not hang. Which must have been a relief, because when John Lee awoke and blinked the sleep from his eyes,

he recalled that day was February 23rd, the day he was scheduled to die. It was 1885 in England, and 20-year-old John Lee had been convicted of murdering his employer, a woman named Emma Casey. The case against Lee was thin as a sheet, largely founded on circumstantial evidence, but that didn't matter. The jury doomed him to the gallows. And now, finally, that dreaded February day had come, the day of Lee's execution. Now, you would think that he would have been afraid, trembling with nerves, or at the very least, silent and morose. But no, as he marched to the gallows, his feet were steady.

His demeanor, almost nonchalant. As he told a judge previously, the reason why I am so calm and collected is because I trust in the Lord, and he knows I am innocent. Without further ado, John Lee ascended the gallows and a noose was placed around his neck. The onlookers held a collective breath as the executioner yank the lever to release the trap door below Lee's feet. The mechanism creaked, and then, well, nothing. The trap door, it seems, was stuck. Officials tried to force it open, jumping up and down on the hatch, but it wouldn't budge.

And through it all, John Lee merely stood on his toes and waited. Eventually, it was cleared that the door planned to stay jammed, and so Lee was removed from the gallows. As he sat in a nearby room, the lever was tested again, and this time it worked perfectly, so Lee was brought back out, and the scene started all over again. And once again, the doomed man calmly took his position, and once again the noose encircled his neck. And yes, once again, when the lever was flung, the doors refused to swing. So they took him away for a second time. Now, as someone who's tried and failed to get an office printer to work, I can imagine. imagine the executioner's frustration at this point. And would you believe it, but after all

technical difficulties were seemingly smoothed out, it happened a third time. With Lee away from the gallows, the contraption worked without a hitch. As soon as he returned, though, it jammed. In the end, the authorities had no other choice but to call off the execution altogether. Lee's angel, it seemed, had spoken true. Unsurprisingly, news of the man who would not hang went immediately viral, as kids these days say. Lee and his close call with death became a media sensation, and lucky for Lee that it did because the Home Secretary, realizing the public would be furious to see Lee executed now, reduced his sentence to life in prison. After 22 years, he was released to great fanfare and lived the rest of his life as a free man. Some say that he moved

to America to start fresh, others that he moved to London and lived long enough to survive the blitz, cheating death yet again. But most of the gossip wasn't about John Lee's life after prison. No, for decades following the incident, people remained fixated on that strange February day. How had Lee survived? Had someone tampered with the doors? Could it all be chalked up to physics?

Or perhaps it really was divine intervention on behalf of an innocent man? One writer has referred to John Lee's non-hanging as, and I quote, arguably the most folklore-ridden of British executions. Which brings us to one final theory. Because, you see, some legends claim that John Lee had a powerful grandmother who possessed supernatural powers, and when she heard of her grandson's death sentence, she uttered, he'll never hang, thus casting a spell of protection. That's right.

Some say that Lee wasn't saved by an angel at all. He was saved. By a witch. This episode of lore was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Geno's Nethercats, research by Cassandra DeAlba, and music by Chad Lawson. Just a reminder, I have a brand new history book that's coming out on August 4th called Exhumed. It explores the roots of the New England vampire panic through the lens of centuries of folklore, superstition, medical advancements, and pseudoscience.

And it's available for pre-order right now. And if you pre-order the hardcover edition, my publisher has a webpage setup where you can submit your receipt and get a free tote bag. Head over to Aaron Mankey.com slash exhumed to lock in your copy today. I'll put a link in the description for this episode. Don't like hearing ads on lore. While there's a paid version available on Apple Podcasts and Patreon,

that is 100% ad-free, subscribers there also get weekly mini bonus episodes called Lorebytes, and Patreon members specifically get discounts on lore merch and access to my inbox. Learn more about how you can support the show over at lorepodcast.com slash support. Follow this show on Blue Sky Threads, YouTube, and Instagram. Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.