The Independent

Death Penalty Doesn't Deter Crimes by Mentally Weak In North Carolina

When Bill Williams, negro, was electrocuted two weeks ago, the toll of the death machine for the year 1925 equaled, with nine, the totals of the other two "heavy" years 1911 and 1916. When George Love was pronounced dead the total for the first six months of 1925 was pushed ahead of the total of any preceding twelve months since the death chair was established in 1909. The ten executions follow on the heels of 1924, when only one man was electrocuted.

George Love was electrocuted the other day for the murder of a white man, after three years of confinement. Two local negro pastors stayed with Love through his last minutes, however, and helped him out with prayer and camp-meeting music, in which the doomed man lifted a hearty voice, says The Old Reliable.

When the hand of Executioner Joe Stone pushed the death switch home, the deep bass of the roaring dynamos rose to a whining, whirring soprano, and the muscles on the throat of the man who had lately been singing himself bulged and twisted, as his water hissed, steamed and boiled under the death helmet and trickled down on the brow of the dying man.

The taut body in the chair alternately rose and slumped as the executioner turned the switchboard knob that regulates the number of amperes mingled with the eighteen hundred volts. When a large number of amperes were turned on the fingers would clench, the muscles would bulge and the body strain against the straps as though it were trying to escape.

Then the amperage would be lowered momentarily and the body would seem to relax in a gesture of relief, only to be snapped up by another injection of amperes.

After two minutes and forty-five seconds of this process which was divided into two shocks the man was pronounced dead. He was unstrapped, placed in a basket and hauled away for his family by undertakers.

Love was visited by his father and wife several hours before his death and affectionate farewells were said. Then the preachers came and prayed and sang with him.

Once the doomed man left his cell and entered the death chamber he did not have a word to say, although his cell-bleached lips moved in silent prayer. Almost three years of confinement had left their mark in him, for his skin was as fair as that of any white man and fairer than that of many.