In Sing Sing Prison, in a ghastly white room stands a chair. Its parts are heavy joinings of oak, riveted and screwed together; its strong legs fastened to the floor with teeth and claws of steel. It...
The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ve...
Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust c...
There is always hope for a reprieve, my friend,” Stielow said. “You have to get the governor to pardon you if the courts fail on you. This is an unlikely thing, although possible. The last thing you h...
The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the...
Dear Governor Whitman, … Our father is not a simple criminal. … He was harassed by more ideas than his mind could stand. …
On Thanksgiving Day, during our family gathering, we pray you to have mercy on Antonio Pontón …
The Porto Ricans at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors,” the Harvard students wro...
What you are about to witness is a blot upon the civilization of the twentieth century."- Sing Sing Deputy Warden Spencer Miller, Addressing Antonio Pontón’s execution witnesses on January 7, 1916
What to do now, Father? I am going to die like a killer, and I do not even remember killing.”“You can pray, my son. You are in the hands of God now,” said the good priest.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. - Eighth Amendment, United States Constitution
ANTONIO PONTÓN’S TRIAL made front page headlines across major newspapers. On April 17, 1915, the Schenectady Gazette headline read, “Trial of Ponton on the Charge of Committing one of Most Startling M...
