The Last Dance: Ruth Ellis and the End of the Scaffold
On 13 July 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman executed in Britain—a death that would forever close the door on capital punishment for women in the United Kingdom.
Executed
Profiles of death row cases worldwide.
The Last Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh's Efficient Path to Death
The Oklahoma City bomber refused appeals and chose execution over endless litigation, ending his life in Terre Haute just six years after killing 168 Americans.
The Road to Nowhere: Aileen Wuornos and the Architecture of American Violence
Between 1989 and 1990, a woman working Florida's highways as a prostitute killed seven men, becoming America's first female serial killer to face execution.
Let's Do It: The Gary Gilmore Paradox
In 1977, Gary Gilmore became the first person executed in America in nearly a decade — not despite his resistance to the death penalty, but because of his insistence upon it.
The Hanging That Changed Everything: Derek Bentley and Britain's Last Judicial Murder
A nineteen-year-old with the mental age of ten was hanged for a murder he didn't commit—becoming the catalyst that ended capital punishment in Britain.
The Axe Falls Softly: Karla Faye Tucker's Final Redemption
The first woman executed in Texas in 135 years died praising Jesus, her transformation from drug-addled killer to born-again Christian dividing a nation over mercy and justice.
The Final Reckoning: Richard Ramirez Dies as He Lived—Unrepentant
The Night Stalker spent nearly 24 years on San Quentin's death row before cancer claimed what the state never could, dying without remorse for his fifteen victims.
The House on West Summerdale Avenue: John Wayne Gacy's Path to the Death Chamber
Between 1972 and 1978, the Killer Clown murdered thirty-three young men and boys, burying most beneath his suburban Chicago home before Illinois executed him by lethal injection in 1994.
The Final Reckoning: Theodore Robert Bundy's Last Dawn
On January 24, 1989, America's most notorious serial killer faced the electric chair at Florida State Prison, ending a decade-long reign of terror that claimed at least thirty lives.