How a botched execution led Minnesota to abolish the death penalty

CATHY WURZER: This coming Monday, February 13, marks a somber occasion in Minnesota history. It was February 13, 1906 when William Williams, a Saint Paul steam fitter, was hanged for the murder of two people. The execution was botched, and his death led to Minnesota abolishing capital punishment, in 1911. For our history series, "Minnesota Now and Then," we take a look back at the final execution in state history. Bill Convery joins us right now. He's the Director of Research at the Minnesota Historical Society. Welcome back, Bill.

BILL CONVERY: Hi. Good morning.

CATHY WURZER: Well, it appears that William Williams, who I know nothing about, has the dubious distinction of being the last man executed in Minnesota. I don't know a thing about him. Who was he?

BILL CONVERY: Yeah. Well, he was-- William Williams was a steam fitter from Cornwall, England, who migrated to Minnesota. And he met a young St. Paul resident named Johnny Keller, and the two developed a romantic relationship, and they traveled around to different jobs. Ultimately, Williams found a job in Winnipeg, and Keller's family, who objected to their relationship, demanded that Keller come home. Williams followed Keller back to Saint Paul, and he got in a heated argument with both Keller, who was 16, and Keller's mother, Mary, and Williams ultimately shot and killed both of them.

CATHY WURZER: OK, wow. Do we know, did he turn himself in? Did it lead to an investigation? Did he run?

BILL CONVERY: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: What happened?

BILL CONVERY: Sure. Williams immediately turned himself in to police. He went downstairs to the apartment below the Keller's and told the neighbor that, she should look after the Keller's, and then, he went straight to the police station and turned himself in. Williams claimed to have no memory of the argument or of shooting the Keller's, but he was tried. His defense put on a plea of insanity, but the jury didn't accept it, and they found him guilty of First Degree Murder.

CATHY WURZER: So move to February 13, 1906-- the day of his execution. What happened?

BILL CONVERY: Yeah, so it was-- not to put too fine a point on it, it was a botched execution. The execution took place at the Ramsey County Jail, and the county sheriff mismeasured the length of the rope. It was too long. And so when the trap fell and Williams dropped, his feet hit the floor, and three deputy sheriffs had to haul the rope back up, and it took more than 14 minutes for Williams to die.

CATHY WURZER: Oh.

BILL CONVERY: The kind of interesting thing about that is that Minnesota had a law that was passed in 1889, passed by a representative named John Day Smith-- it was known as the John Day Smith law-- that first off, required that all public executions take place inside a jail or behind a barrier, they had to take place between midnight and dawn, and that no reporters were allowed to witness or report on an execution. Newspapers were only allowed to report that an execution had taken place. Yet, three reporters had managed to sneak into the jail, they witnessed this execution, and The Saint Paul Daily News, the Pioneer Press, and another paper all wrote descriptions of what had happened in the next day's paper.

CATHY WURZER: Which, obviously, those descriptions, I'm sure, that led to the change in state law, right?

BILL CONVERY: Yeah, there was a real revulsion. When the public found out what had happened, it led to calls for reform. And, in fact, reformers had been trying to abolish Minnesota's death penalty for some time, but the execution of Williams and his, frankly, excruciating death turned stomachs and led to a new push to get rid of public executions in Minnesota. As people argued, if Minnesota was willing to pass a law saying that executions could only take place in the dead of night without reporters present, then maybe we shouldn't have executions at all.

CATHY WURZER: And this happened in 1911, but obviously prior, dating back to Minnesota statehood, practically, I mean, there were other executions that took place, right? And some of them were pretty controversial.

BILL CONVERY: Yeah, there were at least, 27 state-sponsored executions in Minnesota between 1860 and 1906. The fact is, we don't really know what the exact number is because the state didn't keep good records before 1889, but there were a number of executions that have been controversial going back to 1860 and the execution of Ann Bilansky. She was the first woman executed in Minnesota. She was convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic, but the governor and even the prosecutor in the trial felt that the trial had not been fair, that she had been convicted on very circumstantial evidence, and there were a lot of doubts. Nevertheless, the governor, Alexander Ramsey, confirmed her sentence, and she was executed.

It was a public execution that took place out of doors. The authorities built a fence around the gallows, but people could stand on buildings in Downtown Saint Paul and see everything that happened. And Bilansky had begged, not to make her execution into a public spectacle, and it became one, nevertheless, and that also left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. And, of course, we can't forget December 26, 1862, when 38 Dakota warriors were hanged in Mankato. They were found guilty by a military tribunal after the US-Dakota War. The tribunal actually condemned more than 300 Dakota warriors to death. President Abraham Lincoln stepped in. He had his lawyers carefully review the trial records and commuted all, but 38 of those sentences. The execution in Mankato was, nevertheless, the largest public execution in American history.

CATHY WURZER: And how was Lincoln seen publicly after that?

BILL CONVERY: Oh.

CATHY WURZER: What was the reaction?

BILL CONVERY: That's a good question. On the one hand, Lincoln felt that he was-- that he was in a position where, had happened in Dakota was not necessarily, something that the federal government should be involved in, and for Lincoln, this was a war. And so, he was certainly interested in punishing, what he saw as, war crimes, like, the murder of civilians or rapes, but most of these warriors had simply been involved in fighting against other troops. And so, he was trying to bring a level of clemency to this. At the same time, Dakota people and many other people remember Lincoln for the fact that he still allowed 38 Dakota warriors to be hanged, and the fact that this was the largest public execution in American history is something that really casts a shadow on his legacy, as well.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. So the Minnesota death penalty was abolished in April of 1911. I believe, there have been a number of attempts to reinstate it it, right?

BILL CONVERY: Yeah. It seems like it comes up all the time. There have been more than 20 attempts in the Minnesota state legislature to re-establish the death penalty since 1911, the most recently in 2005. Really, whenever there's kind of high profile murder in Minnesota, there's a call to re-establish the death penalty. So far, all of these attempts have been unsuccessful, but I imagine that this debate will continue into the future.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. Bill Convery, you are fantastic. Thank you so very, very much. We appreciate it.

BILL CONVERY: Oh, it's always a pleasure. Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Dr. Bill Convery is the Director of Research at the Minnesota Historical Society. By the way, you can find this story and many others at the Society's online encyclopedia. I love it, by the way. Check it out-- mnopedia.org .