John Arthur Spenkelink

Spenkelink in the 1970s

John Arthur Spenkelink (born March 29, 1949 in Le Mars , Iowa , † May 25, 1979 in Starke , Florida ) was an American murderer, and the second person to be killed by the US judiciary in the US after the death penalty was reintroduced. State of Florida was executed .

Spenkelink was a drifter detained in Slack Canyon Prison in California for a minor offense . On February 4, 1973, Spenkelink was on the run by car in the Midwest after breaking out of California prison. On his journey he picked up the hitchhiker Joseph J. Szymankiewicz. Both had previous convictions and were serious alcoholics. In the city of Tallahassee , Florida, both stayed in a hotel.

After Spenkelink returned to the hotel from a car wash, he shot the sleeping Szymankiewicz two times in the head and back. He then submitted a lie to the hotel owner to cover his act and paid for the room for another day. Eventually he left the hotel with another hitchhiker named Frank Bruum. Both were arrested about a week later in Buena Park , California, on suspicion of armed robbery.

During his interrogation, Spenkelink told the police that he shot Szymankiewicz in self-defense after his friend asked him to have sex and that he killed him playing Russian roulette . Afterwards he also claimed that the shots were accidentally broken in a scuffle with Szymankiewicz.

The murder weapon was found in Bruum's apartment. After extradited to Leon County , Florida, both were charged with 1st degree murder. Spenkelink had previously rejected a criminal procedural deal. He would have asked him to confess, but would have spared him the death penalty. Spenkelink was sentenced to death on March 20, 1973 , Bruum was acquitted.

Spenkelinks became a cause célèbre, a case of national interest, on the one hand, as regards the death penalty itself, and, on the other, as to whether Spenkelink was really guilty. LeRoy Collins , Alan Alda and Joan Baez campaigned against the death penalty. It was also debated whether the death penalty only affects low-income people. Spenkelink had commented on this with the following play on words: "capital punishment means those without capital get the punishment." (Death penalty means that those who have no capital get the penalty). On the day of the execution, a DJ from Jackson broadcast the roasting sounds of a ham in the pan and dedicated this ham to Spenkelink. The execution of Spenkelink was carried out on May 25, 1979 with the electric chair in Florida State Prison .

Others

After the execution, rumors emerged that Spenkelink had been gagged and abused and dragged to the electric chair because the curtains on the execution room were not opened for the witnesses until Spenkelink was already in the electric chair. Some rumors went so far as to claim that his neck was broken and that he was dead when he was executed. In light of these rumors, Spenkelink's body was exhumed and an autopsy was performed. However, a forensic doctor from California was able to prove that death was caused by the electrical tension in the electric chair. After this autopsy, the Florida judiciary ordered that a subsequent autopsy should be carried out on all executed persons in the future. In addition, from now on the curtains on the execution room were drawn up earlier for the witnesses so that they could watch the delinquents buckle up on the chair.

Ten years later, in 1989, serial killer Ted Bundy was on the same death row as Spenkelink.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ David Von Drehle: Among the Lowest of the Dead. University of Michigan Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-472-03123-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
2. ↑ 1979: John Spenkelink, the harbinger , ExecutedToday.com, accessed April 28, 2011.
3. ↑ S. Michaud, H. Aynesworth (1999): The Only Living Witness . Penguin Putnam, ISBN 0-451-16372-9 , page 10.
4. ↑ John Spenkelink (English).