YESTERDAY'S NEWSEye for an Eye Edition

The Botched Execution of George H. Painter

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Exploring America's Criminal Justice at Its Most Extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty

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Shortly after midnight, the night of May 17, 1891, George H. Painter awoke the people living in his Chicago house shortly after midnight, shouting that his common law wife Alice Martin had been murdered. Painter himself went to fetch the police, who promptly arrested him for the brutal crime. The trial made it a cut and dry case, and Painter was sentenced to hang, although he insisted his innocence up to the very end. His lawyers continued to investigate while Painter sat on death row, presenting affidavit after affidavit to shadow the case with doubt, but not enough to convince a resolute governor.

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For a complete list of sources for this podcast, please visit www.truecrimehistorian.com, where you can also find newspaper clippings and drawings from this case, and a summary of George H. Painter’s final written statement, as well as more stories about the scandals, scoundrels and scourges of America’s past, along with information about my true crime books and my Two-Dollar Terror series of historical crime novellas.

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Music by Chuck Wiggins

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Produced by Richard O Jones