Joliet Prisons

Home
Photos
Map
Stateville
Joliet Prison
Executed
Women's Prison
Electric Chair
Escapes

Multiple executions

First man to die in Illinois' electric chair

Executed: John Brown, two others met their end in 1928 in Joliet

Wonder what ol' John Brown would think of the hullabaloo surrounding the
upcoming execution of John Wayne Gacy.

Brown has been a moldering in his prison grave here for 66 years.
There wasn't near such hubbub on that early morning when he was executed
in Joliet. Brown was part of a triple-hitter execution.

It was the first time the state had used the electric chair.

The date was Dec. 15, 1928. Official sunrise was at 7:12 a.m. But 40
witnesses, mostly reporters, had gathered in the early morning darkness. At
6:45 a.m., Warden Elmer Green entered the room and said:
"Gentlemen, there will be no more smoking. You are to be as quiet as though
you were in church."

He led them out and across the prison yard. They entered the newly
constructed death chamber, which still had the smell of fresh paint. The
witnesses were seated in three rows of chairs facing a glass wall.
At 7:10 a.m. the dark room was flooded with lights. The men were
momentarily blinded. But after focusing their eyes, they could see the big,
wooden chair on the other side of the glass wall.

Brown entered the room with the legs of his slacks split to the knee. He
was flanked by a chaplain and four uniformed guards.
The 32-year-old condemned man refused a black death mask. He walked to the
chair without hesitation. The guards strapped him in.
At 7:12 a.m., he died in the chair as 2,400 volts of electricity were sent
through his body.

Ten minutes later, the same procedure was used to execute Claude Clark;
and, 13 minutes after that, the chair was used to execute Dominick
Bressetti.

The three men had been convicted of robbing and murdering a Waukegan farmer
in late May 1928.

There were only six months between the time of the murder and the execution
of the killers.

The bodies of two of the killers were claimed by their families. But
Brown's body was unclaimed, and he was buried in grave No. 44 of the
Stateville cemetery on Caton Farm Road.

This was the first time an electric chair was used in Illinois.
Three electric chairs in Illinois -- one at Stateville, one at Menard and
one at the Cook County Jail -- were used 98 times between 1928 and 1962.