Throughout the centuries, there have been many criminals and murderers who paid the ultimate
price for their horrific crimes. The final woman to be executed inside of England was Ruth Ellis,
a woman who shot dead her lover outside a pub in London. Ruth’s death sentence caused a huge degree
of controversy as today she would have been considered a woman who was treated terribly,
and she was in a sense a victim of the evils of a man who was violent. Ruth Ellis was executed
regardless of this, and her case helped to bring an end to capital punishment in England.
But in America, there are many women who still find themselves on death row awaiting their
final day on earth. But one of the most shocking methods of execution used is the electric chair,
and today we look at the first American woman to be executed on the electric chair. But the
crimes of Martha M Place were rather brutal, and for this she paid the ulitmate price.
Join us today as we look at the BRUTAL execution of Martha M Place,
and remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Martha Place was born as Martha Garrison on the 18th September 1849 in New Jersey. It’s
believed that she had a rather normal upbringing, but when she was 23 she was hit in the head by a
sleigh, and this had a devastating impact on her life. It was said by her brother that she never
recovered from this accident, and that it affected her mental state leaving her rather unstable.
She lived in New Jersey, and for work she plied her true as a dressmaker. But then she married a
man named Wesley Salvacool but she left him following giving birth to their son. Martha
had to give her son up for adoption as she was struggling financially, and she then relocated to
New York in 1893 and she worked as a housekeeper for a man called William W Place in Brooklyn.
The couple struck up a relationship and married later that year, but then she
got another housekeeper and Martha was now living comfortably with her husband.
Her second husband William had a daughter from a previous marriage, however it was
believed that Martha was jealous of Ida as she had William’s affections over her at times, and
William rang the police a number of times after his wife threatened to murder Ida his daughter.
But she would go further and would actually commit horrific crimes against the Place family.
In the night of the 7th February 1898, Martha snapped. William arrived home that night and he
was then attacked by Martha who held an axe in her hand. William her husband managed to escape
somehow, and he ran away for help. He managed to track down the police, and when they got back,
they found Martha lying close to death. She was on the floor with clothes over her head, and gas from
burners in the room was escaping. She may have been trying to gas herself, or blow up the house.
When the police sorted this out, they went upstairs and they found Ida Place, Martha’s step
daughter lying on a bed with blood coming from her mouth. She had acid thrown in her eyes, in which
had been taken from William’s study as he used acid in his work as an amateur photographer.
It was found that the murderer had strangled Ida the young 17 year old daughter, but the prime
suspect was Martha Place and despite being in hospital she was arrested on suspicion of murder.
She was placed on trial, and she said in the court that she was innocent and had not committed the
murder of her step daughter. However a witness said that, ‘She is rather tall and spare,
with a pale, sharp face. Her nose is long and pointed, her chin sharp and prominent,
her lips thin and her forehead retreating. There is something about her face that reminds one
of a rat's, and the bright but changeless eyes somehow strengthen the impression.’ But despite
this she was found guilty of the murder of her stepdaughter, and she was sentenced to death.
One of the key witnesses who testified against her was her husband William,
who believed she was evil and believed she was the one who murdered Ida.
He had mentioned the threats against Ida’s life that Martha had made previously.
But the method of execution which was planned for Martha was one which was considered at the
time rudimentary and rather untested. The governor of the State of New York at the time was Theodor
Roosevelt, and he was asked to commute Martha’s death sentence, however ultimately he refused to
do this and he saw her crime as heinous. But the electric chair was the execution method scheduled
for Martha M Place, and at the time, there had never been a woman who had been executed in this
manner. Because of this and the position of the electrodes, the executioners had to come up with
a different way of executing her than they would the men who would face this punishment. On the
20th March 1899, inside of Sing Sing Prison, Martha M Place was brought into the execution
chamber and was sat upon the electric chair. The executioner Edwin F Davis cut a slit in her dress,
and then placed the electrode on her ankle, before final checks were made and then the electric chair
was turned on. It was said by Witnesses that Martha died instantly on the electric chair,
and that there was very little struggle. She was actually not the first woman to be sentenced to
die by electric chair, as serial killer Lizzie Halliday and Maria Barbella were sentenced
to a date with the electric chair, but it was Martha Place who’s sentence was carried out first.
Following her death, she was buried in a family plot in New Jersey.
But Martha M Place has gone down in history as the first woman to be executed using the
electric chair. She was a woman who callously murdered her stepdaughter,
and who had caused a number of problems for her husband, but was there something deeper
causing her instability and violent tempers and outburst. It seems that the accident when she was
23 involving the sledge was not ideal; and caused her a degree of problems which may have altered
her mental state, and she may have suffered some form of brain injury. However at the age of 49 she
was taken into the execution chamber, for the horrific murder of a young 17 year old girl.
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Once again thank you for watching. death, but her sentence was carried out first.