Joseph Francel
American executioner
Joseph Francel (September 2, 1895 – January 25, 1981) was an American electrician from Cairo, New York, who was the state of New York's executioner from October 12, 1939 until 1953.
Life and career
Francel was a father of two. Originally from St. Cloud, Minnesota, he was a World War I veteran, having served 16 months overseas as a sergeant in the United States Army.
His first execution was the triple electrocution of Anton Myslivec, Everett McDonald, and Theodore Maselkiewicz on December 21, 1939, in Sing Sing's death chamber. Among those he executed were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Like his predecessors, Francel also performed electrocutions in the neighboring states that used the electric chair as method of execution.
After the execution of William Draper, whom he had electrocuted in Sing Sing on July 23, 1953, Francel decided to quit his job.
At the time of his retirement in August 1953, The New York Times reported that Francel was discontent with his pay of $150 per execution, and that he was particularly exasperated about threats to his life.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Francel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.