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Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
What's New at Arcadia
Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast By Glenn A. Knoblock
Arcadia Publishing has releases a new title in the Images of America series, the historic account of the cemeteries along the New Hampshire Seacoast. This collection is a must for anyone interested in local history, genealogy, or colonial-era art. Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast and browse other cemetery books!
Green-Wood Cemetery By Alexandra Mosca
Arcadia Publishing announces the release of the historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Announcements
Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb By Scott L. Newstok
An innovative study of the Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Holinshed, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, and Elizabeth I have recited these texts within new contexts. Visit Palgrave Macmillan and purchase your copy today!
Living by the Dead By Ellen Ashdown with illustrations by Mary Liz Moody.
A memoir about living beside a cemetery--and about the members of my family who came to rest at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. Please visit Kitsune Books for more information.
Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski.
Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman
Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture is now available. Please visit Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark
Features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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A Collection of History on the Arkansas Death Penalty |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Saturday, 05 May 2007 |
FAYETTEVILLE -- Not everyone hanged in Washington County made it to the gallows because mobs sometimes took matters into their own hands.
A black slave accused of killing his owner, a man identified only as Mullis, outside Fayetteville was lynched by a mob In 1860 after being taken from the Washington County Jail. The slave and the Mullis' wife had allegedly conspired in the killing. The wife narrowly avoided the same fate. In 1856, Dr. James Boone was beaten to death by three slaves, two of his own and one belonging to a neighbor.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia the death penalty was unconstitutional.
Boone's sons allegedly took the two slaves that belonged to their father from the Washington County Jail and lynched them. The third was tried, convicted and hanged.
Supreme Court Ruling
The 5-4 ruling said the death penalty constituted cruel and inhumane punishment. Justices also ruled that judges and juries in death penalty cases had too much discretion, resulting in the death penalty being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The ruling struck down existing death penalty laws.
The death sentences of 629 people on death row were commuted by the court.
In light of the court's ruling, 37 states revised their death penalty statutes, including Arkansas and Georgia.
The Furman ruling stood until July 2, 1976, when the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if judges and juries are required by state law to follow specific procedural guidelines, such as bifurcated trials, and consider specific aggravating and mitigating factors when deciding whether to impose capital punishment.
The ruling also required a mandatory state supreme court appeals process to determine whether the sentence was influenced by passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor; whether the evidence supported a finding of an aggravating circumstance; and, whether the penalty was excessive or disproportionate compared to similar cases and defendants.
The court ruled in Gregg that mandatory death penalty statutes were unconstitutional because they constituted cruel and unusual punishment but that the death penalty, per se, was not unconstitutional.
Source: U.S. Supreme Court
It's the Law
In Arkansas, a person can be charged with capital murder if they kill someone and the crime has one or more of the following aggravating circumstances:
* The murder occurred while committing or attempting to commit arson, terrorism, rape, kidnapping, carjacking, robbery, burglary, a felony violation of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, involving an actual delivery of a controlled substance, or first-degree escape.
* The killing was the premeditated murder of an on-duty law enforcement officer, jailer, prison official, firefighter, judge or other court official, probation officer, parole officer, any military personnel, or teacher or school employee.
* The murder was premeditated.
* The murder victim was any holder of any public office or a candidate for public office.
* Premeditated murder while in prison
* Contract killing
* The murder was of a person under the age of 14 by a person over the age of 18.
* Death resulting from discharging a firearm at a vehicle, conveyance, or a residential or commercial occupiable structure that is known to be occupied.
* Treason (defined solely as levying war against the state or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort)
SOURCE: Arkansas Code Annotated
State Executes Two Women in 162 Years
FAYETTEVILLE -- Sometimes the condemned wear a skirt.
Lavinia Burnett of Washington County was the first woman hanged in the state in 1845. It was also the first legal hanging in Washington County.
Lavinia, along with her husband, Crawford, and their son, John, were hanged for the murder of Jonathan Selby. Selby, a bachelor who lived near Fayetteville, was murdered for money he supposedly kept at his house.
A Burnett daughter told authorities that her parents hatched the plan and her brother killed Selby.
Lavinia and Crawford Burnett were tried in October 1845 and sentenced to be hanged on Nov. 8, 1845. The gallows was erected not far from the National Cemetery. The event was well attended, according to reports of the day.
After the execution of his parents, John Burnett was arrested in Missouri and returned to Washington County. He was found guilty on Dec. 4, 1845, and hanged the day after Christmas.
Isaac Murphy was part of the defense team assembled to defend the Burnetts. Murphy cast the only vote against secession at the Arkansas Secession Convention and would go on to be the state's governor during Reconstruction, following the Civil War.
The last woman executed by the state was Christina Marie Riggs, 28, who asked for the death penalty for drugging and suffocating her two children in 1996 at her home in Sherwood.
She was executed by lethal injection May 2, 2000. The execution did not go as planned because the staff was unable to locate a vein in Riggs' arm. They eventually were able to access a vein in her wrist.
Riggs, a former nurse, tried to kill herself after killing her children. She didn't allow her attorneys to present a defense at trial.
Riggs was the fifth woman executed in the United States after the Supreme Court lifted a ban on capital punishment in 1976. She was the first woman executed in Arkansas since Lavinia Burnett.
Burnett and Riggs were the only two women executed in the past 162 years.
Sentenced and Executed
Persons sentenced to death for murder and executed from Benton, Carroll and Washington counties. No one has ever been sentenced to death in Madison County and executed.
* Crawford Burnett, Washington County, hanged Nov. 8, 1845.
* Lavinia Burnett, Washington County, hanged Nov. 8, 1845.
* John Burnett, Washington County, hanged Dec. 26, 1845.
* Glory Doghead, Benton County, hanged Feb. 4, 1853.
* Unidentified slave, Washington County, hanged in 1856.
* Alfred Stephens, Washington County, hanged March 8, 1861.
* Cornelius Hammon, Benton County, hanged Jan. 14, 1876.
* Samuel Vaughn, Washington County, hanged Aug. 27, 1894.
* Omer Davis, Washington County, hanged Sept. 11, 1913.
* Vick Tobay, Washington County, electrocuted Aug. 14, 1920.
* Amos Ratcliff, Carroll County, electrocuted Jan. 14, 1921.
* Tyrus Clark, Benton County, electrocuted Jan. 8, 1926.
* James Hyde, Carroll County, electrocuted Feb. 13, 1948.
* Hoyt Franklin Clines, Benton County, lethal injection Aug. 3, 1994.
* Darryl Richley, Benton County, lethal injection Aug. 3, 1994.
* James William Holmes, Benton County, lethal injection Aug. 3, 1994.
* William Frank Parker, Benton County, lethal injection Aug. 8, 1996.
Death Row
* Don W. Davis, convicted of murder in Benton County, sits on death row awaiting execution.
SOURCE: Arkansas Department of Correction
Executions at Fort Smith 1873-1896
From 1873 until 1896, the U.S. Court for the Western District of Arkansas executed 86 men on the gallows at the old Fort Smith. The district included all of Indian Territory during this era.
All the men were convicted of rape or murder, which carried a mandatory federal death sentence.
Judge Issac C. Parker, who earned the nickname, "Hanging Judge," sentenced to death 79 of the 86 men. During Parker's 21 year tenure, 160 death sentences were handed down. Of those: 43 were commuted to life in prison or lesser terms; two were pardoned by the President; 31 had appeals that resulted in acquittals or convictions overturned; two were granted new trials and discharged; one was shot and killed while attempting to escape; and two died in jail while awaiting execution.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/05/06/news/050607azdphistoryexp.txt
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.” Robert Bolt
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