Suicide By Expanding Gases, Singular And Collective (With One Case Of Deliberate Mass Murder)
Willliam Kogut, 1894- 1930 Death by playing cards. Sentenced to die for the stabbing death of his landlady, Mayme Guthrie. It is unknown just why he killed her, although there is speculation that he thought she was an immoral woman and thus deserved to die. There is all kinds of stuff out on the net about this and even the dates vary from site to site. However, the most consistent date for Kogut's spectacular suicide is given as October 20, 1930, and that is the one that Find A Grave lists. Clinton Duffy, Warden of San Quentin, in his book "88 Men and Two Women", relates that because it was so cold that the men on death row had small oil heaters in their cells. Kogut wrenched a leg off his bed, stuffed the hollow pipe with soaked, mashed up playing cards, and laid the device on his heater with his head next to it. Most reports say that he used only the red pieces of the deck as those were dyed with nitrocellulose, and he may have....