Nevada State Prison

Nevada State Prison

Famous Executions

On June 2nd, 1930, Bob H White was ushered into Nevada State Prison's gas chamber with a smile on his face. In 1928 White murdered a fellow gambler at Elko. His heart stopped just 9 minutes after the cyanide pellets were dropped into the jar of sulfuric acid and water. The Warden of Nevada State Prison later claimed that Nevada's execution method was the quickest, the most painless, and the most humane method ever designed (New York Times Jun 3 1930).

A little more than a year later in September of 1931 there occurred another execution, this time for 28-year old Luis Ceja, murderer of a Chinese merchant in Winnemuca in 1930. It took over 14 minutes for Ceja's heart to stop beating under the stethoscope of a medical doctor (NYT Sep 5 1931).

A more famous execution in Nevada's history took place on October 22, 1979, the first such execution of the state's last 18 years, this time again by lethal injection. Jesse Walter Bishop, a drug-addict and self-described armed robber, was sentenced to die for a murder committed the preceding year, however after his death investigators disclosed an additional 18 murders-for-hire Bishop had confessed to. The original murder took place the night of December 20 1977, when Bishop attempted to hold up a casino employee at gunpoint. When it at first failed, a struggle ensued, and Bishop shot the employee in the stomach before shooting another man in the back who had come to help. After two subsequent armed robberies on the run, Bishop was finally captured in Boulder City.

On December 6, 1985, Carroll E Cote was executed by lethal injection after confessing to killing 13 people. Allegedly out of cold revenge against his abusive mother who forced Cole to conceal her affairs from his father, Cole strangled to death three women in Dallas, killed two women in Las Vegas, and confessed to killing fourteen more. Many of his victims he met after periods of heavy drinking in bars. Cole acknowledged that he had an urge to kill, and unsuccessfully sought psychiatric health. Before he was killed he gave medical examiners permission to study his brain for any physiological abnormalities that might be attributed to his primal emotions (NYT Dec 7 1985).

In 1989, 52-year old killer William Paul Thompson was put to death by lethal injection for the murders of one drifter in Reno, who "got in his way," and two brothers in Auburn, California, because they were drug-informers. He later confessed to three other killings, including a murder-for-hire of an Oklahamo prosecutor, and two other ones he decided not to identify (NYT Jun 20 1989).

That same year, Sean Patrick Flanagan was sentenced to die for the Las Vegas murders of two homosexuals. Flanagan's first victim, a middle-aged chef who had befriended Flanagan after losing his money on gambling, was strangled and dismembered. Four days later Flanagan strangled a 59-year old pianist after he offered Flanagan a ride. Frustrated with his own sexuality, Flanagan claimed that he could not determine the sole cause for his motivation to kill, but speculated that it might involve his perception that murdering homosexuals would be "doing some good." It took the cyanide eight minutes to stop Flanagan's heart from beating (NYT June 24 1989).

The following year in June, Thomas Baal was killed for robbing and stabbing to death a female airport bus driver in Las Vegas, allegedly for "only giving him $ 20" (NYT Jun 4 1990).

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