The Hanging of Charlie Birger
In June 1927, Birger was arrested on a charge of ordering the murder of Joe Adams. Birger allowed himself to be taken into custody without a fight. He had been arrested many times, and had always been released a few days later. He may not have realized he would be tried in Franklin County, one that he did not control.
Birger and the two men who did the killing were convicted; however, only Birger was sentenced to hang. Birger objected that it was unfair he should hang while the confessed trigger man was sentenced only to prison. Nevertheless, Birger was hanged for the murder of Joe Adams on April 19, 1928, at the Franklin County Jail in Benton. At Birger's request, he was accompanied to the gallows by a rabbi and wore a black hood rather than a white one, since he did not want to be mistaken for a Klansman. Charlie Birger was not the last man to be executed in a public hanging in Illinois. Charles Shader was hung October 10th of that year. He shook hands with the hangman, the "humane hangman" Phil Hanna, and his final words were, "It's a beautiful world."
Charlie Birger is buried in Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. His marker bears his real name of Shachna Birger. His sister (Mrs. Rachel Shamsky) and one of his two daughters are buried nearby. (Birger's grave with his name in Hebrew)
Birger was in the news again in 2006 when the granddaughter of the sheriff who had supervised the execution sued the local historical museum in an attempt to regain possession of the noose used in the hanging.
Read more about this topic: Charles Birger
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“the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
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Obscene as cancer,”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
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