Career Incidents
He was the hangman who famously failed to hang John Babbacombe Lee – "The Man They Couldn't Hang" – in 1885. The trap door repeatedly failed to open and Lee's sentence was commuted.
During the execution of Robert Goodale on 30 November 1885 at Norwich, the prisoner was given too long a drop so that the rope decapitated him.
Berry's time in office came to an end following interference in his judgement by the prison medical officer at Kirkdale regarding the appropriate length of drop; Berry compromised but the condemned man John Conway was nearly decapitated. In March 1892 Berry wrote his letter of resignation, probably without knowing that in October of the previous year the Home Office had already decided that "the employment of Berry as Executioner should no longer be recommended to the High Sheriffs".
Berry carried out 131 hangings in his seven years in office, including those of five women. James Berry also hanged William Bury, a man suspected by some of being Jack the Ripper. In his book My Experiences as an Executioner James Berry makes no mention of the Whitechapel murders for which there have always been multiple suspects. However, his belief that Bury and 'Jack the Ripper' were one and the same was published in his memoirs which appeared in Thomson's Weekly News of 12 February 1927.
Read more about this topic: James Berry (executioner)
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