Roxalana Druse

(UnknownMisandry.blogspot.com)

(UnknownMisandry.blogspot.com)

When Druse was sentenced to death, Herkimer County, New York state used suspension hanging
for executions. The process jerked the prisoner upwards by a weighted rope instead of the body
dropping downwards through a trap door. But as Druce was a small woman, the force failed to
break her neck leaving her to die agonizingly by strangulation.

The scene was so upsetting, officials decided to switch the primary method of execution
in the state to the electric chair.

(UnknownMisandry.blogspot.com)

A book entitled An Innocent Woman Hanged was published some time after the hanging—author
and publication date uncertain—which quotes Mary as blaming the entire murder on her uncle
Charles Gates. Roxalana Druse had gone to the gallows innocent, to protect her brother.