Friday, April 20, 2012

This Date in Fayette County History: The Execution of James Collett

On this date in 1945, the final chapter in a Fayette County tragedy was written at the Ohio Penitentiary when James Collett was executed in the electric chair for murdering three members of his family.

The story begins on the farm belonging to Collett's brother-in-law, Elmer McCoy, located north of Washington Court House on the Lewis Road.  On Thanksgiving eve, 1943, Collett shot his brother-in-law in a dispute over money and then also killed McCoy's wife, Forrest and their daughter, Mildred, most likely to cover up the crime.  The bodies were discovered the next day by a neighbor.

Collett's trial began in February 1944 and lasted about one month.  The jury found him guilty on all three counts of first degree murder.  And the judge, my grandfather Harry Rankin, pronouced the death sentence.  Collett was to be executed July 26th of that same year.  Through several failed appeals, including a last minute appeal to Governor Frank Lausche, Collett maintined his innocence.  He was the 243rd person to die in the electric chair which came to be known as "Old Sparky" on Friday, April 20th at approximately 8 p.m.

Eyewitnesses including Sheriff W.H. Icenhower, the man who arrested Collett.  Also present were Police Chief D.V. Long and Sheriff Orland Hays, who succeeded Icenhower.  Their accounts, as reported in the Columbus Dispatch the next day, contained gruesome details of smoke and hissing coming from the body as "1800 volts of electricity coursed through Collett's body." 

The editorial page of the Dispatch that day said, "Justice was done in one of the most reprehensible crimes in the state's history."