CRIME: Death by Gas: 90

Death by Gas: 90¢

Into Colorado's new lethal gas chamber at Canon City last week Warden Roy Best put a crated hog. When he turned on the gas the hog squealed, struggled, died. Next into the chamber he put an old dog, a pigeon, a brace of canaries. They all died. Nearby in a cell sat William Cody Kelley, shifty-eyed farmhand. Refused clemency, he prayed quietly for his pretty 23-year-old wife, his 4-month-old baby. Unable to finance an appeal, he was to be the first man executed in Colorado without a review of his case by the State Supreme Court. And now for killing Russell Browning, Delta pig farmer, his was to be the first Colorado execution by other means than hanging.

In the night they took William Cody Kelley from his cell, stripped him except for shorts and socks, marched him into the death chamber where there are three chairs. Into the middle chair they plopped Killer Kelley, strapped him tight, put a blindfold over his eyes. Beneath the chair was a trough containing twelve potassium cyanide "eggs." Under the trough was a bucket of sulphuric acid. Silently the guards withdrew and sealed the door. Through the windows peered 15 physicians. A lever was pulled. The "eggs" dropped into the bucket. White fumes boiled up. In ten seconds Kelley was unconscious. In 30 seconds he was dead. Materials for the execution had cost the State of Colorado 90¢.