Colorado: No. 77

In Denver, demonstrators with black arm bands protesting capital punishment formed a silent procession in front of the Statehouse, while in Canon City a similarly grim tableau formed alongside the walls of the Colorado State Prison. Inside, Luis Jose Monge calmly prepared to die for the brutal murder in 1963 of his wife and three of his ten children. Resisting a nationwide trend against capital punishment (TIME, April 21), Colorado voters last November voted 2 to 1 to retain the death penalty, and the state was about to execute its 77th prisoner.

Monge, for his part, was calm enough. When it was clear that he would not receive a third stay of execution, he handed over his possessions, including his pet parakeet, to two of his surviving sons, signed papers giving the corneas of his eyes to a blind boy in Buena Vista. Then, after a short walk to the changing room on the third floor, he stripped to his shorts—condemned men must wear as little as possible so that cyanide will not cling to their clothes and endanger guards—and walked into the gas chamber. Five seconds after a pound of cyanide eggs had been dropped into the vat of acid beneath his chair, he was unconscious. Sixteen minutes later he was pronounced dead.