Today’s Pregnant Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
In virtually all Western societies, execution of a pregnant woman would be delayed until after the woman gave birth, which no doubt gave rise to a desperate effort on the part of some condemned women to get pregnant. There were no five-minute pregnancy tests back then, so most condemned women claimed to be with child, as a kind of last-ditch appeal. In fact, one of the most notorious early murder cases in American history involved just such a case. The beautiful 32-year-old Bathsheeba Spooner of Brookfield, Massachusetts, was convicted of conspiring to murder her wealthy elderly husband in 1778 and sentenced to die in one of the first capital cases of the new United States. Midwives — after much argument — decided Bathsheeba was not pregnant. An autopsy later revealed a five-month-old fetus.
Culled from: An Underground Education
Bathsheeba Spooner! That’s almost as good of a name as Phineas Gage.
Of course today, the wait is so long between sentence pronounced and sentence carried out that a woman is more likely to be going through menopause than to be pregnant.
Yes, Bathsheeba Spooner is a great name. Faintly creepy, and imposing.
Did yoy know her fellow conspirators were her boyfriend and another man? They were hanged too. Her boyfriend had a rather creepy name himself: Ezra Ross. Ezra! Which always sounds to me like somebody getting ready to throw up.
@Aimee
Ezra is a wonderful name. I think if I were ever so unfortunate as to have a child (which will never happen unless my GF were to suddenly decide to procreate against my wishes, which I suppose is likelier than I think), I would wander through the old cemeteries looking for a distinctive archaic name for the kid. Modern names are just not eclectic enough.
Did you ever read Terry Anderson’s memoir of his hostage days in Lebanon, “In the Lions’ Den?” His fiancee was pregnant when he was kidnapped, and they’d planned to name the baby Danielle, or Gabrielle or something, but one day she had a dream that she was walking through a cemetery and saw the name Sulome on a tombstone. So she named the little girl Sulome. Which I think is better than Ezra, but I can’t help but remember the silly rhyme:
Salome was a dancer,
Who danced before the king,
And everytime she danced,
She didn’t wear a thing.
I always told people I’m going to have triplets and name them Mistake, Nuisance and Burden. And then have a set of twins and call them Ball and Chain.
Oops, sorry. The title is “Den of Lions.”