Public Hangings in San Rafael
by Robert L. Harrison
In the 19th Century execution by hanging was the law in California. Originally the County Sheriff managed the location and the construction of the gallows. There were nine hangings managed by the Marin County Sheriff from 1852 until 1893. Most were viewed by dozens of citizens. In 1872 the California Penal Code was amended to limit witnesses at capital punishment to: At least 12 reputable citizens; the county Sheriff and District Attorney; a physician; no more than two ministers of the gospel; and up to five persons named by the defendant.
The first recorded hangings in San Rafael were in 1852, less than two years after formation of Marin County. Two Native Americans, Pastorio and Jose Antonio, were executed for murder by hanging from a gallows erected on a private lot.
In May 1868 Timothy Cronin was the first European hung in Marin. He was executed for killing his wife at Bolinas two years earlier. The hanging was conducted in the yard of the county jail at the corner of Fourth and C Streets. The Marin Journal on March 28, 1868 reported, “….the gallows, with all the gloomy and terrible paraphernalia of death will be arranged as to screen the revolting sight from the gaze of the public.” On May 9, 1868, the day following the hanging, the Journal explained that public viewing was limited to: “….the individuals designated by the Sheriff [Austin] to witness the last moments of Cronin…. The Sheriff merits praise for the excellency of the arrangements and the coolness with which he performed his disagreeable duty.”
In 1876 William Brown was murdered when returning home to his ranch in the Chileno Valley. Within a week of the crime Juan Salazar and Andronica Ygara were arrested and charged with the killing. Salazar was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. His associate, the young Native American Ygara, was determined not to have actively participated in the crime and was sentenced to 20 years in prison
On October 2, 1877 Salazar was executed by hanging in the yard of the newly built Marin County Court House. The courthouse, built in 1873, included a gallows in the lobby with a trap door where the body of the prisoner could drop into the basement. Despite the availability of an interior space, a temporary outdoor gallows within a high board fence was built near the west door of the courthouse adjacent to Fifth and A Streets.
The interior of the gallows enclosure was quite visible from the hill above where many spectators looked on. One of those who witnessed Salazar’s hanging from the slope of San Rafael hill was a young George F. Cooper. As reported on January 29, 1920 in the Marin Journal, “His most vivid recollection of his [childhood] days in San Rafael is the spectacle of a public execution by the sheriff of a Mexican murderer.” In total the hanging was viewed by nearly 200 invited citizens and officials plus untold numbers of men, women and children who watched from San Rafael hill.
The most notorious of the hangings in San Rafael was the execution of Lee Doon on September 1, 1893. Doon had been convicted of the 1890 murder of William Shenton, a house painter at the mansion where they both worked. The two men argued intensely until Doon confronted the painter with a pistol and shot him several times. Shenton died two weeks after being shot. In February 1891 Doon was charged with one count of homicide, convicted by a jury and sentenced to be executed. Appeals of his conviction continued for more than two years.
During his appeal process Doon devised several unsuccessful schemes to escape from the San Rafael jail. His escape efforts grew more desperate when the ghost of William Argo, a condemned murderer who had years before hung himself in Doon’s cell, began to appear. According to the San Francisco Call, “James H. Wilkins, Marin County member of the Assembly, says: ‘I remember well the effect the specter had on Lee Doon….He [Doon] told that official [Under Sheriff Fallon] that the apparition seated itself on his bunk every night and worried and tormented him so with its speechless vigil, that he nearly went crazy by daybreak. When the fatal time arrived Lee Doon was perfectly ready to go.’ “
The execution was in the Marin County Court House on Fourth Street. Sheriff Henry Harrison handed out passes to anyone wanting to view the hanging. This practice was apparently an accepted perk used by Sheriffs to give tickets to friends and supporters. According to the Marin Journal of September 7, 1893: “By 10 o’clock over five hundred men were in front of the Court House, smoking, joking, laughing….When the doors were open and the mob entered most of them had tickets, though a good many had not, among the latter being several young boys 16 years of age.”
The Sheriff proceeded with the execution and ordered the trap door to be dropped. As described in the San Francisco Call of September 2, 1893, “Click! went the trigger, the trap door swung back against the muffled bumpers and the body of Lee Doon shot six feet downward.” Doon fell so his head ended up just below the floor. He did not struggle but twitched as he hung. Of the five doctors attending, one fainted and was carried out of the building. The Marin Journal reported, “But when the trap sprung and Doon went down then commenced a scramble to see him as he dangled at the end of the rope. What crowding, pushing, jumping up onto each others’ back! What a display of barbarism !…. And then at the end of the ‘performance’ ….[they] begged for a piece of the rope that hung poor Doon.”
The trial and execution of Lee Doon attracted great attention throughout the Bay Area. Other reports of the hanging were less impassioned than was the Marin Journal’s description titled “A Disgrace”. The September 2nd San Francisco Call portrayed the scene: “A Noisy Crowd Witnesses the Uneventful Hanging of a Marin County Murderer.” The San Francisco Chronicle reported Doon’s execution as: “Coolie Dies Without a Murmur”. The San Francisco Examiner labeled it “The Sheriff’s Show.”
While most reports were critical of the Sheriff’s management of the hanging of Lee Doon, the Marin County Tocsin saw it differently. The September 2, 1893 Tocsin reported: “All of the arrangements and details of the execution were well planned and carried out successfully. The officers and their assistants are to be congratulated on their efficient discharge of an unpleasant duty.”
The Legislature was not as magnanimous in regard to the Sheriff’s management of the execution as was the Marin County Tocsin. They found the botched Marin County hanging intolerable and enacted a change in the Penal Code that required all future executions be under supervision of the Warden within a State Prison and not under the control of the County Sheriff. So ended open public hangings in San Rafael.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
