The first woman to be executed by electric chair. Born and raised on a rural New Jersey farm, Martha Garretson's early years were spent in drudgery. In an effort to escape that life she married Wesley Savacool and they had a son, Ross. The couple fought from the start and Martha soon abandoned her husband and son, taking a job as a dressmaker in New Brunswick. Martha married insurance adjuster William W. Place, a widower with a young daughter from his previous marriage, Ida Mildred, in late 1893. Three months earlier, in August, she had answered an ad for a housekeeper and was hired to work in the Place home in Brooklyn, New York, at 598 Hancock Street. Rumored to be jealous of her stepdaughter, William called the police at least once to have Martha arrested for threatening to kill Ida. Upon arriving home on the evening of February 7, 1898, William was attacked by Martha with an axe. Though seriously injured, William escaped and summoned help. On arrival, the police found Martha locked in her room, unconscious on the floor with two gas jets turned on. Ida, then 17, was discovered lying dead on a bed upstairs. Acid had been thrown in her eyes and she had been asphixiated with the bed clothes. Martha was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Unsure how to carry out the execution of a woman in the electric chair it was decided to slit her dress, placing the electrode on her ankle. Executed at Sing Sing Prison by the state of New York, Martha's remains were returned to her home state of New Jersey where she was buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in the family plot without religious observances.
The first woman to be executed by electric chair. Born and raised on a rural New Jersey farm, Martha Garretson's early years were spent in drudgery. In an effort to escape that life she married Wesley Savacool and they had a son, Ross. The couple fought from the start and Martha soon abandoned her husband and son, taking a job as a dressmaker in New Brunswick. Martha married insurance adjuster William W. Place, a widower with a young daughter from his previous marriage, Ida Mildred, in late 1893. Three months earlier, in August, she had answered an ad for a housekeeper and was hired to work in the Place home in Brooklyn, New York, at 598 Hancock Street. Rumored to be jealous of her stepdaughter, William called the police at least once to have Martha arrested for threatening to kill Ida. Upon arriving home on the evening of February 7, 1898, William was attacked by Martha with an axe. Though seriously injured, William escaped and summoned help. On arrival, the police found Martha locked in her room, unconscious on the floor with two gas jets turned on. Ida, then 17, was discovered lying dead on a bed upstairs. Acid had been thrown in her eyes and she had been asphixiated with the bed clothes. Martha was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Unsure how to carry out the execution of a woman in the electric chair it was decided to slit her dress, placing the electrode on her ankle. Executed at Sing Sing Prison by the state of New York, Martha's remains were returned to her home state of New Jersey where she was buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in the family plot without religious observances.
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