A Hanging Gone Wrong

Bill Longley meets his maker.

October 11, 1878. Outlaw Bill Longley meets his maker after being hanged in Giddings, Texas.

Longley boasted that he’d killed 32 men in gunfights. In reality, Longley killed a fraction of that number, and most of his victims were murdered. Officials botched the hanging. They failed to measure the rope, and when Longley dropped through the trap, he landed on his feet on the ground. Lawmen then hauled him up to slowly strangle. Some years later, Longley’s father claimed that his son escaped and didn’t die. But in June 2001, his remains were identified using family DNA.