Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
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:10:01
Once the chair broke in half
in the state of New York,

:10:05
and the individual
lay writhing on the floor
of the death chamber...

:10:09
crying for 35 or 40 minutes
while the carpenters
repaired the chair.

:10:13
They burnt
the transformer up.

:10:15
Fortunately,
due to the quick thinking
of the prison electrician,

:10:19
they had some cable,
they ran some wires
over the prison wall...

:10:22
and tapped into
the outside power line...

:10:25
without the consent
of the power company, but
there was no objection later.

:10:29
They had one execution...
:10:31
where the transformer
caught on fire and blew up,

:10:35
and it occurred
in such a sequence...

:10:38
that all it did was knock
the individual unconscious.

:10:41
He came out of it with
no apparent brain damage,
no problem.

:10:45
Six months later they repaired
the electric chair...

:10:48
and they did successfully
execute him.

:10:50
But, I mean,
he was very lucky.

:10:53
He was hit with
a full jolt of electricity,

:10:56
the equipment blew up,
burned up...

:11:00
and he walked away from it
without any damage,
not even a burn.

:11:06
One by one,
:11:08
I determined that this state's
equipment was not functional,

:11:11
this state's equipment
was not functional.

:11:13
Then suddenly one day I said,
"None of the equipment
is functional."

:11:17
Many of the electric chairs
were built by inmates
and electricians...

:11:21
who had no idea
of what they were building.

:11:24
They took a picture of another
state's electric chair and made
something that looked like it.

:11:33
[ Film Projector Running ]

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