





Albert Pierrepoint, the UK’s most notable executioner who hanged several hundred serial killers, Nazi criminals and murderers over a 25 year career started his vocation early on life following in his father’s footstep. “In my [youthful] imagination,” he wrote in his memoir, “Death was an adventure . . . and Execution was romance.” At the end of his working life he wrote: “All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that . . . I have not prevented a single murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge.”
His execution diary has recently been sold at auction and may result in an updated memoir coming out.
He was born 30 March 1905, London and was a Sun Aries square a Uranus Neptune opposition. His Mars in Scorpio opposed Algol and squared Saturn which makes sense of a state assassin.
His father Henry, 30 November 1877, a Sun Sagittarius had his Pluto conjunct Algol square Uranus, sextile Mars. His uncle Thomas Pierrepoint, 6 October 1870, a Sun Libra had his Mars in Leo in a ruthless square to Pluto and trine Saturn trine Neptune.
Charles Henri-Sanson, 15 February 1739, high executioner of France who beheaded Louis XVI by guillotine, and another three thousand people during the French Revolution including Robespierre, some of them in a gruesome fashion, had an afflicted Mars conjunct Chiron on the focal point of a yod inconjunct a revolutionary Uranus sextile Pluto; with his late Taurus Moon probably conjunct Algol.
Giovanni Battista Bugatti, the Official executioner for the Papal States. With a tally of 514 kills, 6 March 1779, had a cruel Mars Saturn in Scorpio sextile Jupiter with Mars opposition Algol; and a Pisces Sun square Uranus.
All too ghoulish but noteworthy the presence of Algol in nearly all the charts as well as an afflicted Mars.
Continuing on from the previous post of the recent US nitrogen gas execution, see post January 26th 2024.
One of my objections to the death penalty apart from it not being a deterrent, is that it contaminates not only society but those who are tasked with carrying out the executions. Though admittedly the forms of execution nowadays are nowhere as sadistically stomach turning as the methods of centuries ago. Civilization has crawled forwards an inch or two.