Hanging beauty.
Brings to mind an historical hanging of a babe, Paula Angel. About 1871 this chick shot and killed her cheating lover in the dirt bag town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Sentenced to hang, apparently the sheriff, out of ignorance, chivalry, or embarrassment failed to bind pretty Paula's wrists behind her back, as one must do with a wench. A noose was affixed to a cottonwood branch, and cotton wood is a particularly flexible wood that bends easily. Standing on an ox cart, it was led slowly away and Paula was eased into a full suspension slow hanging. Not caring to strangle and dance to a crowd of onlookers, she reached over her head and began to pull herself up the rope, hand over hand. Alarmed, the sheriff, shouting that the law was "hung by the neck until dead" whirled his horse around and grabbed Paula by the waist, and a ghastly game of tug-of-war ensued, with Paula fighting like a wild cat, no doubt shrieking. The crowd, appalled at seeing this sweet piece of ass being tortured, as such, became violent, over powered the sheriff and his horse, lifted Paula up and cut her down.
She was carted back to the jail for the night to massage her throat and ponder what was to become of her. Next morning, early, before the crowds had a chance to gather, she was this time bound and returned to the hanging tree, where the sentence was carried out. No record of that exists, but no doubt she had a prolonged farewell dance, being that the tree was flexible and the drop very slow.
In another botched hanging from that period, Texas I think, the damsel was bound, but of slender stature, and hung pitifully for an hour without choking out. A grain bag was attached, mid-hanging, to her legs, and pulled stretched her pretty neck out so that she strangled out in a few minutes, later.
