March 10, 1914

Judge Jeptha Evans originally scheduled the hanging of John Arthur Tillman. The date was the anniversary of the victim’s murder, but attempts to appeal the sentence postponed the hanging until July. Meanwhile, state law mandated that all future criminals sentenced to death would be executed by electric chair rather than by hanging. While this law had been passed by the state legislature in February 1913, it could not be implemented until the “execution room” had been constructed at the state penitentiary in Little Rock, which had not yet been completed by November 1. Tillman was the last person executed by hanging in the state of Arkansas. Accused of murdering a girlfriend, Tillman insisted upon his innocence to the day of his death.