The Condemned: Witnesses gather at Sing Sing prison for the execution of a Manlius shoe repairman in 1924 – syracuse.com

It was not the typical invitation journalist Boyden Sparks found in his mailbox one morning in the spring of 1924.

The correspondent from William Randolph Hearts International and Cosmopolitan magazine, a forebear to the fashion and entertainment publication Cosmopolitan, did not receive an invitation to someones birthday party or wedding. It was not for a childs graduation or baptism.

Instead, Sparks was being asked to come to Sing Sing Prison, about 30 miles north of New York City, at the behest of the prisons warden, Lewis Lawes, on April 10, 1924, to watch someone die in the electric chair.

The invitation read:

In accordance with Section 507 of the Penal Code you are hereby invited to be present as a witness at the execution of Antonio Viandante, which will occur at this prison on Thursday.

The hour of 11 p.m. has been designated by me for such execution and you will arrange to be at my office in this prison not later than 10:45 p.m.

I would thank you to treat this communication as confidential and advise me immediately upon its receipt of your acceptance or otherwise, so that I may make my arrangement accordingly.

Lewis Lawes was the warden at Sing Sing Prison for 21 years, from 1920 to 1941. He oversaw more than 300 executions during his tenure.Library of Congress

Sparks would immediately accept what he called this grisly R.S.V.P.

In the resulting article, Sparks would take readers into Sing Sings death chamber and give an unflinching account of what a condemned persons final moments were like.

The accusing article was entitled, You and I Killed This Man.

For readers from Central New York, this man was a local, the first person convicted from Onondaga County to go to the electric chair since 1894.

Antonio Viandante was a Manlius shoe repairman who, in a jealous rage on Dec. 3, 1922, fatally stabbed his wife Rosa and then the towns local butcher, Frank Vasto, who happened to be the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sparks arrived at the prison on the night of the execution at the appointed time.

He was taken into Lawes double parlor and met some of the other witnesses who would attending Viandantes execution.

It must have been a strange scene, with guests mingling in a room furnished with old-fashioned mantels of white Italian marble and deeply capacious, thickly upholstered chairs.

In the parlor, Sparks met a couple other reporters, Warden Lawes, the prisons physician, Dr. Amos Squire, and Roman Catholic priest Father Cashin, who had visited with condemned men in their final moments for more than a dozen years.

Viandante would not be one of them.

Sparks wondered aloud why Cashin was not dressed in his vestments despite the executions time quickly approaching.

The man next to Sparks filled him in, whispering:

This fellow the one tonight said hed kill Father Cashin if he came near him. Said he didnt want any religious consolation. They think hes faking insanity.

Then the man told Sparks about Viandantes last night.

(He) tried to hang himself in his cell last night, using a spring taken from his bed. A death house guard saw him in time. Tore the skin on one side of his throat, though. Hes a big bird and theyre looking for trouble.

Sparks made his way over to Lawes, the man who would oversee more than 300 executions during his 21-year tenure as warden at Sing Sing and inquired about Viandante.

(Despite those statistics, Lawes was one of capital punishments most fierce critics. In 1923, he wrote, I shall ask for the abolition of the Penalty of Death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me. It makes one think that Sparks invitation, and subsequent article, was to help further Lawes anti-death penalty ideas.)

He killed his wife at Manlius, New York, the warden said. He was once a police sergeant in Italy and then spent two years in an insane asylum there. Delusions, Im told.

Sparks asked Lawes if the condemned man would receive any sort of drugs before being taken to the chair.

No, Lawes said, we never dope them. The theory is that they are entitled to be in the full possession of their faculties when it happens.

At that moment, the door opened, and a uniformed guard stuck his head in and addressed Lawes.

They are ready, the guard said.

The assembled visitors left the wardens home and made the short walk to the to a one-story brick building, the death house.

Sparks gave this description of the chamber:

Just inside the door and to the right were half a dozen wooden benches with backs shoulder-high suggestive of church pews into these filed the witnesses, scuffling their feet as awkwardly as so many schoolboys in spite of obvious efforts to be quiet. There were only two other articles of furniture in the chamber. One was a white enamel table used to convey patients to and from the operating room. The other was the electric chair, an armchair, if you please.

The chair, Sparks wrote, stood throne-like and sinister.

The witnesses sat in silence, until 11:09 p.m. when Antonio Viandante made his appearance.

To learn more about Antonio Viandante, his backstory, crimes, trial, and death, please download and subscribe to syracuse.coms new local history/true crime podcast series, The Condemned. The first two episodes, including Viandantes, will be available on Monday, June 1.

The Condemned

If you like true-crime stories, be sure to look for our podcast The Condemned" where we explore the stories of five men from Onondaga County who paid the price for their crimes in the electric chair.

Episodes launch on June 1. Bookmark it on our Acast page or other popular platforms including iTunes, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher. Want to be one of the first to listen? Make sure to subscribe on your preferred platform to get new episodes as they become available.

Read more

'The Condemned: A new true crime podcast by syracuse.com

The Condemned: The first use of the electric chair left many of its witnesses horrified in 1890

1924-1929: Meet Syracuses Death Juror, the farmer who helped send two men to the electric chair

1881: Hundreds watch Onondaga Countys final hanging

1887: The botched hanging of Roxalana Druse helped open the way for the electric chair

This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.

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The Condemned: Witnesses gather at Sing Sing prison for the execution of a Manlius shoe repairman in 1924 - syracuse.com