46 Facts About Joe Arridy

Joe Arridy was manipulated by the police to make a false confession due to his mental incapacities.

Joe Arridy was mentally disabled and was 23 years old when he was executed on January 6,1939.

In 2011, Joe Arridy received a full and unconditional posthumous pardon by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter.

Ritter, the former district attorney of Denver, pardoned Joe Arridy based on questions about the man's guilt and what appeared to be a coerced false confession.

Joe Arridy was born in 1915 in Pueblo, Colorado, to Mary and Henry Joe Arridy, Maronite Christian immigrants from Bqarqacha, a village in Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Syria.

Joe Arridy did not socialize with other children in his neighborhood, instead preferring to wander town, hammer nails, and make mud pies, a habit he kept up into his mid-teens.

In 1925, Henry Joe Arridy lost his job and appealed to neighbors to help him write letters to find a place for his son, as Henry was partially illiterate.

Examiners at the home had Joe Arridy's family undergo several psychological tests and concluded that his mother Mary was "probably feeble-minded" and his younger brother George considered a "high moron".

Henry regretted sending his son away and requested his full release only ten months later, with Joe Arridy returning to Pueblo on August 13,1926.

Joe Arridy was recommitted to the school, where it was reported that he could only be taught "tasks of not too long duration" such as mopping floors or washing dishes.

Joe Arridy was often mistreated, beaten, and manipulated by his peers, only ever becoming close with one Mrs Bowers, a kitchen worker who supervised his chores, during his seven-year stay.

The car's supervisors, Mr and Mrs Glen Gibson, allowed Joe Arridy to stay with the crew, gave him clean clothes and allowed him to work as a dishwasher in exchange for meals.

Joe Arridy wandered around the railyard for several more hours, presumably waiting for another train, until he was arrested by railroad detectives George Burnett and Carl Christianson, as the detectives believed Joe Arridy could be one of many army deserters from Fort Logan, due to his khaki-colored clothing.

Carroll was aware of the widespread search for suspects in the Drain murder case and when Joe Arridy revealed under questioning that he was a native of Pueblo and had recently traveled through the town by way of a train after leaving Grand Junction, Colorado, Carroll began to question him about the Drain case.

Joe Arridy was put in custody after asking two officers where to find Riley Drain and repeatedly hinted at his closeness to the family, particularly his daughters, but did not admit to the attack while in custody, with his mother providing an alibi that he had been home the night of the attacks.

Joe Arridy repeatedly provided wrong addresses that were either incomplete or led to the neighborhood Joe Arridy had grown up in, but his family had moved out of during his stay at the school.

Taylor acknowledged, but assumed that Joe Arridy was under the influence "of marijuana or something similar".

Aguilar had planned the attack ahead of time and let Joe Arridy join him in carrying out the Drain attacks together before Joe Arridy left town via train.

Joe Arridy had confessed to the assault upon being asked, but eyewitnesses and coworkers placed Joe Arridy at his workplace in the railroad kitchen in Cheyenne, 170 miles away from Colorado Springs, at the time, after which the charge was dropped.

Similarly, Saul Kahn, a pawnbroker had claimed that Joe Arridy bought a gun from him the day of the attack on the Drain residence, but this allegation was dismissed because Kahn, who repeatedly changed the date he supposedly met Joe Arridy, could not provide evidence for the purchase.

Kahn had stated that Arridy paid in cash, despite his lack of funds and inability to count, and that he introduced himself by his full name Joseph Arridy, when he only ever called himself Joe.

Seavy brought up that Aguilar's brother had been confined to a mental asylum before he was deported back to Mexico and claimed that Joe Arridy had privately confessed to him that he acted alone.

Sherriff George Carroll testified eight separate times in court and contended that Joe Arridy was mentally fit and aware of his actions, claiming that he was articulate during all questioning, provided accurate information during the crime scene reenactment and that Joe Arridy had shown guilt by displaying "great remorse" in private.

Judge Harry Leddy ruled Joe Arridy to be sane, while acknowledged by three state psychiatrists to be so mentally limited as to be classified as an "imbecile", a medical term at the time.

The evidence was accepted, even though it ran contrary to the fact that Joe Arridy was of recent Syrian ancestry and Joe Arridy's race being listed as "Hispanic" on prison documents, with visual matching of hairs having since been proven to not be an accurate act of measure.

Joe Arridy spoke of a single perpetrator and did not recognise Arridy as having been present during the attacks.

Joe Arridy noted that Aguilar had said he acted alone, and medical experts had testified as to Arridy's mental limitations.

Joe Arridy received nine stays of execution as appeals and petitions on his behalf were mounted, during which time the electric chair was phased out as an execution method in Colorado and replaced by the gas chamber.

Joe Arridy did not acknowledge the execution, replying "No, I am not going to die" when asked four separate times on the matter.

On December 25,1938, Joe Arridy received a battery-powered toy train by Warden Best as a Christmas present.

Joe Arridy quickly became particularly fond of the toy and he would often roll it between the metal bars to other cells for fellow inmates to catch and push back.

The warden said that Joe Arridy was "the happiest prisoner on death row".

When questioned about his impending execution on January 2,1939, Joe Arridy showed "blank bewilderment".

Joe Arridy did not understand the meaning of the gas chamber, telling the warden "No, no, Joe won't die".

Joe Arridy did not understand the concept of death despite repeated attempts at explanation through Best and prison chaplain Albert Schaller in the prior year.

Joe Arridy was initially reluctant to give his favorite toy away, but warmed up to the idea after playing with Agnes and Norman Wharton for a few hours.

Joe Arridy had been unable to attend the funeral of his father Henry, who had died of pneumonia on 24 February 1937 at the age of 51, and had not seen his mother Mary since his incarceration.

Joe Arridy became upset upon being told that he could not take his toy train and played with it one last time together with Angelo Agnes before the former had to leave, with Joe Arridy saying "Give my train to Agnes" while he was led away.

Joe Arridy replied that he wanted to play the harp, which Best speculated was influenced by being told stories of angels in the afterlife by Father Schaller, specifically because he said that Joe Arridy would be "swapping [his toy train] for a harp".

Joe Arridy was reported to have smiled as he entered the gas chamber.

Unlike Aguilar's execution, which was attended by 300 people, largely uninvited friends of the Riley family, Joe Arridy's execution was watched by just 50 people, who were all either official witnesses or staff.

Joe Arridy was declared dead at 8:19 pm Arridy became the seventh prisoner in the United States to be executed via gas chamber.

Carroll's role in having Joe Arridy convicted for the Drain murder only increased his fame.

Joe Arridy was last listed in the 1950 census, still in Mesa County, as "married patient" in the household of Emma Amy Ackerman.

Joe Arridy's case is one of a number that received new attention in the face of research into ensuring just interrogations and confessions.

In June 2007, about 50 supporters of Joe Arridy gathered for the dedication of a tombstone they had commissioned for his grave at Woodpecker Hill in Canon City's Greenwood Cemetery near the state prison.