Legends of LIC 32 lic courier • february 2013 • www.queenscourier.com Sing Sing song part two In last month’s edition of Legends, we met Astorian Mike Casalino, convicted murderer and Sing Sing deathrow inmate. This is how his story ends. The 16 witnesses for the execution are invited into the warden’s office. They stand in a semi-circle. Their credentials are again examined. They are joined by Dr. Amos Squires, prison physician and his assistant. The State Electrician disappears. The witnesses are as odd an assemblage as could be wished for. They include two dentists from Jamaica, a chauffeur, a naval lieutenant, two shopkeepers LEGENDS OF LIC BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY LEGENDS OF LIC from Ossining, a Paris reporter traveling around the world studying methods of capital punishment and representatives of the Queens County Sheriff as well as the Queens District Attorney’s office. Major Lewis Lawes, the warden of Sing Sing, addresses the men. “Gentlemen, you know why you are here. When you pass the Death House please observe silence.” At one minute before midnight, Warden Lawes signals to start. He instructs the witnesses to form a column and marches them out two by two. The warden is at the head. The witnesses stumble in the darkness before reaching a heavy steel gate between two stone piers. “Open up!” orders Warden Lawes to a rifle-bearing sentry dimly silhouetted against the sky. The gate slides noiselessly up and the party enters. A small yellow building stands out in the darkness. It looks like a chapel. It is the death house. A door opens and a brilliant shaft of light falls through. As they enter, a keeper orders, “Gentlemen, remove your hats.” The sinister thing stands in the center of the room bathed in a powerful light. It is not a heavy, clumsy looking chair as imagined, but a lightly constructed chair made of oak. On either side are three guards. Dr. Squires and his assistant stand in front of the chair. The electrician is by the switchboard fussing with a little switch. All eyes are on a little door. Then audible to those in the witness seats, comes the tread of feet in slow cadence. There is the low rumble of voices in prayer and the answer of another voice. In comes Principal Keeper McIntyre, with a portly priest, followed by a bareheaded and disheveled looking young man in a loose fitting flapping trousers. He wears a white shirt with the neck cut away. He did not shrink or hesitate. In his hands he carried a black crucifix. He listens for a moment as the preist recited the Litany of the Saints. “Oro Pro Nobis,” Mike answered. His stocking feet make no sound on the floor. He sits down. His arms are strapped in and the electrode attached to his head. Before the black hood is placed over his face, the condemned man blurts out, “Dr. Squires, shake my hand. You have always been kind to me. Good-bye to all of you. I thank you for what you have done for me.” Dr. Squires grasps his hand, steps back, then gives a signal to the man at the switchboard. A switch snaps. Mike Casalino was 24 years old.
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