By J.L. MILLER
Dover Bureau reporter
06/17/2003

When convicted murderer James W. Riley was sentenced to life in prison last month, it left the Department of Correction with one set of surplus gallows and a thorny question: what to do with them.

Department officials are trying to decide whether to dismantle the gallows or possibly turn them over to a historical organization for preservation.

But Delaware's largest historical society is not interested, and the Delaware State Museums' director said he was unaware the discussions were under way.

Delaware's gallows were used in the nation's last hanging, when Billy Bailey was executed on Jan. 25, 1996, for a 1979 double murder.

The imposing wooden structure has remained in place in a restricted area on the south side of the prison yard at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna, awaiting the possibility that Riley would be hanged.

Riley was convicted of the 1982 killing of Dover package-store owner James E. Feeley Sr. He was the last inmate eligible to be hanged because the crime occurred before 1986, when Delaware changed its execution method to lethal injection.

A federal appeals court overturned Riley's conviction, and his subsequent retrial, conviction and life sentence consigned the gallows to history.

Correction Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Welch said Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor Jr. and top department officials are discussing the fate of the gallows, which were built in 1986 and renovated in 1995 at a cost of about $10,000.

Bailey was the only man to be hanged on the current gallows. The last hanging before Bailey's was in 1946, when Forest Sturdivant was executed, and those gallows were dismantled at some point thereafter and not preserved.

A decision on the fate of the current gallows should be reached "in fairly short order," Welch said. "We're figuring out what to do with them even as we speak."

While a gallows might seem a macabre artifact for a reputable institution to own or display, it would be far from unique. When Kansas dismantled its gallows in 1986, the device was turned over to the Kansas State Historical Society.

The Kansas gallows sent 19 men to their deaths and gained national notoriety as the structure used to execute Perry Smith and Richard Hickock - the subjects of Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood."

The Kansas society does not have the gallows on public display, although the trap door has been used in displays.

"It's not that we don't want to put it on display, but it needs to be set into the proper context," Assistant Museum Director Rebecca Martin said.

"I suppose to a lot of people it may seem macabre. However, when you're working in the history profession, you collect things that represent people's lives - or in this case, their deaths," she said.

Barbara Benson, longtime director of the Historical Society of Delaware, said the gallows would be out of place in its collection.

"It probably would not be an artifact that we would consider having," Benson said. "Having said that, it is a historical artifact. That's a very interesting point of discussion.

"I would commend them for at least asking the question: Is it historically significant, and should it be preserved," she said.

As a state agency, the Delaware State Museums might be the logical inheritor of the gallows.

Museums Administrator Jim Stewart said he does not know whether the agency would be interested.

"Part of me says it's way too big, and you've got to be crazy," he said.

Stewart said the museums would have no place to display the gallows, but he agreed the device could be considered a part of Delaware history.

"Obviously it's a rather grim aspect of history," he said. "It's something that needs to be thought about before action is taken."

Kansas museum official Martin said Delaware will have to consider the fact that the gallows were used so recently in deciding what to do with them.

Putting them on display might not be appropriate now, she said, but preserving them should be considered.

She said she does not think public sentiment should prevent a significant object from being added to a collection.

"I can say on our behalf, we are glad that we did collect this piece," she said.

Reach J.L. Miller at 678-4271 or jlmiller@delawareonline.com.