PARDONED THAT HE MAY HANG (1905)
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He was a “desperate young crook,” according to the Governor of New York.
But the governor went ahead and pardoned him anyway.
Charles Bassett, 19, of Brooklyn, had committed enough crimes that the State decided that he needed to be put away for eight years in Sing Sing. Amongst other felonies, he “broke into Nicholas Weinberg’s jewelry store on Fifth Avenue” and “assaulted Jeweler Bridger and stole his diamond on Fulton Street.”
And these were the crimes that they knew about.
Bassett was a bad apple – plain and simple.
But Governor Higgins in an agreement with Connecticut’s governor, made a deal that scared and surprised everyone. And in the process, he practically opened Bassett’s cell door himself, escorted him through the yard, and watched as he walked out the prison gates.
ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL
These listed crimes, however, were but mere child’s play when his solitary darker and fouler crime was taken into account.
As all good thieves do, Bassett had a criminal network to which he belonged. As soon as there was a chance to make a quick buck without having to do work of any kind, Bassett could smell the opportunity.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a $20,000 haul was the glimmering bauble that lured Bassett’s attention. It was not long after the crimes described above had been committed that he fled for Bridgeport to get in on the action.
The target was an octogenarian farmer named Lockwood who lived alone on an isolated farm and, it was supposed, he possessed $20,000.
According to police reports, Bassett, with a couple of criminal associates, went to Lockwood’s house on the outskirts of Bridgeport. Pretending to be out-of-work streetcar operators who were trying to fight the streetcar companies that were breaking their strikes, they had entreated Lockwood to support them. As the aged Lockwood was signing his name to a paper purporting to be a protest against the encroachments of a street railroad company, Bassett went into action.
Coming up from behind him, Bassett first struck Lockwood over the head with the butt end of his revolver. Then he beat him. Mercilessly. Brutally. His associates stood by and watched – in abject awe.
THE “GET OUT OF JAIL” CARD
And now Bassett was simply walking out of Sing Sing a free man.
Passing before his mind’s eye during that long walk to the prison gates, were likely a number of past events and people. There were the detective sergeants who had arrested him, Coughlin and Duane. Their arresting him, Bassett must have though, was most certainly just a lucky break for these two self-serving off-the-boat coppers. Then there was the woman who turned him in. Bassett had nothing but contempt for her kind, and was seized with the thought of her slow and painful death. Then there was the governor himself, a simpleton cog in the political machine. If he could, he would simply reach out and rattle the knave by the neck.
But that wasn’t to be.
As the prison gates swung open and Bassett stepped out into his freedom, a pair of cuffs were placed upon his wrists by a couple of Connecticut policemen. He was re-arrested and and would be brought to Waterbury to stand trial for the death of Thomas C. Lockwood.
It was stated that this was “the first time, probably, in the history of crime, that a man had been pardoned from a term of imprisonment on the chance that he might be hanged for a graver offense.”
Although he wasn’t hanged, he did not walk free. On 22 December 1905, Bassett listened “with entire composure” as he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
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