A group of assistant states attorneys get a look at the Cook County Jail gallows. Under court order, officials had to keep them standing for decades in case Tommy O’Connor, who escaped from prison the day before his scheduled execution in 1921, was ever recaptured (Chicago, 1977) [533 x 764].

The gallows were dismantled in 1977 after the order was reversed by Judge Richard Fitzgerald, who gave up hope that Tommy would ever be captured. Tommy was most likely dead. Even if he was still alive and miraculously found, and even if officials were willing to hang someone in his late 80s, it didn’t matter anymore since the death penalty was temporarily suspended nationwide in 1972.