EP03: The Happiest Man on Death Row

Crimes and Consequences

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 859 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1939, a young man with an IQ of 46 was executed by the State of Colorado for the attack with an ax on two young sisters resulting in the death of a 15-year-old girl. The real ax killer had attacked women before and was executed, but a corrupt sheriff who wanted a reward framed Joe for the murders. The story of his trial, conviction, and eventual execution, will be one of the most shocking and horrifying miscarriages of justice you will ever hear about. This is the story of Joe Arridy.

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Sources:
All That’s Interesting: The Mentally Disabled Man Executed for a Grisly Murder He Didn't Commit
Morbidology: Joe Arridy: The Happiest Man on Death Row
The Pueblo Pulp: Inmate 19845 has officially served his sentence: The Story of Joe Arridy
Westword: Joe Arridy was the happiest man on death row
Boredom Therapy: The Tragic Story of the Innocent Man Known as "The Happiest Prisoner on Death Row"
Life Magazine, April 12, 1948: Warden Adopts Young Murderer

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode may contain content of a graphic nature,
0:03.0	including descriptions of physical and sexual violence
0:06.0	against adults, children, and animals.
0:09.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:12.0	Hi, everyone, I'm Tlaia and I'm Tanya and together we are crimes and consequences a true crime
0:19.3	podcast. cast. Hey to Leah, how you doing today? I am splendid. How are you doing today? I am splendid. How are you? I'm doing good. Good. Is you ready for a story? Yes I am. All right. Before I start though, I'm going to mention that I got most of the information for today's podcast from a book. It was called Deadly Innocence by Robert Persky.
0:58.1	So our story today is about Joe Erredy.
1:00.1	Joe was born on April 29th, 1915 in Pueblo, Colorado.
1:05.0	His parents were Henry and Mary Erredi, who had emigrated from Syria to the United States to pursue the American Dream.
1:11.0	Henry came to the US on July 5,
1:14.5	1999. His wife didn't come though until 1912. Many of their community back in
1:20.6	Syria specifically picked Colorado to emigrate to because the Colorado Fuel and Iron
1:26.3	Works company was hiring a lot of unskilled workers.
1:30.5	In the 1920s there was a lot of bias against immigrants.
1:34.0	Mostly immigrants who were not from Nordic countries.
1:38.0	So places like Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, places like that.
1:42.0	They believed that those people had superior genes
1:46.7	and were smarter than all of the other immigrants that came.
1:49.8	It's actually something called eugenics.
1:51.8	And eugenics is thinking that if you exclude the certain gene pool
1:57.0	from when you have children, that your children will be superior.
2:01.0	Not only was there a bias against immigrants at this time
	...

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