10 Creepy Stories About Real Life Executioners

Dick Bauf is another person who became an executioner under unfortunate circumstances. When he was just 12 years old, both his parents were charged with burglary and murder. The punishment was death, which put Dick Bauf in a bad position. Not only was he losing both parents at the age of 12, but 17th century Ireland’s child care system was seen as a near enough death sentence. His parents pleaded to have him not go into childcare, and it was agreed that he wouldn’t. There was one cruel condition to this though: he had to execute both his parents to be let free.

His parents agreed to this, and so the 12 year old hanged his parents. Because he was then seen as an executioner, he was unable to get any honest work and turned to pick-pocketing. He soon became involved in a circle of petty thieves, and later he became a highwayman. This led to him being a wanted criminal with a reward for his capture. When confronted with a group of men trying to catch him, he managed to catch them and decided to burn them alive and flee.

Despite all the heinous acts he'd committed, he was eventually arrested for the relatively benign crime of sleeping with a married woman. Despite trying to pay his way out of his sentence, he was executed by hanging just like his parents.