10 Creepy Stories About Real Life Executioners

Thomas Derrick becoming an executioner was a very dark case of irony. He was a sinister guy, and had been found guilty of rape. And in Elizabethan England, the punishment for rape was the death penalty. However, in a corrupt deal with the Earl of Essex he got out of his punishment on the condition that he became the local executioner.

The job of executioner was unpopular, as people often looked down on you for it. And so even though it was corrupt and counterproductive, they knew that someone on death row was desperate enough to take the job in exchange for a pardon. This exchange didn’t work out too well for the Earl of Essex in the end though, as when he received the death penalty himself it was Derrick who executed him. He was just one of around 3000 people executed by the convicted violent criminal.