Fred Leuchter — The Man who made Death an industry
Have you ever wondered where the devices used to carry out executions come from? Meet Fred Artur Leuchter— a man who put the production of lethal instruments of justice on stream, while not being a law-abiding citizen himself.
Fred Arthur Leuchter was born in 1943 in Malden, Massachusetts. His father, who headed the transportation department of the State Department of Corrections, often traveled on business trips to US prisons. Sometimes he took his son with him, who from an early age could observe prison life from the inside.
Of particular interest to the young Leuchter were the rooms for the execution of death sentences — the boy had the opportunity to examine in detail the device of gallows, gas chambers and electric chairs. It was then that Fred realized that he was attracted to the instruments of execution, but did not yet know that they would become his life's work.
Leuchter passed for a bachelor's degree in art history at Boston University, but did not work in his specialty. Humanitarian education did not prevent the man from doing what he loved - inventing, and in 1978 Fred received a patent for the creation of an electronic sextant, and in 1985 - another one for its modernization.
But the main brainchild of Leuchter was his company Fred Leuchter Associates, which was engaged in the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of devices for executions. In order to carry out engineering surveys, it was necessary to get a technical education, but Fred made it easier — forged documents and became an electrical engineer.
Leuchter's company produced a limited but very responsible range of products: electric chairs, gallows, lethal injection machines and gas chambers. In interviews that Fred willingly gave to journalists, he said that he was on a good mission and wanted to make death merciful.
This was a laudable wish, since at the time of the company's founding, the United States was shaken by a series of high-profile scandals related to capital punishment. The equipment, manufactured by small private contractors and serviced by anyone, was malfunctioning. The most terrible case, which showed the low efficiency of the devices available in prisons, was the death of one convict in the electric chair — the man died only after a current was passed through him for 17 minutes.
Founder Fred Leuchter Associates approached the work very responsibly. Before presenting the first product, Fred studied mountains of literature, drawings and medical reports. He wanted to know how a quick death happens and what equipment flaws could prevent it.
Becoming an expert in his profession, Leuchter quickly achieved success — his company supplied execution instruments to several states, and in addition, provided their warranty and service. We must pay tribute to the businessman — he always did his job conscientiously and treated not only prison staff, but also prisoners with respect.
Leuchter's business flourished not only because of his charm — Fred Leuchter Associates offered its products at a very good price, incomparable with that requested by a few competitors. An electric chair could be purchased for 35 thousand dollars, a device that makes lethal injections for 30 thousand, and a gallows for 85. The most expensive product was a gas chamber, which cost the company's customers 200 thousand dollars.
A kind of Leuchter's know-how was a mobile room for the execution of sentences on the basis of a truck. For just 100 thousand dollars, the client could get a mobile room for lethal injections, equipped with everything necessary, as well as a steel cell for the condemned and a room for warders, a doctor and witnesses.
But not everything went smoothly. In 1990, Fred was accused of fraud. Detractors claimed that during the execution by lethal injection, the condemned man behaved quietly not because of a quick and painless procedure, but because of paralysis caused by one of the components of a complex poison.
One of the most serious mistakes in Leuchter's life, which eventually destroyed his business and life, was his friendship with Ernst Zundel. This man seriously tried to prove to everyone that the mass executions in gas chambers carried out by the Nazis in death camps were nothing more than someone's fiction.
To enlist the opinion of a specialist, Zundel turned to Leuchter, who gladly volunteered to help him. Fred did not limit himself to theoretical calculations and went to Poland himself, where he took a sample of the material from the wall of the Auschwitz gas chamber. The laboratory analysis of the building material made on high-precision equipment delighted Zundel, as it showed the complete absence of traces of Cyclone B gas.
This fact also made Leuchter a supporter of Ernst Zundel's views. The so-called "Leuchter Report" in 4 parts, released by the German in his own publishing house Samisdat Publishers in 1988 in Canada, was supposed to put an end to the Holocaust case. In addition, the partners have published several scientific articles and even made a film about Fred's trip to Poland.
With the materials of his investigation, Leuchter began to give lectures in different states of the United States, which eventually burned him. As it turned out, the results of the sample study were done correctly, but taken in the wrong place. The particles of the wall, which the self-taught engineer took out of the deep layers of plaster, could not contain traces of cyanide, since it is deposited in the thinnest layer exclusively on the surface of objects.
The lack of technical education and a superficial knowledge of chemistry let down the director of Fred Leuchter Associates, but he no longer had time and room for maneuver. All acquaintances and friends turned away from Leuchter, as the notoriety of the defender of the Nazis and the Holocaust denier followed him everywhere. Now Fred's company consisted of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, for whom he suddenly became an authority.
Trouble does not come alone, and the authorities decided to check the suspicious designer, who was spending time in a dubious Nazi company. It immediately became clear that Leuchter did not have the right to do his job for a day because of the lack of the right specialty. All the company's contracts were immediately canceled, and the customers who owed money for the equipment refused to pay.
Fred Leuchter was tried, and he miraculously got off with a suspended sentence. The family of the founder of Fred Leuchter Associates also collapsed — his wife, unable to withstand harassment and poverty, left him shortly after the trial. Fleeing from notoriety, Leuchter flees to the UK, but there he is arrested and expelled back to the USA.
Today, Fred Arthur Leuchter, who is 76 years old— is an ordinary American pensioner leading a simple inconspicuous life in his native Massachusetts. In 1999, the documentary "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter" was made about him.