Alonzo Robinson

Biography Born into an impoverished family in Cleveland, Mississippi, Robinson was first arrested by hometown authorities in 1918 for mailing obscene letters to local women. He managed to escape while en route to the jail, sustaining a bullet injury to his shoulder in the process.

Using the alias of "James H. Coyner", Robinson moved to Ferndale, Michigan sometime in 1926. Around this time, the bodies of decapitated women had started turning up around the city, with the authorities immediately suspecting Robinson. By 1927, he had been convicted and imprisoned at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City for stealing a girl's corpse from a local graveyard. While imprisoned, he was questioned by Ferndale authorities about the case, but he simply stated: "I could tell you a lot of things you'd like to know, a lot of things about murders and murderers, but I'll die first." subsequently being sent to a jail in Jackson for safekeeping with an escort of 200 National Guardsmen.

On March 5, 1935, in the Bolivar County jail, between 200 and 300 troops guarded the premises as Sheriff McLean was preparing the prisoner for the execution. Grinning broadly as the black hood and noose were pulled over his head, Alonzo Robinson was executed by hanging on the jail's scaffold.