Howard Long

Howard Long (September 21, 1905 – July 14, 1939) was an American convicted murderer who was executed for the 1937 murder of 10-year-old Mark Neville Jensen in Gilford, New Hampshire. Long remains the most recent person to be executed by the state of New Hampshire.

Background Long was born on September 21, 1905, in Hartford, Connecticut. He was an only child, born to Sarah Long, and came from a wealthy family. During his youth, Long moved to Belmont, Massachusetts, where he committed his first crime. In 1924, he attacked and assaulted a young girl. During the attack, the girl managed to bite Long, causing him to flee. She survived and was found by a Belmont police officer. The bite mark helped convict Long, and he was sent to a Massachusetts reformatory. However, he was later paroled. Long went back to find the body and then hid it. The body of Nadeau was found by hunters a month after the murder, in the cellar of an abandoned house in Rollinsford. Nadeau's skull had been crushed. Jensen had been walking with his mother's dress in order to return it. He had then disappeared. Witnesses reported seeing Jensen at various towns and cities throughout that day. He was also seen at a restaurant and later was spotted walking with Long and his dog. Jensen's body was found the following night, in a wooded area in Gilford. He had been beaten to death and his head had been crushed by an automobile screw jack.

Trial and execution Evidence linked Long to the murder of Jensen and police arrested him less than a week later. Long then confessed to the murder of Jensen. Further evidence also linked Long to the murder of Nadeau. The trial of Long began on December 6, 1937. On December 13, Long was found guilty and was sentenced to death. He was originally scheduled for execution on December 30, 1938, but the execution was postponed.

Long was executed via hanging at 1:27a.m. on July 14, 1939. He was executed in a converted storeroom at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. It took seven minutes for Long to die and the process was described in detail in a newspaper at the time. Long was buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Manchester, New Hampshire. A paper noted that the only people attending his burial were the cemetery workers.

Long remains the last person to be executed in New Hampshire. Capital punishment was abolished in New Hampshire on May 30, 2019. This could mean Long will be the last ever person to be executed by the state. However, one person, Michael K. Addison, still remains on death row in New Hampshire. The abolishment was not retroactive thus does not apply to Addison's case, meaning he could still, although very unlikely, be executed.