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Our Historical Archive
San Francisco Call Bulletin
March 14, 1913. This article is reprinted below.
Disclaimer: All newspaper articles are reprinted exactly as they appeared in the newspaper regardless of misspellings, grammar,
errors, or omissions.
Prantikos is Hanged by State
Prantikos Writes to His Family on Life's Last Night
FOLLOWING are translations of the two letters penned last night by Paolos Prantikos, who was hanged today at San Quentin, to his father and
sister in Messina, Italy:
"My Dear Father:
"Welcome, The day when you receive this letter I shall be dead. I beg of you very much not to be very-sorry. I beg of you also to forgive
Kondos (the family which pursued him as the result of the feud) as I have forgiven them all.
"I transmit with this to you and to all my relatives and friends my last love and greetings and profound regard for all your future welfare.
I would urge you to have faith in God, as He will sustain and help you. I send you my last regards, and I remain your loving son,
"Paolos Prantikos"
The letter to his sister was as follows:
"My dear sister Florentia:
"The day when you receive this I shall be dead. Don't be sorry for this, as you know, every man is liable to die.
"Receive my love and kisses and remember your loving brother.
"Paolos"
SAN QUENTIN, March 14. - Paolos Prantikos, slayer of Policemen Finnerley and Castor in San Francisco, was slain at the behest of the State today
in the sixty-seventh legal murder which California has committed. Promptly at 10 o'clock the State repeated the same act for which Prantikos as
adjudged a murderer, the taking of human life.
The intense horror of the execution came near to resulting in a strain upon the spectator's nerves which would have been to great to bear, when Rev.
Father Constantine Tsapralis, pastor of the Hellenic Orthodox Church, at Seventh and Folsom streets, San Francisco, barely saved himself from fainting
on the gallows. Father Tsapralis, who is a large, strong man, had never before witnessed a murder, legal or otherwise.
He had been called to administer the rites of the dying to the condemned man, who was a Greek. When the death procession ascended the thirteen steps to
the gallows, with Warden Hoyle in the lead, Father Tsapralis was observed to stagger, though he still continued his praying, which was almost the only
sound in the room.
Prantikos stepped upon the trap, was blinded with a black cap, and the crash of the trap was the signal that the State's vengeance had been taken. Just
at this moment Father Tsapralis's voice choked, and he swayed forward on the brink of the trap.
Rev. Call, the prison chaplain, supported his fellow-priest by throwing an arm around him. He recovered in a minute or two, and continued to repeat the
ritual, though his voice was broken and did not raise above a low whisper.
Prantikos' body hung at the end of the rope for 14 minutes before the doctors pronounced life extinct.
Following Prantikos's mad attempt at suicide Wednesday, when he broke away from his guards, climbed a lighting pole in an insane revulsion of fear, and lacking the
determination to cast himself from the height, prayed to his guards to shoot him, Warden Hoyle used the services of an extra guard to watch over him in his cell.
Upon leaving the condemned cell for the brief march to the death chamber adjoining, he fell upon his knees on the floor outside the cell and prayed aloud for a
moment. Then, arising, he straightened, said, "Cheer up - good by," and in less than 30 seconds was through the trap.
In a conversation this morning with the warden and visitors, he told of his act in shooting the two policemen and George Condos, and said, as he declared at the
time of his trial in San Francisco, that he would have never have shot in that moment had not the persecution by the Condos family thrust reason to the brink of
sanity.
HOUNDED FOR YEARS
For two years, he said, he had been hounded from camp to camp all over the country, hardly being allowed to stay a week in one place because of the constant
threats against his life. He had left Greece and come to this country because he was accused of the murder of John Condos, following an altercation over some
property. Relatives of the dead man in this country had taken up the feud, and Prantikos had been driven from the Atlantic to the Pacific by constant attempts
against his life.
SHOT WHEN TRAPPED
Prantikos, according to the testimony brought out at his trial, came to San Francisco from a construction camp, which he had been compelled to leave through fear
of Condos' vengeance. He stayed here only one night, when he heard that George Condos was on his trail.
Going to the ferry with a friend the following morning, Sunday, he was confronted by George Condos at the ferry gate. In a sudden fit of passionate fear and rage
he drew his revolver and shot right and left, mortally wounding Condos, killing the two policemen and terrorizing the crowd.
He was tried before Judge Lawlor and adjudged guilty of murder.
Today Prantikos expressed sorrow for the killing of the policemen, of whose presence he said he was hardly conscious at the time. He also said that he was glad he
had failed in his suicide attempt of Wednesday, as that would have meant that his soul would suffer external pangs, according to the tenets of the Greek Orthodox faith.
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