Murderous Mary: The circus elephant who was tragically hanged to death for killing a man

Animals being innocent creatures often lack the ability to decipher human emotions. And this is exactly what happened with this poor elephant who reacted to the cruelty that was being inflicted upon her, which resulted in her unintentionally killing a man. Due to this, the fully grown, poor elephant was hanged to death.

Mary the circus elephant

Circuses are notorious for torturing animals and often beat them into submission to teach them a few tricks to please the crowds. The same was the case with Mary, a female elephant, who was a part of Charlie Spark's travelling circus, in September 1916. Mary was being paraded through the towns of Tennessee, USA when the circus stopped in the town of Kingsport when the unthinkable happened.

During the circus, an inexperienced 38-year-old man called Walter Eldridge was riding Mary, according to India Today. He was instructed to control Mary and was given a spear-shaped stick to use on her if she didn’t obey his orders.

During the circus, Mary stopped to taste a watermelon, when Eldridge got impatient and started jabbing the pointy stick on Mary’s head. Mary was getting increasingly agitated and out of anger, wrapped her trunk around Eldrich and threw him on the ground and stomped on his head, which resulted in his immediate death.

Public outrage and cruel punishment

The viewers in the circus were horrified at the scene and instantly started abusing the poor elephant. As per Daily Mail, the whole fiasco happened near the town of Erwin, Tennessee, which had a lot of influence from ’mob ruled’ decisions rather than the official authorities. People started screaming ‘Kill the elephant, kill the elephant' towards the terrified elephant. She was transported to Erwin where a 100-tonne crane was set up in order to hang the animal.

Hoards of people came to witness the execution of the poor elephant. One end of a chain was tied around her neck and the other end was attached to the crane. Another chain was used to wrap her legs, to a rail. As the crane began to lift Mary up, with her legs still tied to the rail, she screamed in agony as her bones were broken.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the end, Mary was then hoisted 5 feet up in the air again for a good half hour until she finally choked to death. When a vet declared her dead, a huge grave was dug to bury the dead elephant. The town of Erwin is still popular for performing this inhumane execution.

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