Gerhard Puff
| Gerhard Puff | |
|---|---|
 Gerhard Arthur Puff |
|
| FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives | |
| Charges | Bank robbery and murder |
| Description | |
| Born | 1914 |
| Died | August 12, 1954 Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York |
| Status | |
| Added | December 3, 1951 |
| Caught | July 26, 1952 |
| Number | 30 |
|
Captured |
|
Gerhard Arthur Puff (died August 21, 1954[1]) was an American gangster, executed by the federal authorities in New York for killing a federal agent.
In 1952 Puff traveled from Kansas City to Manhattan with his 17-year-old wife, Annie Laurie. By then, Puff's résumé as a bank robber had already earned him a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Shortly after he arrived at the Congress Hotel, FBI agents waited to arrest him, but before they captured him, he shot and fatally injured one of them.[2]
For the murder of a federal agent, he was tried by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and sentenced to death. At the time, people sentenced to death by the federal government were executed by the method authorized by the state where the crime took place, so Puff was put to death in the Sing-Sing electric chair.
Puff was one of the first people New York State Electrician Dow Hover was hired to execute.[2] He was either 39 or 40 years old at time of his execution on August 12, 1954.[2] The execution was the fifth federal execution since President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office on January 20, 1953.
[edit] References
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
- 1914 births
- 1954 deaths
- People executed by the United States federal government by electric chair
- 20th-century executions of American people by electric chair
- People convicted of murdering FBI agents
- People convicted of murder by the United States federal government
- 20th-century executions by the United States federal government
- People executed for murdering police officers
