Luis José Monge (August 21, 1918 – June 2, 1967) was a convicted mass murderer who was executed in the

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. Histor ...

Colorado State Penitentiary Colorado State Penitentiary (commonly abbreviated CSP) is a Level V maximum security prison in the U.S. state of Colorado. The facility is part of the state's East Cañon Complex, together with six other state correctional facilities of various ...

in 1967. Monge was the last inmate to be executed before an unofficial moratorium on execution that lasted for more than four years while most death penalty cases were on appeal, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''

Furman v. Georgia ''Furman v. Georgia'', 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all then existing legal constructions for the death penalty in the United States. It was 5–4 decision, with each memb ...

'' in 1972, invalidating all existing death penalty statutes as written.

Murders

Monge, a

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Colorado, insurance salesman, was a native of

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

who grew up in New York. He was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering his wife, Leonarda, and three of their ten children after she discovered his

incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...

uous relationship with their 13-year-old daughter, Diann Kissell. The murders were committed on June 29, 1963. Monge's murder victims were: Leonarda, Alan (aged 6), Vincent (aged 4), and Teresa (11 months old). Immediately after the four murders, Monge called police and admitted his guilt. The alleged motive for the murders was "to prevent exposure of sex crimes committed by defendant with his own children". He beat his wife to death with a steel bar, stabbed Teresa, choked Vincent, and bludgeoned Alan with the steel bar. He had no prior

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resu ...

convictions; in 1961, however, he abandoned his family for two months and served a short jail sentence in Louisiana for

vagrancy Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

Execution

After Monge had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, psychiatrists evaluated him and found him to be sane. He then insisted on pleading guilty to first-degree murder. A jury that was convened for the penalty phase of the trial recommended a death sentence, and Monge's conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. In January 1966, Governor John Arthur Love suspended all executions in Colorado, pending a referendum on capital punishment by voters. On November 8, 1966, the voters decided to retain the death penalty by a three-to-one margin. In March 1967, Monge attracted national attention when he asked a Denver court to allow him to be hanged at

high noon ''High Noon'' is a 1952 American Western film produced by Stanley Kramer from a screenplay by Carl Foreman, directed by Fred Zinnemann, and starring Gary Cooper. The plot, which occurs in real time, centers on a town marshal whose sense of ...

on the front steps of the Denver City and County Building. This request was denied. The following month, Monge fired his attorneys and directed that no attempts should be made to save his life. He gave up all of his appeals and asked to be executed. Nonetheless, his surviving children appealed for

clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

. Doctors again evaluated Monge's mental status and found him mentally competent for execution. A week before his death, Monge shared a

final meal A condemned prisoner's last meal is a customary ritual preceding execution. In many countries, the prisoner may, within reason, select what the last meal will be. Contemporary restrictions in the United States In the United States, most states gi ...

with his surviving seven children. On the eve of the execution, some seventy members of the Colorado Council to Abolish Capital Punishment gathered on the steps of the state capitol building in Denver in a rally to protest the execution. On June 2, 1967, Monge was executed at the age of 48 in the state's gas chamber. Upon his death, and according to his wishes, one of Monge's

cornea The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and lens, the cornea refracts light, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power ...

s was transplanted to a teenaged reformatory inmate. Monge was buried in Greenwood Pioneer Cemetery in

Cañon City, Colorado Cañon City is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Fremont County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 17,141 at the 2020 United States Census. Cañon City is the principal city of t ...

in the

pauper Pauperism (Lat. ''pauper'', poor) is poverty or generally the state of being poor, or particularly the condition of being a "pauper", i.e. receiving relief administered under the English Poor Laws. From this, pauperism can also be more generally ...

's section set aside for deceased inmates of the state penitentiary. His grave lies a few feet from that of John Bizup, Jr., a convicted murderer executed in 1964. The metal marker indicating Monge's grave has been marred with bullet holes. The Colorado gas chamber, retired after Monge's execution, is now an exhibit at the Museum of Colorado Prisons in

Cañon City A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cu ...

Moratorium

Opponents of capital punishment, in an attempt to abolish the death penalty, waged a national litigation campaign that ultimately found its way to the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. The Court agreed to review a series of cases challenging that the death penalty was

unconstitutional Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...

. While the Supreme Court reviewed these cases, lower courts in all states stayed all pending executions, thereby creating a ''de facto'' moratorium on death sentences throughout the nation. The period of this "unofficial" moratorium on capital punishment began on June 2, 1967, with the execution of Luis Monge in Colorado. It would end nearly ten years later on January 17, 1977, with the execution of

Gary Gilmore Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Execution in context

Luis Jose Monge's was the last execution both in Colorado and in the United States prior to the 1972 Supreme Court decision in ''

''. It would be almost ten years before any state would carry out another execution, the state of Utah executed

on January 17, 1977. The state of Colorado itself took 30 years before it would do so in the execution of

Gary Lee Davis Gary Lee Davis (August 13, 1944 – October 13, 1997) was an American convicted murderer and rapist who was executed by the U.S. state of Colorado in 1997. He was the only person to be executed by the state of Colorado between 1968 and 2020; whe ...

, on October 13, 1997. Monge's was one of only two executions to occur in the United States in 1967. His was also the last execution by

in Colorado.

References

External links