| Donald Edward DeMag | |
| Birth Date: | 15 December 1922 |
| Birth Place: | Burlington, Vermont, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Vermont State Prison, Windsor, Vermont, U.S. |
| Cause: | Execution by electrocution |
| Criminal Penalty: | Life imprisonment (1948 murder) Death (1952 murder) |
| Criminal Status: | Executed |
| Conviction: | First degree murder Second degree murder |
Donald Edward DeMag (December 15, 1922 – December 8, 1954) was the last person executed by the U.S. state of Vermont.
Donald Edward DeMag was born in Burlington, Vermont on December 15, 1922.[1]
Prior to his death sentence, DeMag had been sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of murder, and had escaped and been recaptured while trying to enter Canada.[2]
In 1952, DeMag and fellow-prisoner Francis Blair escaped from the state prison in Windsor by crashing a laundry truck through the front gates.[3]
While on the run, DeMag and Blair had attacked Elizabeth Weatherup and her husband in Springfield, Vermont. DeMag and Blair beat the couple with a lead pipe as they attempted to rob them. Weatherup died of her injuries. Two days after their escape, DeMag and Blair were recaptured.[4] They were tried for first-degree murder, convicted and sentenced to death by electric chair.[5]
Blair and DeMag were both executed by electric chair. Blair was executed on February 8, 1954.[6]
DeMag was executed at the prison in Windsor on December 8, 1954.[7] He was buried at Holy Family Cemetery in Essex Junction, Vermont.[8] [9]
Although DeMag was the last person executed by Vermont, he was not the last person to be sentenced to death by a Vermont court. Lionel Goyet, a soldier who was Absent Without Leave for the fifth time, robbed and killed a farmhand, and was sentenced to death in 1957.[10] His sentence was commuted six months later,[11] and Goyet was conditionally pardoned in 1969.[12] He had no further problems with the law, and died in 1980.[13]
The death penalty was effectively abolished by Vermont in 1965. It remained as a possible sentence if a defendant was convicted of murdering a prison employee or law enforcement officer, but was never used. As a result, the possibility of a death sentence in such cases was removed from state statutes by the Vermont General Assembly in 1987.[14]