‘Old Betsy’ on display at Department of Corrections museum

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NEW CASTLE (AP) — Indiana’s former electric chair is now on display in a museum that recounts the history of state prisons.

“Old Betsy,” which previously was housed at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City has been moved to the museum in the Department of Correction’s training center in New Castle.

The Legislature adopted electrocution in 1913 amid the search for a more humane means of execution than hanging. Before electrocution, the preferred method of execution was hanging. Indiana State Prison staff visited Sing-Sing Prison in New York and the Ohio State Prison to study and sketch their electric chairs.

Sixty-one people died in Indiana’s electric chair between 1913 and 1995, when lethal injection was authorized as the method of execution.

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