Barton Kay Kirkham was the eldest of five children raised in Salt Lake City. He was a fan of
bop music and described himself as "a rebel." Kirkham left his family's church life and school in the 11th grade and joined the
United States Air Force. After 18 months, he committed a
robbery while
absent without leave in Colorado, and was given an
undesirable discharge from the service. Kirkham spent the next 9 months in a
reformatory and was
paroled in July 1956. Kirkham had them kneel on the floor and shot them in the head. The appeal claimed that their client's mental state was not properly taken into account. On March 25, 1958, the court upheld Kirkham's conviction and denied his request for a rehearing, sending his case back for sentencing. Kirkham said he was certain he would be executed and resented his attorneys' "trying to prolong the waiting and stalling around." When asked to select between the option of execution by firing squad and hanging, he responded: "What costs most?" Kirkham said he chose to be hanged "because of the publicity... the novelty... to put the state to more inconvenience." He also noted that the state might not execute him in that manner, and he might therefore get off "scot free". On June 4, 1958, Kirkham appeared before the state
pardons board for a final hearing for clemency. His attorneys had planned to demonstrate that he was insane with the help of psychiatrists. Kirkham initially told the board that he was a loner and felt "no remorse or anything like that." In the final minutes of the hearing, he broke out into an appeal that he would prefer
involuntary commitment in a
mental institution over capital punishment. The board declined to
commute his sentence. ==Execution==