Capital punishment formerly existed in the State of Connecticut as punishment for an individual convicted of a capital offense. Connecticut repealed the Death Penalty in 2012, 36 years after the United States Supreme Court decision that ruled the death penalty could be constitutional if applied in a manner that was not arbitrary or capricious, and proportional to the crime committed. Absent those standards, the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty did violate the Eight Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The Eight Amendment is part of the Bill of Right written on December 15, 1791, which reads:

During the 36 year period before the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was unconstitutional, Connecticut executed only one person – and that was by lethal injection in 2005. The miscreant was a serial killer by the name of Michael Bruce Ross, who was found guilty of murdering eight (8) girls between the age of 14 and 25 in Connecticut and New York. Ross was christened by the media as The Roadside Strangler.

Connecticut carried out 139 executions starting as far back as its colonial period dating back to the 1600s; ending on the last execution in 2005. The oldest convicted murderer executed by that State was Gershon Marx, hanged at the age of 73 on May 18, 1905. Marx would not be the oldest prisoner ever executed by the State of Connecticut if Adonijah Bailey, who at age 79 was convicted of killing Jeremiah W. Pollock, had not “cheated the hangman” by hanging himself in 1825 at age 80.

From Welsh Businessman to Itinerant Farmer

The story of Gershon Marx is an absorbing saga set in the 19th Century when millions of Europeans were immigrating to countries around the world. Marx was born in 1832, in either Russia or a part of Poland that was under Russian rule. (Poland was part of Russia until an uprising took place in 1832.) It was a time when antisemitism was being included in laws in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia. Jews by the thousands were immigrating to countries that allowed freedom of religion and equality under the laws. Marx left his Eastern European heritage for England and then Wales, countries that allowed him to pursue various occupations without regard to ethnicity.

Marx likely settled in England through the assistance of Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch aug Gereuth, commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, a German Jewish financier and philanthropist who set up charitable foundations to promote Jewish education and to improve the conditions of life of oppressed European Jewry. Hirsch had come from a family of Jewish court bankers, whose grandfather was the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, a predominantly Catholic area of Germany. The Jewish Colonization Association was founded by Hirsch for the purpose of sponsoring large-scale immigration of European Jewry to Argentina.

In 1891, Hirsch established the Baron de Hirsch Fund in New York City to help Russian Jews immigrate to the United States. To achieve that objective, Hirsch endowed $2.4 million for agricultural colonies and trade schools in America. The Fund established colonies in southern New Jersey, Ellington, Connecticut and elsewhere.

During his time in Wales, Gershon did everything from selling wallpaper, to trading cattle, to owning a butcher shop. Women, evidently, were attracted to him. He married four times that are known; one marriage was to the daughter of the local synagogue’s caretaker. Yet, despite his relatively successful life, Marx decided to sell his business ownerships in 1897 and move to America – a typical sacrifice made at the time by many in hope of providing the benefits offered in America to their dependents.

New England had long been an agricultural region in early America. As the nation grew, farms were established in the middle of the country where land was flat and generally rockless, making it easier to farm and more productive. Rubber factories and other regional manufacturing businesses closed, further impacting the local economy. Farms became inexpensive, opening the door for the Hirsch Fund to help buy land in Connecticut on behalf of the immigrants it supported.

Many of the Jewish immigrants settled on farms in and around Ellington and Colchester, about 20 miles southeast of Ellington. (The small enclave built a synagogue, Congregation Knesseth Israel, that still stands today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.) Agrarian emphasis was intended to shift the immigrants from city ghettos to land ownership, some say it was the beginning of the kibbutz type of communities.

The Final Destination – America

It is not possible to ascertain when or how Gershon met his fourth bride. Suffice it to say he married a fourth time. His wife’s name was Dina, a younger woman who produced one child. The Baron de Hirsch Fund purchased Connecticut farms at an attractive price because of the decline of farming in the New England States; The Fund then sold the farms to immigrants at an affordable price. One farm was purchased by Michael Levien, after living 12 years in New York. One newspaper reported Levien as being different from the others of his “race” likely because of his time in New York City.

Immigrant farm owners not only farmed the land for their own sustenance but also offered them as places for city dwellers to vacation – to escape the hustle-bustle of the big city. The area developed the nickname of The Connecticut Catskills. As more immigrants arrived Michael Levien decided to buy a larger farm next door with the profit from his first farm, and then he bought another. The third farm was the neighboring property to the farm purchased by Gershon Marx.

Levien told the Friends and neighbors did not perceive Marx as a threatening man. He was of small stature, thin and soft spoken. He was always pleasant when encountered, even continuing his cultural custom of kissing both hands when meeting someone. According to Levien, Gershon was a friend who knew Marx was 66 years old with a wife and child when he moved to the farm. Levien learned about Marx “all he chose to tell.” Leiven was his friend and neighbor, but few others knew Marx around the town of Colchester. Leiven eventually sold his farm and purchased the saloon in Colchester.

According to Michael Levien, Gershon Marx and another man named Harry Pierson, from Peterson, bought a farm together after Marx sold his first farm. Peterson didn’t want to work on the farm so only Marx lived and worked on the 125 acres located 3 and a half miles outside of town. (The men paid $350 for the farm.)

Paul Rodecki, another immigrant laborer, asked Marx for a job and he worked for Marx for a period of time. Levien recalled Marx coming into the bar, as he usually did for a drink, and asked if he knew anyone who wanted a job. Levien inquired of Rodecki, to which Marx said he “paid him off and he’s gone.” Levien recommended Joe Springe who had worked for Marx once before; he was promptly hired to work on the farm with Marx.

The Discovery

A few days after Marx hired Springe, the farm hand ran into Levien’s bar in an excited state to tell him what he had found on Marx’s farm. Marx told Springe to fill in a hole near the house with stones and in the process of moving the dirt he found the mutilated body of Paul Rodecki . . . his head removed from the body and the torso in pieces.

Gershon Marx escaped capture after the police were notified. The Police Chief, George O. Jackson, guessed Marx was disguised as a woman and escaped by train. Levien, using his close relationship with Marx, inquired of people and learned the Marx had fled to New York and was staying with a woman named Rosa Jaffe, the daughter of a former friend of Marx. With the assistance of the New York City police, accompanied by Levien, the police arrested Marx in his hotel room.

Aware of other missing people, Sheriff Jackson asked Joe Springe if Marx had him fill in other holes with stone and, after some thought, Joe said he did once on Marx’s first farm. Springe took the Sheriff to the location and yet another mutilated body was uncovered . . . . that of Joe Palm who had worked for Marx. Sheriff Jackson is quoted as saying he believed Marx may have killed as many as 10 people. Jackson knew of two missing from the area that just suddenly disappeared: a salmon and a young boy.

The trial of Gershon Marx was postponed several times. He was eventually tired and found guilty of the murder of Ravol “Paul” Rodecki. Over 100 people were called as potential jurors. Once the proceedings were delayed due to the illness of a juror. Eventually Marx was hanged by the State of Connecticut on May 18, 1905. Given the chance to confess by the Prison Warden before his execution, Gershon Marx’s last words were: “Don’t forget I always said I was innocent, Goodbye!”

The closest Marx came to an admission of guilt came through his attorney, John Cuneo, on the day he was executed. According to Cuneo, the day Marx was found guilty he told Cuneo that he, Marx, “had killed Rodecki. Rodecki had been agitating him over the $53 that Marx owed him. Instead of paying, Marx enlisted a fellow Colchester resident (who was never named) for $25.00 and together they killed the man. Marx held Rodecki’s arms and the other man hit him in the head with an ax, and the two dismembered him. Marx said he paid the accomplice $25 and told him to take the body away and dispose of it along a roadside. Instead, the accomplice left the body parts on the farm where Joe Strange discovered them. If the accomplice had followed directions, Nuneo (sic) noted, no one would have ever caught on.”