Mad Dog killings
The "Mad Dog killings" were a spree of robberies and murders committed by serial killer Joseph Louis Taborsky and his partner-in-crime, Arthur Culombe, throughout Connecticut in 1950 and between 1956 and 1957. Authorities and newspapers dubbed the killings the "Mad Dog killings" due to the brutality of the murders committed; Taborsky himself was also often given the moniker "Mad Dog." Taborsky and Culombe robbed and murdered six people during the 1956–1957 spree. Taborsky and Culombe also robbed, shot, and beat a number of other victims who survived the "Mad Dog" crime spree. The murders led to Connecticut liquor stores implementing modified hours of operation, as Taborsky and Culombe frequently targeted liquor stores.
Following the murders, Taborsky and Culombe were both apprehended. Both were charged with just two of the murders, convicted, and sentenced to death, and Taborsky became the last person executed in Connecticut's electric chair, as well as the final person subjected to execution in Connecticut before a nationwide moratorium halted all executions in the United States. Until the lethal injection execution of serial killer Michael Bruce Ross in 2005, Taborsky's was the last execution in Connecticut in 45 years. Culombe's death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1970.
Taborsky's case generated particular interest and controversy due to him being one of very few people, and the only person in Connecticut's history, to be placed on death row on two separate occasions for two separate capital convictions. Prior to the "Mad Dog killings" spree, Taborsky had spent over four years on Connecticut's death row for the 1950 robbery and murder of Louis Wolfson. The main evidence against him in Wolfson's murder was from his brother Albert, who participated alongside Taborsky in Wolfson's robbery and murder and received a life sentence for his own involvement. After Albert suffered a mental breakdown in prison, Joseph Taborsky successfully appealed his conviction on the basis of his innocence, arguing that Albert's testimony was not reliable, so he was released from prison. While awaiting trial in the "Mad Dog killings," Taborsky confessed his guilt in Wolfson's murder as well.
Connecticut newspapers posited that the "Mad Dog killings" played a significant role in popularizing and justifying the use of the death penalty in Connecticut, as well as in delaying any attempts to abolish capital punishment in the state, despite all other New England states trending towards abolition in the mid-20th century.
Background
Perpetrators
Joseph L. Taborsky was a native of Hartford, Connecticut, born on March 23, 1924, and grew up in Hartford's North End as an eldest sibling with one brother and two sisters. His mother was a devoutly religious homemaker, and his father, a door-to-door salesman who was largely absent from the family, was mentally disabled.At the age of 7, Taborsky committed his first crime with the theft of a tricycle, followed by several burglaries and shoplifting incidents. His mother later stated that when he was a youth, after allegedly having his own bicycle stolen, Taborsky stole another bicycle; he received probation for that theft and a nine-month stay in a juvenile detention facility for a second bicycle theft months later. Later, he escaped from a reformatory, and upon recapture, he was sentenced to serve an additional three to five years in custody. As a young adult, he was convicted of conducting a hold-up.
In the 1940s, as a result of an attempted escape from a different prison in Cheshire, Connecticut, he was sentenced to a period of imprisonment at the Wethersfield State Prison, during which he was tasked with cleaning Connecticut's death chamber in preparation for the triple execution of three convicted murderers in 1946. In 1948, he was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison for burglary, which he served across the country in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington. As an adult, Taborsky was known for having a prominent chin occasionally described as a "lantern jaw", also earning him the nickname "The Chin."
When Taborsky was not in prison, he worked as a laborer and a truck driver and engaged in various hobbies, including boxing.
Arthur "Meatball" Culombe was a gun collector who was approximately the same age as Taborsky but operated at the mental level of a 9-year-old, as he had an intellectual disability that made him unable to read or tell time. Culombe had a young daughter at the time of the crime spree.
On August 21, 1944, Culombe participated in the burglary and robbery of two Hartford service stations. He vandalized the properties, stole wartime ration coupons, and stole a tire. The next day, Culombe participated in another holdup in Hartford, this time alongside two accomplices. Police found the previous day's stolen tire on the trio's getaway car. A jury convicted Culombe of his involvement in the holdups and sentenced him to serve an "indeterminate term" in the Connecticut State Reformatory, while his accomplices received prison terms.
Taborsky met Culombe in 1948 while the two worked at a cargo despatch facility in East Hartford, Connecticut. Authorities believed Culombe's disability made him impressionable to Taborsky's influence. Culombe and Taborsky began committing burglaries together until Taborsky was arrested for Wolfson's murder.
Murder of Louis Wolfson (1950)
On March 23, 1950, Taborsky's 26th birthday, Taborsky and his younger brother Albert robbed Louis Wolfson's liquor store in West Hartford, Connecticut. During the robbery, Wolfson was shot in the face and fell unconscious. His sister discovered him minutes later, and he was quickly transferred to a hospital and listed as being in critical condition. Despite his severe injuries, Wolfson regained consciousness several times over the final three days of his life and was able to provide police with a description of the shooter, whom he described as "light-haired, and baby-faced" and of average height – a description which did not match Joseph Taborsky, who stood at approximately and had dark hair and a prominent chin – before he died from his injuries.The murder went unsolved for almost a year until Albert abruptly turned himself in to the police, confessing to the murder and naming Taborsky as his accomplice. Taborsky was arrested on January 19, 1951. Taborsky was convicted of Wolfson's murder on June 7, 1951, after his jury deliberated for nine hours. Albert, who was only convicted of second-degree murder in a later trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment, while Joseph Taborsky was sentenced to death on a conviction of first-degree murder.
Taborsky's first stint on death row (1951–1955)
While Taborsky awaited execution in the Wolfson murder case, he steadfastly maintained his innocence. In July 1951, Albert experienced a mental breakdown, leading to his transfer into his prison's mental health unit; later, he was transferred from prison to the Norwich State Hospital. In 1955, newspapers reported that Albert had been declared "incurably insane." Following Albert's mental breakdown, some newspapers referred to Wolfson's murder as the "Cain and Abel case" based on the nature of Albert's testimony controversially landing his brother on death row. In an interview with Connecticut crime reporter Gerald J. Demeusy, he expressed that he supported capital punishment and the swift handling of death sentences to reduce the mental anguish awaiting execution causes death row inmates. Taborsky also portrayed his brother Albert as jealous, dishonest, and seeking revenge for "fraternal strife" by framing Joseph for murder.Taborsky and his attorneys requested a new trial by arguing Albert was not a reliable witness due to his mental state. Because Albert's confession was the primary evidence investigators used to build a case against Taborsky, courts ultimately ruled in Taborsky's favor, agreeing that the evidence prosecutors used to justify Taborsky's conviction, death sentence, and continued imprisonment was insufficient. In late July 1955, after Taborsky had spent approximately 52 months on death row, he was granted a new trial. In early October 1955, prosecutors announced they would drop charges against Taborsky entirely and nullify his previous conviction due to lack of evidence, as Albert's testimony provided the main evidence against Taborsky, and courts considered Albert's testimony to be too legally dubious to use in a prospective second trial. As a result, Taborsky was released from prison on October 6, 1955.
Prior to his release from death row, Taborsky stated in an interview, "How can such great injustice be done to the innocent? If you could only realize the feeling of helplessness I had. It hurts me especially to see my mother suffer." He also stated that the first thing he would do upon release from prison would be to stay in a monastery in New York to recover from his stay on death row, which he called an "inhuman ordeal." After his release, when a crowd of reporters who met him outside the prison asked him for further comment, he committed himself to living a law-abiding life: "You can't beat the law. From now on, I'm not even going to get a parking ticket."
"Mad Dog" killings (1956–1957)
Less than one year after his release from prison, Taborsky moved from Hartford to Brooklyn, New York, although he visited Hartford frequently to see his mother, who still lived there. Taborsky also married a woman who met him by sending him letters while he was on death row. Unhappy with his marriage and unable to find steady work, he soon resumed committing armed robberies in September 1956 and reunited with Culombe with the intent of committing additional crimes together in December 1956.Before escalating to murder, Taborsky and Culombe started with a string of burglaries and robberies of businesses in Hartford and Rocky Hill, Connecticut. In the robbery of a hotel in December 1956, the hotel's clerk escaped from the two without incurring injuries, but during one liquor store robbery in Hartford on December 4, 1956, the owner, Jack Rosen, was pistol-whipped severely to the point of requiring several stitches after the attack. In the robbery of Silas Deane Package Store in Rocky Hill on December 11, 1956, the two pistol-whipped Peter Barone, the store's owner, in the head and robbed his store of at least $100 USD.