Why Did Barbara ‘Bloody Babs’ Graham Ruin Her Mind?

The gas chamber as capital punishment in America saw its first case in Nevada against Gee Jon in 1924. Law enforcement officials pumped gas into his cell but this yielded no desired effect. Authorities used cyanide to execute him. Until 1999, sulfuric acid remained in a pail at the inmate’s feet. The mixture of the two chemicals produced hydrogen cyanide gas. This is not his story, though. And this isn’t an expose on different forms of execution. This is the sad, sweet tale of Barbara Graham.

As a child, Graham experienced an ugly life. Unhappy with her circumstances, she ran away at the age of nine. She lived through two unsuccessful marriages and she became a prostitute. On her third try at matrimony, she wed Henry Graham. On Monday March 9, 1953, Graham and three other shady figures prepared to rob an elderly woman in her Burbank, California home.

Graham cajoled the old woman by telling her a story about how her car broke down alongside the road. Just as she explained the faux car incident, the two strongmen rushed Mrs. Mable Monohan, Graham struck Monahan over the head with the pistol butt, and stole the breath from her lungs through suffocation.

All three men and Graham felt the cold steel of justice wrap around their wrists. The collective didn’t even make off with the jewels that had been presumed remained on the premises. One of the members turned state’s evidence and gained immunity from prosecution.

The verdict stated that Graham had committed the crime. The gas chamber became her final place of possessing a breath of life. The two other men would die in the chamber just three hours after Barbara “Bloody Babs” Graham.

But before that, moments of anxiety and awkwardness occurred. June 3, 1955 set in stone the day of Graham’s demise. The only problem remained time. At first, the execution had been planned for 10am. A stay of execution happened which delayed the inevitable until fifteen minutes later. It took just over an hour and a half before Graham would smell the sickly sweet scent of the two chemicals combining.

Graham continued to be resilient to the end. The executioner mentioned that she “take a deep breath and it won’t bother you.” She calmly queried, “How the hell would you know?”

How the hell would any of us know about Graham had she possessed a purpose in life? What avenues could she have gone down to be a fine, upstanding citizen? These questions died with the gas that encircled Graham and robbed her of breath as she had done against Mrs. Monahan.

Her life could have been much different. She could have been at the least a woman who championed for the laws to be changed concerning prostitution. She could have petitioned the government to legalize the skin trade. This could have been her battle cry.

Graham’s comely face and her guile could have served the entertainment industry. Instead of Susan Hayward winning an Oscar® for her portrayal of the murderess, she could have played herself going to Washington, D.C. to fight for the protection of ladies of the night and gentlemen of the evening. She could have starred in films or written or even directed them. Without her wickedness, Graham could have fared better as an actress and scientist like Hedy Lamarr.

Her rough upbringing was no excuse for her wayward and vicious behavior. Plenty of kids from unfortunate backgrounds rose above their stations and produced great work in their lives.

What Graham represented remained the woman who could’ve been anything in the world given her brains and beauty.

All of the signs point to a woman who could have been somebody. Instead, sadly, she found no purpose in life. She brutally murdered a woman and displayed only malice and contempt for her victim. The irony of the movie title I Want to Live (1958) with Hayward in the lead, is that Graham had been waiting so long for the gas chamber to fill up to take her life.

She must have figured that she had ruined her mind and that her fate had been sealed.