The "missing women" were never really missing.. Espy identified them decades ago. Documentation of their executions can be found in his papers--housed at the University of Albany's M.E. Grendander Archives and Special Collections
M. Watt Espy, Jr. is widely noted as the “foremost historian of executions” by the Equal Justice Initiative, yet the full extent of his research, his impact, is yet to be fully realized. The below are a collection of videos and pictures that offer a glimpse into the kind of a person he was.
It should be known that his life's work has yet to be fully recognized--especially in scholarly research. It is the Espy Papers, his life's work, that should replace the Espy File--a digitized dataset he might not want to be his legacy.
While this website is focused on executed women, it is part of a larger project to draw attention to this native Alabamian, Navy veteran (enlisting at age 17 and serving during the Korean war), traveling salesmen, and a true academic--this without a college degree or professional agenda. As so eloquently put by the curators of his collection (the Espy Project), if not for the work of M. Watt Espy, many might still believe that the U.S. has only executed about 5,000 people (versus the about 15,000-20,000 people we now know have been lawfully executed).
And, from my research thus far, I gather that the archives would not be possible if not for the efforts for Espy's brilliant and loyal friends like Professor Hugo Bedau and Professor Michael Radelet, for example, whose continued work in the area of capital punishment can easily be found online through simple google searches.
These are a fairly random of assortment of videos I have been able to locate. Any suggestions would be welcome as these choices were made rather haphazardly and it is Major Allen Espy's site that has so much more...
