On Saturday, March 17, 1945, official executioners Thomas Pierrepoint and Herbert Morris hanged U.S. Army privates Cubia Jones and Robert L. Pearson at Shepton Mallet Prison for the crime of rape. (The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II)
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Gustav Wilhelm Joachim Schepke, Navy Lieutenant Commander and U-boat commander, born March 8, 1912 in Flensburg, commander U-3, U-19 and U-100, credited with sinking 233,971 BRT of enemy shipping, winner of Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, killed in action southeast of Iceland on March 17, 1941 when his surfaced U-boat was rammed by the British destroyer HMS Vanoc, last words: “Abandon ship!” (Dönitz’s Crews: Germany’s U-Boat Sailors in World War II)
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Chicago Crime Calendar
On March 17, 1999 Andrew Kokoraleis, a member of the Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers, a satanic cult and organized crime group composed of serial killers, cannibals, and rapists, was executed by lethal injection at the Tamms Correctional Center, Tamms, Illinois. The group was suspected in the disappearances of 18 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982 – many in the Chicago area.

