How would a psychopath or a sociopath feel/react knowing he/she is going to be executed by hanging?

 

There's a likely example of that from Czechslovakia. In 1975, a 23 year.old woman called Olga Hepnarova was executed by hanging in Prague for the mass murder of 8 people. Hepnarova had driven a truck deliberately at a tram stop, hoping to kill as many people as possible.

Hepnarova was a very troubled young woman who struggled to form personal relationships and was shunned and bullied by her peers. She was described as cold and remote. She developed a deep seated hatred for the society she lived in and wanted to kill as many people as possible. She was never diagnosed as a pyschopath or sociopath- but seemed to share a lot of the traits.

She showed no remorse during her trial, where she was sentenced to death by short drop hanging (where the condemned suffers slow strangulation rather than the instant death from the breaking of the neck by long drop hanging). Nor did she show any remorse during her relatively short stay in prison on death row. Indeed she expressed regret she didn't kill more people.

During her time on death row she asked the doctors and guards about how she'd be hung and what to expect, indeed the guards said she seemed fascinated about how she'd meet her end. Not being a particularly popular prisoner because of her cold and aloof character and what she'd done, the guards didn't sugar coat it and made clear she could expect a painful death, particularly as a slight young woman as she was less likely to lose consciousness quickly as heavier men do with short drops.

Apparently, right up until the day of her execution she seemed very calm and accepting of her execution, she even said she'd welcome it and was unconcerned about the pain as she'd been in pain all her life.

But on the morning of the execution as she was being led to the gallows the fear and terror of her imminent painful death overcame her, and she became hysterical, kicking and screaming begging for her life. She also voided her bowels. Two guards had to restrain her and drag her down the corridor to the room where the gallows were (which from the pictures was a simple noose attached to a hook jutting out from the wall). They placed her head into the noose, tightening it and the hangman had to bend down and tie a rope round her ankles (which were covered in her feces). She then vomited in fear, over the hangman.

The hangman then went to the adjoining room, and pulled a lever, and she fell a few inches and started asphyxiating. From the reports, her death took almost 20 minutes. She continued to soil herself, and apparently bled copiously out of her vagina, mouth, nose and anus - one of the witnesses said the floor and walls around her body looked more like she'd been disemboweled rather than hung as they were covered in her blood and excrement from her death throes. The hangman was so disgusted by the hanging that he resigned his post immediately after.

So, clearly despite her cool demeanour, she clearly felt terror right at the end when it became clear what she was about to face. Even though she did a terrible crime, and was by all accounts a horrible person, no one deserves the agonising and humiliating death she received. Thankfully, she was the last woman to be executed in Czechia, who abolished the death penalty in 1990.