Assistant Warden Peter N. Klein (Joliet CC) - In 1927 and 1928, four men were hanged in Joliet, which were the last executions on a gallows in the state. A gang of seven convicts had escaped from the Collins Street prison in 1926 and had murdered Assistant Warden Peter Klein.

Twice the killers had escaped from the county jail after being convicted and sentenced to hang. One convict got away and was never found, another was captured in New York and sentenced there to prison for another crime and one was killed in a shoot-out with police.

At sunrise on July 15, 1927, three of the killers dropped through trap doors at a gallows in the jail yard. Thousands of spectators watched the triple hanging. The fourth killer was hanged on that same gallows the following year.