Another Cup of Coffee

Andy Sheridan was a tough guy from Manhattan's brawling East Side, as tough as his father had been before him. When Andy was eight, a neighborhood kid threw caustic in his face, damaging his eyes and giving his face a permanent squint. When he was twelve, his old man hauled him into New York's Children's Court and charged him with stealing his watch. The court sent "Squint" Sheridan to the Catholic Protectory for a year.

From then on Andy Sheridan was always on the wrong side of the law. He had all the physical assets of a good professional killer--the pasty, expressionless face, the coldly squinting stare and a contemptuous disregard for human life. By 1930, he was an accomplished journeyman killer on the staff of mobster Dutch Schultz. In 1938, Boss Joe Ryan of the International Longshoremen's Association (A.F.L.) put Sheridan on his staff of waterfront goons working with another hired hand, John M. ("Cockeye") Dunn.

Singing Canary. Squint and Cockeye made a good pair. Together, they slugged and killed their way up until both were minor officers in the union. In 1947, in company with a third hoodlum named Danny Gentile, Squint and Cockeye murdered a waterfront hiring boss. The killers were careless and the victim lived long enough to identify them.

Last week, in the condemned row at Sing Sing, Squint Sheridan and Cockeye Dunn were ready to die. Danny Gentile had turned "canary" at the last minute, singing out his knowledge of New York's crime-ridden waterfront (TIME, March 7) to win life imprisonment instead of the chair. Cockeye Dunn's family wanted him to sing, too, but he refused. As for Sheridan, who had tried in court to take all the blame for the murder and had even testified that killing was "just like ordering a cup of coffee," there was never any thought of squealing.

His wife, Bertha, and his daughter, Cherie Coppeliano, went to visit him in the death house. At lunch time, Sheridan told them: "Now, you folks go on uptown and have a nice lunch. When you get back, we'll have a nice talk." Sheridan stared after them as long as his eyes could follow. Then he called a guard.

"Phone the warden's office," said Sheridan. "Have him tell my wife and daughter not to come back, that no more visitors will be admitted . . . When I last saw them they were smiling and I was smiling. That's the way I wanted it to be. No weeping stuff." Squint had one more request: he wanted his eyes given to New York's Eye-Bank (doctors said the corneas could still be used despite the damage caused by the caustic 41 years ago).

Fluttering Moth. At Sing Sing, the weakest always goes first at a multiple execution, so frail, runty little Cockeye Dunn preceded Squint to the chair. Guards had just wheeled Cockeye's body into the adjoining autopsy room when Squint entered at 11:08 p.m. He looked calmly at the big oak chair with its eight black harness-leather straps, eased his fat hulk in.

Just before the black mask came down over his face, Sheridan looked up at the bright light over the death chair. A moth fluttered about it. Sheridan's weak blue eyes followed the moth intently as it circled the light. Then the mask came down over his face, guards deftly snapped the electrodes on his arms and legs, and the dynamo started up with a low whine. At 11:11 p.m. the prison physician put his stethoscope to Sheridan's chest. "This man is dead," he said in a flat voice.

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