https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadj_Mohammed_Mesfewi
Mesfewi worked as a
shoemaker and trader in Marrakesh. Assisted by a 70-year-old woman named Annah, Mesfewi would kill young women who came to his shop to dictate letters. He would use drugs to incapacitate his victims before decapitating them with a dagger. Moroccan authorities found the remains of 20 mutilated bodies in a deep pit under his shop, another 16 were discovered in the garden outside.
[1] He was caught after the parents of one young victim traced her movements back to his shop. Annah died under torture and Mesfewi confessed that he killed them for their money; often the sums were very small.
[2]
nitially Mesfewi's execution was supposed to be
crucifixion on May 2, 1906. But owing to protestations from foreign embassies, the decision was taken to behead him.
[3] However, public sentiment in
Marrakesh was for him to suffer. Every day he was led from his cell to the market square, where he was lashed ten times with rods made from the thorny
acacia.
[1] It was then decided that, because of the heinous nature of his crimes and as a warning for all, Mesfewi would be
walled up alive in the
bazaar that stood in Marrakesh's marketplace on June 11, 1906.
[2]
Two masons created a hole in the bazaar's thick walls about 2 ft (0.61 m) deep and wide and about 6 ft (1.8 m) high. Chains were fixed to the back wall to keep Mesfewi standing. He apparently was not told what his fate was to be because on the day of his execution, he began screaming for mercy and fighting with his gaolers when he was led to the wall.
[1] After he had been chained up, bystanders threw filth and
offal at him. The masons then came forward and began laying courses of masonry to brick up the opening. After his entombment, the crowd would be silent, but then cheer every time they heard him scream inside.
[1] For the first two days he was heard, before falling silent on the third day. Many in the crowd voiced their anger that he had died too quickly.
[1]
