Together [Rockwell Syrock and his monkey ward Jocko] toured the towns of Victorian North Carolina, whiling away the empty days before the invention of Twitter by joining the crowds of spectators at public executions.

On a summer’s day in 1880 Mr. Syrock had been cheerfully looking forward to the hanging of a convicted murderer when the state governor thwarted his plans by postponing the execution.

The execution might have been delayed, but that was no reason not to take advantage of the situation to get up close and personal with an instrument of mortal justice.

The naturally curious Jocko closely examined the gibbet with Mr. Syrock, examining scaffold workings, trap and gibbet.

Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

Back home, the primate scurried off to busy himself in his master’s barn. The result of his private endeavors was nothing less than an evolutionary breakthrough.

Alas, it was almost instantly annulled by what the Liverpool Echo called “one of the most novel suicides of the century”.

Jocko was found dead, suspended by a clothes line to one of the rafters of the building, a victim of his own ghoulish experimentation.

Via BBC.