The final seconds of Salvador Puig Antich’s life were measured not in the chaotic struggle of a hanging, but in the cold, mechanical turn of a metal screw. As the 25-year-old anarchist was strapped into the wooden chair in a Barcelona prison yard in March 1974, the crowd outside the walls saw only the stillness of the procedure. They did not see the cascade of biological failure that was about to unfold inside his body, a process that would render him unconscious in seconds but leave his heart beating for minutes more.

The garrote, presented for centuries as a more humane alternative to the rope, was never a single, simple device. It was a family of machines, each designed to compress the neck with a force that no human executioner could reliably replicate by hand alone, and each triggering a brutal, invisible sequence of physiological collapse.

The word “garrote” itself derives from the Spanish verb “garrotear,” meaning to tighten or twist. Its origins trace back to 15th-century Spain, where the first version was not a machine at all. The executioner used a simple rope looped around the condemned person’s neck, with a wooden stick inserted through the loop and twisted manually.

This primitive method was slow and entirely dependent on the executioner’s physical strength and stamina. The pressure applied was inconsistent, and death could come from slow strangulation, a process that often left the victim convulsing visibly for several agonizing minutes. By the 18th century, Spanish authorities sought a more controlled method.

Engineers and prison officials developed a metal version using a screw mechanism, allowing pressure to be increased gradually and with far greater precision than any human arm could achieve.

This innovation was marketed as a humanitarian advance over hanging, which could fail to kill quickly and leave the condemned thrashing in full view of the public. In 1812, Spain made the garrote its official method of execution, largely replacing the gallows. However, the garrote was not a single, fixed design.

Over the centuries, Spanish executioners used three main versions, which looked similar from the outside but were engineered to kill in different ways. The first and oldest was the “garrote simple,” essentially an upgraded version of the rope-and-stick method. The condemned person sat on a chair fixed to a wooden post, with a metal band placed around the neck and connected to a screw mechanism at the back of the post.

As the executioner turned the screw, the band tightened, compressing the neck and restricting both blood flow and breathing. In this form, death was primarily caused by strangulation.

The second version, the “garrote catalán,” was the model most associated with Spain’s execution history. Named after Catalonia, the northeastern region where it was developed, this design incorporated a sharp metal spike inside the neck band. The third version, known as the “garrote vil,” or “vile garrote,” was not a different mechanical design.

The term “vil” referred to the social status of the people subjected to it. For centuries, Spanish society treated nobles and common criminals differently, even in their methods of execution. Nobles could receive less humiliating forms of death, while common criminals were assigned the “vile” form.

The name reflected the lower social standing of the person, rather than a distinct machine. Mechanically, the “garrote vil” operated in the same manner as the standard version.

Regardless of the version used, the basic setup on execution day was remarkably similar. A raised wooden platform was erected in a public square, ensuring the gathered crowd had a clear view. The condemned person’s wrists were tied to the arms of the chair, and often their ankles were bound as well, to prevent violent movement once the procedure began.

Crucially, the executioner stood behind the post, out of the prisoner’s direct line of sight. Positioned behind the head and neck rather than face-to-face, he could operate the screw while observing the back of the prisoner’s neck. In 19th and most of 20th-century Spain, a deeply Catholic country, religion shaped nearly every part of the execution ritual.

Condemned prisoners were typically given the last rites, a Catholic sacrament performed for those nearing death, intended to prepare the soul and offer a final chance for prayer and religious consolation. Many spent their last night in a special prison chapel cell, a room within or attached to the prison that had a clear view of an altar, allowing the prisoner to remain in bed while still praying during their final hours.

On the morning of the execution, prisoners usually wore simple dark clothing. In many recorded cases, they were transported through the streets toward the execution site in full public view. For much of that period, execution was a public spectacle, with entire communities gathering to watch.

Children were sometimes among the spectators, meaning people could grow up seeing executions as a part of public life. This practice remained common in Spain throughout the 19th century before authorities gradually imposed more restrictions on public executions. By the time the prisoner was led to the chair and strapped in, their body was already under immense stress, even if they appeared calm externally.

The human body reacts to extreme fear automatically. Fear can release massive amounts of adrenaline and cortisol, hormones involved in the body’s stress response. As these hormones enter the bloodstream, the heart rate may accelerate, blood pressure rises, breathing changes, and muscles tense in preparation for what the body perceives as an imminent threat.

In some recorded Spanish executions, prisoners experienced such extreme panic and psychological distress that they lost consciousness before the machine was even activated. When this happened, officials sometimes had to wake them. In rare cases, the execution was carried out while the prisoner was still unconscious.

Once the priest had finished his final duties and stepped away, the restraints were checked, and the prisoner was secured firmly to the chair. At that moment, almost nothing separated the prisoner from the executioner. The entire process depended on the screw mechanism behind the person’s neck.

As the executioner turned the screw, the metal collar around the prisoner’s neck tightened more and more, applying pressure from several directions simultaneously. The pressure was mechanically controlled, but the result was the same fundamental problem as any other form of strangulation: the neck was compressed until the brain and other organs could no longer receive adequate oxygen.

This pressure caused two major problems at once. First, it compressed the carotid arteries and jugular veins, the main blood vessels running along both sides of the neck. The carotid arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the brain, while the jugular veins return blood to the heart.

Compressing these vessels severely reduced blood flow to the brain. Second, the pressure could also crush the trachea, the main airway connecting the throat to the lungs. This made it difficult or impossible for air to reach the lungs, creating a secondary pathway for oxygen deprivation.

The brain is highly sensitive to a lack of blood and oxygen. When blood flow to the brain is completely cut off, a person can typically lose consciousness within about 10 to 15 seconds. This may seem surprisingly fast, but losing consciousness does not mean the person is actually dead.

The brain may stop producing consciousness very quickly, while the heart and other organs continue to function for several more minutes.

After unconsciousness, involuntary muscle movements may occur. The person’s arms or legs might twitch or move against the restraints, even though they are no longer aware of what is happening. These movements do not necessarily mean the prisoner is regaining consciousness.

They can result from the nervous system losing its normal control as oxygen levels continue to drop throughout the body. At the same time, the heart was also being deprived of oxygen. This could lead to arrhythmia, meaning the heart’s normal electrical rhythm became irregular or unstable as the heart struggled to continue working.

Complete death from strangulation took longer. Even after the screw was fully tightened and the prisoner had reached a state of complete stillness, the body’s biological processes did not stop immediately. Brain death, the irreversible destruction of brain tissue due to the complete cessation of oxygen and blood flow, typically occurs after several minutes of insufficient circulation.

The commonly cited range is about 4 to 6 minutes in the case of complete blood flow cessation to the brain.

There was, therefore, a significant difference between what the crowd could see and what was actually happening inside the body. The prisoner might appear completely lifeless after losing consciousness, while some parts of their body continued to function. This difference between appearing dead and actual biological death became one of the main problems with the traditional garrote.

Authorities wanted a method that could cause death faster and make the process appear more immediate. This was one of the reasons the more violent versions of the garrote with spikes gained importance. When the executioner turned the screw in these versions, the spike inside the metal collar was pushed forward into the back of the neck.

The spike was designed to strike the area between the second and third cervical vertebrae, near the base of the skull. This was a critical part of the nervous system because the upper spinal cord carries signals between the brain and the rest of the body. Directly above this area lies the medulla oblongata, a part of the brainstem that controls essential functions a person does not need to think about, including breathing and heart rate regulation.

If the spike struck the target area with sufficient force and precision, the theory was that it could cause devastating spinal injury almost immediately. This could lead to loss of consciousness and death much faster than strangulation alone. Nineteenth-century Spanish officials used this argument to defend the garrote as a more humane form of execution.

They claimed that rapid spinal injury would reduce suffering compared to hanging, which could take longer and sometimes involved visible struggle before death. However, there was one major problem with this idea. The spike had to hit the right spot.

The human neck is not identical from person to person. People have different neck lengths, varying amounts of muscle and tissue, and slightly different positions and shapes of vertebrae. Even a slight difference in positioning could affect where the spike struck.

This made the executioner’s precision crucial. If the spike missed its intended target, the result could differ greatly from what the designers had planned.

Historical records from Spain show that executions were not always as smooth as officials claimed. Instead of causing the desired spinal injury, the spike might cause a serious puncture wound while the metal collar continued to compress the neck. The prisoner might have to endure both the injury from the spike and the effects of strangulation simultaneously.

In some poorly executed executions, the process could take much longer than intended, creating exactly the kind of prolonged suffering the spike was designed to prevent. When something went wrong, the executioner sometimes had to make adjustments while the execution was still in progress. This meant changing the position of the mechanism or continuing to operate it while the prisoner was still alive.

Thus, the person behind the post bore an enormous burden. Executioners in Spain were not typically people assigned the task once and then replaced. Many remained in their positions for years or even decades.

In some cases, the profession was passed down from generation to generation, making execution a family craft. A person could grow up in the trade and eventually become an official executioner themselves.

Being a “verdugo,” the Spanish word for executioner, conferred an unusual status in Spanish society. The job was widely considered degrading, dishonorable, and even cursed. Executioners were also viewed as outcasts because of the nature of their work.

Some lived in partial isolation from their communities because ordinary people did not want to associate with someone whose job was to kill condemned prisoners. At the same time, the position was completely legal and officially controlled by the government. Executioners received regular salaries and held official government positions.

One of the best-documented Spanish executioners of that period was Nicomedes Méndez, who served as an official executioner for several decades from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. Historical records show that Méndez personally carried out dozens of executions, most of which were performed using the garrote. Because he spent many years in this work, he developed practical knowledge of how the human body responds to this mechanism.

He recognized that slight differences in positioning and anatomy could affect what happens during an execution. Such expertise made a real difference because the machine itself was not capable of accounting for all the differences between one body and another.

This human factor was one of the reasons the garrote had a conflicting reputation. Officially, especially after the development of the Catalan version with its spinal spike, the government presented the machine as a more humane alternative to older execution methods like hanging or beheading with an axe. The argument was that the garrote could cause death faster and with less visible suffering.

But in practice, the outcome depended on several factors at once. The most controversial chapter in the garrote’s history came when it became associated with political repression and executions carried out for political reasons. Francisco Franco came to power in Spain after winning the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and remained the country’s dictator until his death in 1975.

During nearly four decades in power, the garrote remained Spain’s official method of execution, but it was no longer used only against ordinary criminals convicted of serious crimes. Under Franco, the garrote was also used against those the regime considered political enemies. In this way, the execution method that had been presented as a form of disciplined criminal punishment became part of the government’s campaign against political opposition.

One case in particular drew international attention to the garrote. In March 1974, a 25-year-old Catalan anarchist named Salvador Puig Antich was executed by garrote in Barcelona. He had been convicted of killing a police officer during his arrest, but the exact circumstances of the shooting remained disputed by his supporters for many years.

His execution sparked protests in many European countries. Critics argued that the case was not just an ordinary murder case but was also linked to Franco’s efforts to suppress political opposition. They questioned whether the trial and death sentence were partly driven by the regime’s determination to punish a political dissident.

International criticism did not prevent Franco’s government from using the garrote again. In September 1975, just two months before Franco’s death, the regime carried out another set of executions. Five people were executed in a series of coordinated killings.

Two of them were Juan Paredes Manot, also known as Txiki, and another member of ETA. ETA was a Basque separatist armed organization fighting for an independent Basque state. The other three men executed at the same time belonged to a different armed organization.

These executions took place during the final months of Franco’s dictatorship when the regime was already facing increased political pressure and international criticism. These five executions became one of the last major examples of state violence under Franco’s rule. The international reaction was immediate.

Several European governments officially protested the executions, and some countries went further by recalling their ambassadors from Madrid. Mass demonstrations were also organized in European capitals. The protests showed how sharply international opinion had turned against Franco’s government and its continued use of the death penalty, especially when used against political militants.

Franco died just 7 weeks later on November 20, 1975. His death ended nearly four decades of dictatorship and began a major political transition in Spain. The country was now moving toward democracy, and this transition would also change the legal system that had allowed the garrote to remain in use for so long.

In 1978, Spain adopted a new constitution. The constitution officially abolished the death penalty for ordinary criminal offenses, meaning executions could no longer be used as a regular punishment under civil criminal law. However, this did not completely remove the death penalty from Spanish law.

Military law technically allowed the death penalty in certain extreme circumstances, including some wartime offenses. This exception continued for another 17 years. Spain did not fully abolish the death penalty until 1995, when the remaining military exception was removed and the death penalty was finally ended under Spanish law.

But the actual end of the garrote machine came much earlier. The five executions in September 1975 were the last executions carried out using this device in Spain. After 163 years as an official method of execution in the country, beginning with its formal adoption in 1812, the garrote simply disappeared from actual use.

There was no special ceremony to mark the last execution with it, and no major official announcement declaring the end of the machine’s long history. Today, the garrote remains mainly in museums and historical archives. Many Spanish museums hold original execution devices, allowing visitors and researchers to see how this technology changed over time.