Four days before his execution, forty year old Albert W. Hicks, the last man tried, convicted and executed for the federal crime of piracy in the United States, gave a lengthy and fanciful confession of a spectacular career in crime to a Deputy U.S. Marshall. Hicks claimed to have robbed and killed for twenty years in California, through Latin America, and on the high seas. This secured his fame and thousands came to watch his execution. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
DeWitt Publishing House, The Life-Trial-Confession and Execution of Albert W. Hicks: the Pirate and Murderer .... (New York: DeWitt Publishing, 1860), 39.