In 1844 in Fremantle, Australia, John Gavin, a convicted murderer was hanged (wow, so what else is new? see how boring bare facts are?).
The thing is, John was only 15. He was so light that the executioner had to attach weights to his body so that his neck broke when he was dropped!
In case you didn’t know, the point of hanging isn’t to strangle the person to death – they dropped them (like they tried in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) so that their neck broke.
Sometimes, the person being put to death was too heavy and snapped the rope! It was very rare for someone (like John Gavin) to be too light. But hey, whatever it takes.
Good thing capital punishment is abolished in Australia – everyone is so fit these days the executioners would have to have heaps of extra weights on hand!