Despite being a theme in Hollywood movies like Lady in Cement and books like E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, whether such a cumbersome and time-consuming method of execution was practical remained in question.
[2] Cement takes many hours or even days to fully harden and, until 2016, there was never a documented case—although crime historian Thomas Reppetto said there have probably been real-life examples that have never been found.
In 1941, the body of Philadelphia racketeer Johnnie Goodman was found by a crab fisherman in a New Jersey creek, weighed down with an 18-kilogram (40-pound) block of concrete.
[2] On August 24, 1964, the body of Ernest Rupolo, aged 52, a trigger man who informed on Vito Genovese in 1944, was found in Jamaica Bay, New York, with concrete blocks tied to his legs.
Bigeard put his victims' feet in a basin, poured quick-setting cement in and threw the person into the sea from the top of a helicopter, said Paul Teitgen, secretary general of the French police in Algiers in 1957, and notable opponent of torture during the war.