Willie Francis (January 12, 1929 – May 9, 1947) was an American teenager known for surviving a failed execution by electrocution in the United States.

[2] He was a convicted juvenile sentenced to death at age 16 by the state of Louisiana in 1945 for the murder of Andrew Thomas, a pharmacy owner in St. Martinville who had once employed him.

His murder remained unsolved for nine months, but in August 1945, Willie Francis was detained in Texas on suspicion of drug trafficking due to him carrying a briefcase and speaking with a stutter.

Author Gilbert King, in his book The Execution of Willie Francis (2008), alludes to rumors in St. Martinville of sexual abuse of the youth by the pharmacist.

Francis' first confession claimed that he stole the gun used to kill Thomas from August Fuselier, a deputy sheriff in St.

[3] The gun, and the bullets recovered from the crime scene and Thomas' body, disappeared from police evidence just before the trial.

[5] The portable electric chair, known as "Gruesome Gertie", was found to have been improperly set up by an intoxicated prison guard and inmate from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

DeBlanc had been best friends with Thomas and his decision was greeted with dismay by the citizens in the small Cajun town.