Mr. Death: the Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., an engineer from Massachusettes decided to become the "Florence Nightengale of Death Row"--a humanitarian, a humanist, whose mission was to design and repair gas chambers, electric chairs, lethal injection systems and gallows. He became renowned in his field and was eventually employed as an expert, albeit self-taught, by the various states where capitol punishment was upheld. In 1988, Ernst Zundel, a neo-Nazi who published such tracts as "Did Six Million Really Die?" and "The Hitler We Loved and Why," commissioned Lechter to conduct a forensic investigation into the use of poison gas in WWII Nazi concentration camps. Lechter traveled to Auschwitz and illegally took brick and mortar samples for analysis, and later "proved" that the Holocaust never happened. Leuchter fully expected his involvement with Ernst Zundel to be the crowning achievement of his career, but instead it ruined him.