Drop Him Till He Dies: The Twisted Tragedy of Immigrant Homesteader Thomas Egan by C. John Egan, published 1994. Thomas Egan was hanged in South Dakota for the murder of his wife. Over a hundred years later, his great grandson wrote this book to make a record of Thomas Egan's innocence. On August 21, 1993, Governor Walter D. Miller formally apologized for the wrongful hanging of Thomas Egan in 1882.