Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — A COWARDLY DEATH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A COWARDLY DEATH.

lowa's Return to Capital Punishment After a Period of Over Twenty Years. Chester Bellows, Who Murdered Alice Waterman, Hanged at Charles City. He Meets His Doom with a Lie on His Lips and Pleading for His Life. [CHARLES CITY (IOWA) CORRESPONDENCE. J Chester Bellows, tbe murderer of Alice Ti aterman, was hanged here on Friday last.

He had to be supported to the gallows, and aB the rope was placed oronnd his neck he exclaimed three times: “Please don’t.” As the Sheriff placed the white cap over his head, he ex.claimed again: '“Please don’t; I am innocent. ” In eight minutes and fortytnree seconds after the trap was sprung Bellows’ heart ceased

to boat. His neck was broken. The rope used was that intended for Anarchist Lonis Lingg.

The crime for which Bellows suffered the death penalty was the murder of his niece, Alice Waterman. He baa been living at Minneapolis, but came here in 1886 and went to live with the Watermans, a short distance from town His attentions to Alice and his general conduct soon became such that he was sent away July 8. He went to the house of a neighbor, Chester Wilcox, where Alice was stopping, and called her outdoors and shot her twice while Bhe was on her knees begging for mercy. The last shot was fatal. He then shot himself, but inflicted merely flesh wounds. Bellows is the first man legally executed in lowa for twenty-two years. From 1846 to 1872, the first twenty-six years of the Commonwealth’s Statehood, few men died on the gallows by decree of the courts. Under the old law It was optional with Judges to sentence to hanging or to imprisonment for life in capital cases, and the bench usually tempered justice with mercy. The course of the Judges led to discussion about 1870, as to whether the practice of courts, by showing as far as possible their tendorest side to the deepest-dyed criminals, did not really create a sort of contempt for the way judicial punishment was measured out. It was maintained that the public morals would be better conserved by repealing the capital punishment clause and making life imprisonment the penalty for the highest crime. Public Bentiment was ripe for a change, and when the Legislature of 1872 met one of its principal acts was the passage of a bill abolishing capital punishment. This law lasted until 1878, when, after thorough discussion, during which it was contended that the taking of human life had become much more frequent than formerly on account of this abolition of the death penalty, capital punishment was reenacted with one important change, which removed the power to fix the death penalty from the Judge to the jury In a case arising under the law now the jurcre find the veraict as formerly, bnt If they adjudge the criminal guilty of murder In the first degree and that the prisoner be hanged or imprisoned for lito, they must say so in their written verdict, and the court has no power to modify the finding. The Judge must either set aside the verdict entire, or pronounce sentence in accordance with the veixlfct. Under the law of 1878 four men have been sentenced to death in lowa. The first was Fountain W. George, for the murder of Dr. Epps in the streets of Des Moines. This occurred in 1882. The judgment of the lower court was affirmed, and under the law he should have been executed not later than fifteen months after sentence. But the assassin was a victim .of epilepsy. Doubts arose as to his sanity, and a commission of inquiry was appointed. Their finding has never been made public, but it must have been favorable to the insanity view, as Governor Sherman never fixed a day of execution, and about a year ago George died in the penitentiary. A man named Smith, of Fayette County, and another named Kennedy, of Dubuque, are awaiting execution, their cases having'gone to the Supreme Court. Chester Bellows was the fourth. The murderers legally strangled in this State richly merited their punishment. In 1856 William Hinkle, of Davis County, was arrested for poisoning his wife. The woman had died suddenly, and Hinkle, beiore a year had elapsed, made preparation to marry a girl who liad been working In the family at the time of his wife’s death. An investigation followed, which led to Hinkle’s indictment and arrest. He took a change of venue to the adjoining county of Appanoose, where, after a trial lasting only four days, he was convicted of murder in the first degree on April 16, 1858. An appeal to the Supreme Court followed, but the judgment below was affirmed, and Hinkle was sentenced to be publicly executed on the 13th of August, 1858, between the hours of 1 and 3 p. m., within onehalf mile of the town of Orleans, a little village in the eastern part of the county. This was the nearest convenient point midway between Bloomfield and Centerville, the county seats of Davis and Appanoose Counties, and the Judge, no doubt, thought the people of the two counties had a oommon interest in seeing Hinkle die. Nor was he disappointed. On the appointed day 10,000 people assembled to witness the execution. The condemned man ascended the platform with a resolute step and firm bearing. The rope provided for the occasion was of home manufacture, and as the trap fell and it received the full weignt of the heavy victim it snapped, and’ Hinkle dropped heavily to the ground. He was picked up and with difficulty placed on the scaffold. He was asked before the rope was adjusted the second time if he had anything to say, to which he answered that he was innocent. It was generally believed at the time that he had placed the poison in the young woman’s hands for the purpose of compassing his wife’s death, and that his denial was, therefore, technically true. The second execution was the most notable in the State’s history. It occuirCd at Dubuque in 1859. A tailor named Gillick returned home in the morning verv drunk. His wife asked him for money with which to buy bread. He seized her by tne hair, dragged her about the floor, kicked her, beat her, and at last shot her through the head. He had been a soldier in the Mexican war, a color sergeant. As his attorney, the eloquent Ben M. Samuels, told the jury, he bore the flag of his adopted country from Vera Cruz to Cbapultepec. He had two trials, the xerdiot resulting the same in both. Governor Lowe was appealed to for clemency in vain. There had been too many murders in Dubuque in the preceding ten years, and public sentiment demanded an example. Judge Wilson had ordered that the execution be made public. The gallows was built on a Bandy plateau a short distance south of Eagle Point, and just north’ of the city limits. Tne people living in the vicinity—the nearest house being at least a quarter of a mile distant, threatened to raze the gallows, but Sheriff Hayden put a guard of sworn deputies around it. There were three large, well drilled, handsomely uniformed military companies in Dubuque—The Governor's Greys, the Washington Guards and the Jackson Blues. Gillick requested that, as he had been a soldier, these military companies escort him to the gallows, and, in order to comply with his wishes. Sheriff Hayden ordered that they turn out as protection, and to quell any disturbance that might arise. The day of execution came, Dubuque never saw such a crowd. It seemed as if the people of lowa, Wisconsin and Illinois for sixty miles about had flocked into the city It was estimated that there were 40,003 to 60,000 strangers in Dubuque that morning. It was a beautiful day. The cortege started fr<pn the jail with a military company, headed by the Germania Band, in front of a barouche in which Gillick rode with the Sheriff, and two companies in the rear, while a line of guards was on either Bide of the carriage. The band played a dead march from the jail to the gallows, a distance of over

a mile. The military formed a hollow square about the gallows and within forty feet of it. The people stood crowded in cioeely cm all sides — a vast mass of humanity. Hundreds of women were among the spectators. Gillick made a short speech, in which he warned young men against the use of liquor, which had brought him to the gallows, thanked the military for the honor they had paid him as a soldier, and Sheriff Hayden for kind treatment. It was all over in fifteen minutes, and in the afternoon two-thirds of the vast number of strangers had disappeared. There have been two more executions at or near Dubuque—one in 1862 —and another at Delphi for a murder committed at Dubuque in lHtf. The last legal execution of which there is a record in lowa occurred at Ottumwa, Feb. 17, 1865, when Benjamin A. HcComb, a native of Rockford, 111., was hanged for the murder of Laura Jane Harvey, also of Rockford. Laura ran away from home in company witn McComb and George Lawrence, and she and Lawrence were married at Beloit, Wis., before coming to lowa. The party put up at the Jefferson House in Ottumwa on March 27, 1860. During their stay the conversation of the two men was far from friendly toward the young woman. The next day they went to Eddvville, where the same treatment of the woman was noticed. Leaving Eddyville the next day, nothing definite was heard of them until the following morning, when the body of the woman was found in the river below the ford. It was certain that murder had been committed. Four months after the body of a man was found ia Copperas Creeps about four miles east of Ottumwa. Investigation proved it to be the body of George Lawrence, husband of the murdered woman. Four years passed without the disclosure of a solitary clue to the location of McComb, but finally in the spring of 18 4 he was recognized by a young soldier from Rockford, stationed at Camp McClellan, at Davenport, was placed under arrest March 2, and taken to Ottumwa, where his trial resulted In a verdict of guilty June 14 following. The court decided that he should be hanged July 27. but the cose having gone to the Supreme Court, the execution was postponed. A great many people assembled, however, on the date mentioned, and, gathering around the jail, soon became noisy and demonstrative, apparently possessing all the elements of a mob. Finally the question of banging was submitted to a vote, and, having been carried affirmatively, a ruHli was made for the jail door and the prisoner was brought out. He asked for an hour to prepare for death, and it was given him. He was taken into the Catholic Churcfi and baptized, after which the mob took him in charge. There were no lamp-posts in Ottumwa in those days, and consequently no convenient place to hang him. He was finally placed in a wagon, driven a mile east of town, a rope put arouud his neck, it was thrown over a bent tree, and the mob were abDut to carry out their design when McComb a9ked the privilege of making a speech, which was granted. He protested his innocence, offered to prove that George Lawrence was still living, and that he did not murder Laura J. Harvey. At this point a cry was raised all through the crowd, “Take him backl” others yelling, “Hang him.” Then a short struggle for the possession of the rope ensued, when some one called out, “Cut it.” This w»s immediately dene, and the prisoner rescued from the hands of the mob, placed in a wagon, driven rapidly to town and placed in jail. On the night of Aug. 24 McComb escaped from confinement by means of offering the Sheriff’s 11-year-old boy a large sum of money to Induce him to unlock the cell door, so that he had nothing to do but to walk out. The Sheriff was absent at the time. August 27 he was recaptured about fifteen miles from Ottumwa. and on the 31st another mob gathered. But this time the Sheriff was prepared, and the jail strongly guarded by the military. Consequently the mob dispersed. McComb’s case was heard by the Supreme Court in the following December, and the judgment of the lower court was affirmed. This necessitated the fixing of a day of execution bythe Governor, and Feb. 17, 1865, was named. The death warrant in this case is the only document of the kind on file in the State archives. The return made thereon by the Sheriff shows that it was duly executed, Woolfolk Sentenced to Be Hanged. [Macon (Ga.) special.) This was the tenth day of the trial of Woolfolk for the murder of nine of hia family. The jury was charged at noon and in twenty minutes brought in a verdict of guilty. The prisoner was then sentenced to be hanged Feb. 10. In his statement before sentence Woolfolk asserted his innocence beforo heaven and said the witnesses had sworn falsely. He seems to be absolutely without nerves. Another lowa Hanging in Prospect. The Supreme Court of lowa has affirmed the sentence of the Fayette District Court in the case of Henry Schmidt, convicted of the murder of Lucretia Peck on the night of September 4, 1886, and he will be hanged at West Union January 4, 1888. A California Murderer Hanged. Thurston Lee was hanged at Bakersfield, Cal., on Friday, fer the murder of John Smith in March, 1883.