Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — FREDA WARD’S SLAYER. [ARTICLE]

FREDA WARD’S SLAYER.

How Alice Mitchell I< Spending Her Days in an Asylum. The second anniversary of the death of Freda Ward at the hands of her girl lover. Alice Mitchell, has passed away. Just two years ago Miss Mitchell killed Freda near the Custom House in Memphis, Tenn., and for this crime she was tried, hut upon her insanity being established she was sentenced to the West Tennessee Hospital for the Insane located near Bolivar. Here the life of the prisoner has passed uneventfully. She rises at 6:30 o'clock every morning and puts her own room in order, though not obliged to do it. She has breakfast—and she usually eats a hearty meal—at 7:30, aids the attendants in cleaning up if she feels disposed, roads a little, and talks and plays games with those of the patients who are sane enough to join in such diversions. Dinner is served at 12:30, and in the afternoon, if the weather is fine, the patien's are taken for a walk over the grounds. After the walk and on rainy afternoons Alice devotes herself almost exclusively to the practice oh music. She is organist in the chapel, takes great interest in the hospital Sunday-school, and is considered the best scholar in the Bible class. Dr. Douglass, the superintendent, says that, mentally, Alice is much imE roved since she entered the asylum, ut he refuses to give au opinion as to whether she is sane enough to be released. In point of fact, it is doubtful If the girl ever leaves tho asylutri, even though she may never evince another symptom of insanity. She has proved herself possessed of a homicidal mania, and miblic opinion will demand that she be kept where a possible recurrence of it cannot work harm toother*,