Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1899 — MRS. PLACE ELECTROCUTED. [ARTICLE]

MRS. PLACE ELECTROCUTED.

Heath Was Instantaneous and Was Met Without a Struggle. Mrs. Martha Place faced death in the electric chair at Sing Sing. N. Y., Monday afternoon. She made no scene. Mrs. Place went calmly to the chair. She leaned on Warden Sage's arm. Two women attended her—one a prison attendant, the other a physician. She was calm beyond expectation. No one has walked into the death chamber as serenely as she. Death was instantaneous and came without a struggle. The crime for which Mrs. Place suffered the death penalty was committed a year ago last February at her home in Brooklyn. She killed her stepdaughter, Ida Place, by throwing acid in her face while asleep and then smothering her with the bedclothes. Then she waited for her husband to come home. At the door she hit him several times on the head with an ax, and it was several months before he recovered. Jealousy was the motive which led her to take her stepdaughter’s life, she being insanely jealous of the attentions her husband paid bis daughter.