Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1901 — Warden Shideler is Preparing for Two Executions. [ARTICLE]

Warden Shideler is Preparing for Two Executions.

Warden Shideler, of Michigan City, has two hangings in prospect. Joseph D. Keith, who murdered a young girl at Princeton, is under sentence to be legally strangled May 24th, and Tuesday in the Wabash circuit court John Rinkard was adjudged guilty of the murder of his wife at Marion. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty and fixed the penalty at death. With two men in the shadow of the gallows in custody, Warden Shideler will begin preparations for legal strangling. He still adheres to his plan of having the trap sprung by an automatic arrangement with three buttons attached. Three men will push the buttons, but they will have no knowledge as to what button sent the law’s victim into eternity. The proposed law provided for the execution of the death penalty by electricity, has itself been executed in the State Legislature, but whether by hanging or electrocution we are unable to say.