The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-01-20
THE DEATH PENALTY.
Four Men Ezpiats Their Crimes on the ScafOld
Yesterday.
a Scene of Horror Enacted at the Execution
of Charles Wilson, a ColOred Deck
Hand, Who Dies Slowly From
StrangulatiOn.

NEVADA, No., 15.-Henry S. Stair, who is
60 hang here to-day, was visited by his father
about 9 o'clock last night after which he
spent most of the time writing until this
morning, when he went to sleep. He awoke
at S:15 and partook ora light breakfast, after
which he was shaved. Large crowds of peo-
pie surged through the streets all the morn
ing, tramping between the jail and the gal
lows, which is erected in a ravine forming
natural amphitheater, about a mile from the
Jail. Trains from Sedalia and Kansas City
arrived at 1880, bringing hundreds of people
to witness the execution, which will not take
place until about l o'clock. Stairs spoke
from the scaffold for thirty minutes. protest
ing hisinnocence and the innocence of the
woman implicated, saying they were victims
of circumstances. The drop fell at 1 :2S, and
in fifteen minutes the body was pronounced
1ifeless and turned over to his friends, who
viii take 1T to Marshall County, Indiana, to-
night for interment. Ten thousand people
witnessed the execution, and good order
prevailed,
THE crime for which Stair was executed
was brutal and cold blooded in the extreme.
Stair and his companion, woman named
Nannette Osborn, who was TO have been
hanged with him, came to Nevada about the
LIST OF last July from Fort Scott, Kas., and
opened small laundry, representing them
selves as man and wife. Shortly after their
arrival, Jacob Sewell, an elderly man and
his son, sixteen years old, with two wagons,
four horses and some other property, also
came here from near Fort Scott, and went
into camp near town. The Stairs and Sewell
were slightly acquainted, and the Stairs
made frequent visits to Sewells camp. Later
on the elder Sewell was taken sick and was
compelled to keep his bed in one or the
wagons, which had a cover, and was looked
after by Stair and the Osborn woman. 1t
was during these visits that Stair laid plan
to murder the Sewells and take their teams
and start for his former home somewhere in
Indiana. On the night of August 6, Stair
and the woman went to Sewells camp, and
after a short visit returned home. About
midnight Stair made a second visit, and
Inding both the Sewells asleep, killed them
both with an axe. After completing
his horrible butchery, Stair placed
the bleeding and mangled bodies of his VIC
Tins in one of the wagons and covered them
with some old clothes. He then went after
the woman, and on arriving at the camp they
started for town, Stair driving the wagon
containing the dead bodies and the woman
the other one. On arriving at their house
they filed the wagons with their furniture
and started for the Marmaton River bottom,
about five miles away, where the next day
ctdlI DuTleu the DOuleS. fdSSlIlg through Tue
woods, they attracted the attention of some
men at work, who regarded their proceedings
as suspicious, and the next day they went to
the spot where the wagons had been halted
and discovered the dead bodies. Informa-
ton was Immediately given, a pursuit was
organized and Stair and the Osborn woman
were captured about twenty miles distant.
They were lodged in Jail and at the next
term of court were tried and both convicted
of murder in the first degree and sentenced
to be hanged together. A stay of execution,
however, was obtained in the woman's case
and she was granted new trial