St. Paul daily globe., 1890-09-25
A MURDERER AT TEN.
The Child Who Is Known as
Prisoner 1900 at the Ana
moSa Prison.
Wesley Elkins, Eleven Years
Old, Serving Out a Life
Sentence.
The Constant Companion Of
the Hardened Criminals at
the Prison.
He Killed His Father and Step
mother and Then Told the
Story.

Prisoner No. 1900 was sweeping out
the cell house of the Iowa state prison
at Anamosa to-day. says a special to the
Chicago Times. Prisoner No. 1,9OO is a
slim boy eleven years old. He is rather
handsome boy, with broad forehead
and a thoughtful face, as the photo
graph, taken before he was sent to
AnOmosa, shows. Prisoner No. 1900 is
the youngest prisoner ever received at
Anamosa, or, it is believed. at any other
state prison. He wears little suit of
the regulation prison stripes. made es-
pecially to his order, fol Prisoner No.
1.900 is only four feet seven and a half
inches in height and weighs but seven
ty-SiX pounds. His shaven head shows
the stamp of the felon.
Prisoner No. 1900 occupies cell No. 81
on the ground floor, east of the cell
house. He is not kept apart from the
men prisoners.
He joins in the lockstep with them
and marches out to meals. He lives
with them the daily, monotonous life of
the convict. His duties are to do chores
around the prison, to sweep and to dust,
and to run errandS. He is not strong
enough 10 90 anything else.
Prisoner No. 1900 looks up at you
with his big. blue, innocent eyes, and
you think it an outrage that such a
mere child should be locked here with
200 hardened criminals. BY constant
association with them he will himself
become hardened. Their conversation
and their example will corrupt him and
mark his soft and uniformed baby face
with deep lines of passion and crime.
And so, when the few years for which
he is doubtless sentenced are over, he
Will 90 out into the world with his hand
turned against every man. and a deep
hatred of human kind in his heart.
1t is sin against humanity, you say.
that such baby should be kept for
years in the midst of such associations
and companions.
But no. Your sympathy is worse than
wasted.
Prisoner No. 1900 is himself a Napo-
leon of crime.
Prisoner 1900 is sentenced to the Iowa
state penitentidry for life. His crime
was the brutal and premeditated mur-
der of his father and his step-mother.
Look into his thoughtful. childlike face
again and ask yourself how he could
have done it.
In July, 1889. John Ekins and his
wife were living on little farm in Elk
township, near Edgewood, CLAYTON
county, 10. Mrs. Elkins was a pretty
young women, and the second wife of
her elderly husband. BY his first wife
he had two sons. One of them was
tWenty-four years old. the other bright,
quick-tempered boy of ten years. Mrs.
Elkins the first had been a good Metho-
dist. and she had named her youngest
son Wesley, after the great apostle of
Methodism.
By his second wife Mr.. Elkins had
one child. The two Elkins boys did not
get on we'll with their young stepmother,
and the eldest son left home and went
to live with nelgh5or's family.
Tuesday night, July 16, 1889, there
were four persons in the little farm
house, Mr.. and Mrs. Elkins, Wesley, and
the baby.
Early Wednesday morning Wesley
drove the old farm team furiouSly up to
q neighbOr'S house. He had the baby in
the wagon with him. He had an awful
story to tell.
Whenahe arose that morning and went
into his parents room a terrible sight
met his eyes. Lying stretched out OH
the bed was the body of his father with
bullet hole through his head. Half
on the bed and half on the floor was the
body of his stepmother. Her head was
beaten to jelly. On the floor lay a
heavy club smeared with blood and his
fathers old muZzle-loading rifle, with
which the ghastly work had been done.
What an awful sight for the delicate
boy to see! How it must have shocked
his tender sensibillties.
The boy immediately picked up the
baby, which was sleeping quietly i'll its
crib, and flew to give the alarm.
The community was excited and
many people were thrown under suspi-
clon. The eldest son proved all alibi.
The cOrOner'S inquest showed that the
motive had not been theft. The Elkins
family lived i'll aauiet, unsettled neigh
bOrhood. They had no enemies.
Wesley, the ten-year-old boy, main
tanned his story. He showed no sign of
grief. No tear came to his eye. Coolly,
and in matter-of-fact way, he related
again and again the details of his hOr-
rid discovery. 1t was always the same.
1t was strange to see this mere boy so
unmoved by the terrible recital. Could
he know anything of the crime? The
thought seemed impossible.
He was finally arrested, however, and
locked up in jail at Elkader, the county
seat of Clayton county.
One day this ten-year-old child called
the Officials into his cell and confessed
that the work was his.
There was no breaking down, no
tears. Coolly and calmly again he de-
tailed the story.
His rather and his stepmother whipped
him and he would not stand it, He
waited until his brother had gone away
and he was alone i'm the house with his
parents. At 8 O'Clock Wednesday morn
ing, July II, he got up. stole down
stairs, and loaded his fathers old muZ-
zle-loading rifle. which hung OH the wall
in the bedroom. He put the muzzle to
his fathers forehead and fired. The
old man never moved. AS he had eX-
pected, his stepmother.was awakened by
the report and leaped out of bed to
strike light. Wesley knocked her
down with club, which he had ready.
Then, to make the matter sure, he beat
her head to jelly.
The boy was taken before the district
court at Elkader, where he again told
the story of his crime. He expressed
no sorrow for the act, but said that he
would do it again under the same cir
cumStanceS. He was then sentenced to
the penitentiary at Anamosa for life.
Students of social economy frame
laws which, they say, govern the devel-
opment of crime. They trace crime
through long lines of heredity. They
paint the dens of the great cities as the
hOtbeds and nurseries of crime. But
here is a case which sets all their rules
at naught. An apparently innocent
country boy. but ten years old, born OF
quiet, pious farmer folk, brought up
away from the excitement and tempta-
tions of great city-this boy coolly
plans and commits crime which
might stay the hand of the most hard
ened criminal.